Page 27 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
‘Just what?’
It was hopeless. Both of them embarrassed and not able to spit out a full sentence.
‘My room.’ Mattie had both hands clutching the top of her towel and couldn’t dare spare one to gesture at the doorway behind Tom. ‘I should probably go in my room. Put some clothes on.’
‘Yes! Of course. God, sorry.’
They performed the same routine again: Tom sidestepping to the left, at the same time that Mattie sidestepped to the right. Then back again. Then the other way. Like they were dancing.
‘Stop,’ Tom said and he put one hand on Mattie’s shoulder, her naked shoulder, his fingers setting off a thousand fires against her skin, so she gasped, and he snatched his hand back as if he’d burned himself. ‘Sorry. I’m so sorry.’
‘No. No harm.’ Mattie could still feel the phantom tingling touch of Tom’s hand; it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant sensation. ‘Look, I just want to get in my room.’
‘I know,’ Tom said desperately. ‘Here, you stay where you are and I’ll just step to the left like this …’ He moved away from Mattie’s door and the way was now clear to hurtle into her room and slam the troublesome door in his face, but she was still rooted to the spot. Tom gestured at the door, in case Mattie wasn’t familiar with what it looked like. ‘There you are. Sorry again.’
Mattie was free to go, but still she couldn’t move. ‘We’re cool, right? And also tomorrow I’m going to buy the most voluminous dressing gown I can find.’ Then she realised that she’d have to let go of the towel with one hand to get her door open. ‘Could you get that for me?’ She gestured with her elbow.
‘Of course,’ Tom stuck his arm out awkwardly to open Mattie’s door but kept his gaze averted, which was quite gentlemanly of him, especially as there was a little pile of clothes on the floor that Mattie had stepped out of before heading for the bathroom. ‘And I’ll be getting a voluminous dressing gown too.’
‘We’ll match,’ Mattie noted and finally,finally!, she was in her room so she could use the door to shield her body. ‘Sorry this has been so hideously awkward.’
Tom was sidling down to the hall towards the safety of his own room. ‘We’ll never talk of it again,’ he said. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Night, Tom,’ Mattie said. Then they both slammed shut their bedrooms doors in perfect harmony.
Phil had emailed Mattie details of the Christmas party first thing the next day. But if Mattie was labouring under any illusion that Phil’s prompt invitation was because he was keen on her, he was quick to set the record straight.
Don’t forget to bring at least one friend. AFIT, SINGLEfriend. Also, female. So, a FIT, SINGLE, FEMALE FRIEND, or several FIT, SINGLE, FEMALE FRIENDS ready to fall in love with the Philmeister.
Mattie wasn’t sure that ‘the Philmeister’ was an improvement on the Archbishop of Banterbury, but she mentally scrolled through her many female friends, all of them FIT, and quite a few of them SINGLE, and decided that of all of them Pippa would be able to handle the attentions of the Banter Boys without breaking a sweat.
‘I find that toxic masculinity is usually a mask for insecurity and fear,’ Pippa said, as Mattie described the treats that lay in store for her at the Christmas party they were attending on a Thursday night at the furthest reaches of the Piccadilly Line.
‘But it is quite hilarious that they live in Cockfosters,’ Mattie pointed out as the tube trundled through Holloway Road station. ‘Cockfosters, get it?’
‘I do get it,’ Pippa said. Mattie loved Pippa dearly but even Pippa would be the first to admit that she didn’t have a sense of humour.
‘Which is odd, really, because I’m a very happy, very positive person,’ Pippa had once told Mattie. ‘But the only thing that really makes me laugh is fart jokes.’
Mattie had met Pippa on a Eurocamp exchange summer holiday in Dusseldorf when they were both fifteen. Unlike their fellow Eurocampers, neither of them had any wish to drink cheap wine or get off with some boy with a mullet and acid-wash jeans from the Low Countries. Mattie had wished that she was in Paris so she could have a holiday romance with a Parisian boy, who would obviously wear all black and carryNauseaby Jean-Paul Sartre under his arm, and Pippa was furious that her parents had paid good money for her to improve her German when she’d have much preferred to spend her summer holidays in The OC.
On paper, Mattie and Pippa were complete opposites. Mattie was mercurial and flighty (after all, she’d decided to relocate to Paris to study at L’Institut de Patisserie with €200 in her pocket after a drunken game of truth and dares). She was very obviously the 50/50 DNA split of a father who’d made running away with only the money he had in his pocket a lifestyle choice, and a mother who took violently for or against people within ten seconds of meeting them and nothing would ever change her mind.
Pippa, on the other hand, was the product of two Yorkshire teachers and was as steady and as solid as the stone farmhouse on the outskirts of Halifax where she’d been brought up. She was reliable, robust and resolutely determined to see the best in people, which were very good qualities to have when you worked for Sebastian Thorndyke, who would try the patience of a whole cathedral full of saints.
That said, she’d also accepted Oprah Winfrey as her personal lord and saviour, and adding to that a year at a Californian business school meant that Pippa had swapped her bluff Yorkshire common sense for dense business-speak and inspirational quotes. Mattie had to steel herself every time a new picture from Pippa arrived on her Instagram feed, because it would usually feature a sunset and an on-brand message like ‘Stop waiting for someone else to fix your life.’
And now as Mattie filled Pippa in on the latest goings-on in Happy Ever After land, Pippa’s advice was blunt yet Oprah-approved.
‘And so Posy, Verity and Nina think that I’m an absolute negative nelly, but I’m not.’ Mattie had been trying to be upbeat and positive ever since then, which was exhausting. ‘Am I a negative person?’
‘Someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business,’ Pippa said, as she checked her appearance in her pocket mirror, though Pippa’s appearance was always on-point. She had the glossiest, shiniest, conkeriest brown hair of anyone Mattie had ever met, and Mattie was someone who’d once handed out drinks at a charity function attended by the Duchess of Cambridge.
Pippa also did Boxfit and yoga on alternate weekday mornings, practised reducetarianism, which meant she only ate meat once a week, and looked amazing in yoga pants, which were her non-work outfit of choice. Really, she and Mattie had nothing in common, but somehow they worked. And there was also the small matter that once Pippa decided that you were her people, she’d move heaven and earth for you. Quite literally.
It had been Pippa who’d driven her mother’s Renault Clio all the way from London to Paris two days before Christmas to scoop up Mattie and all her worldly belongings and bring her home. That had been two years ago, and every week since then Mattie had baked a cake for Pippa (this week’s was an apricot crumble cake) as an entirely inadequate way of saying thank you.
‘But theymadetheir opinion of me my business,’ Mattie explained in an aggrieved voice as Pippa stroked clear gel over her already perfectly arched eyebrows. ‘Verity called me an Eeyore.’
