Page 86 of The Vintage Dress Shop in Primrose Hill
She could hardly get her fingers to work and open her message app to read the first line of the first text,‘Sophy, I’ve been a fool…’when her phone rang; Charles’s name flashed up.
‘I have to take this,’ Sophy said, standing up and not even caring that she managed to splatter arrabbiata sauce down her top. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘Is it the airline? Maybe your flight’s been cancelled,’ Caroline called after her, hope ringing through every syllable.
Sophy hurled herself through the street door that a waiter was holding open for her as she answered the call. ‘Charles!’ Then she didn’t know what else to say.
‘I’m sorry, so sorry.’ Charles said it for her. ‘Sorry about how I left things, sorry that I didn’t come to the pub, sorry that I’ve left it so late and now I won’t be able to see you.’
‘It’s not too late,’ Sophy burst out. ‘There’s still time.’
‘But you’re flying tomorrow morning,’ Charles pointed out, which really seemed like an unnecessary detail.
‘It’s not tomorrow morning yet. It’s the evening before. It’s not even eight o’clock!’ Caroline had insisted that they were home by eight thirty so that they could do the packing for real, even though the packing was all but done. ‘I’d love to see you.’
When you really wanted to be with someone, there was no point in playing games or prevaricating. You had to be real.
‘I could come to you. Now.’ Charles obviously felt the same way and Sophy was about to tell him to jump in an Uber when she saw Caroline peering out of the steamed-up window of the restaurant, then making an impatient beckoning motion at Sophy.
‘No, I’ll come to you,’ Sophy said, thanking whatever foresight had made her bring her handbag out with her. ‘I’m ordering an Uber now.’
‘But don’t stop talking to me,’ Charles said throatily. ‘Just to hear your voice. Sophy, I really am sorry.’
‘You’ve already said that. Look, I have to go but I’ll be with you soon.’
The universe was going to do Sophy one last solid – there was a car a minute away and already doing a U-turn to get to her. Sophy made shooing motions at Caroline, who was still at the window and was going to be furious with Sophy, quite rightly too, but Sophy was flying across the world tomorrow and she was thirty so it wasn’t like she could be grounded or have her allowance docked for jumping in a car that was headed to Holborn when she should have been going home to do her packing for real.
She sent Caroline an apologetic message from the cab, then another message to Cress, even more apologetic, because Cress would have to bear witness to Caroline’s fury. Then, in an act of sheer defiance, Sophy switched off her phone and sat on her hands and willed the Thursday-night traffic to melt away.
It took thirty-five minutes to get from Hendon to Bloomsbury, then Sophy was tumbling out of the car to find Charles waiting for her in the open doorway of his building.
He was in his lilac tweed trousers, his shirt still snowy white, but his sleeves were rolled up so she could take a second to appreciate his forearms as he raised a hand to brush it through his hair.
All of a sudden, she felt inexplicably shy. Just a girl standing in front of a boy and… ‘Oh God, I look a state,’ she blurted out, looking down and remembering that she was in her third-tier jeans, the ones that sagged at the knee and did unspeakably awful things to her bum. ‘And I have spaghetti sauce down my top.’
It wasn’t even a nice top but a t-shirt she’d borrowed from Caroline, because all of hers were packed away, that said,I save my carbs for wine.
‘You don’t.’ Charles stepped forward. ‘You look beautiful. You always look beautiful.’
Sophy didn’t. Also on the agenda for tonight had been a hair-wash, face mask and the eradication of every superfluous hair on her body, but it was nice of Charles to think that.
‘You look beautiful too,’ she said gravely, because both Charles and his cheekbones really were exquisite.
‘I’d settle for ruggedly handsome rather than beautiful.’
Then there was nothing to say, or rather there was so much to say, but they just stood there, gazing at each other and grinning like idiots.
‘Do you want to come in?’ Charles asked at last, but he was already taking Sophy’s hand to lead her inside.
‘For a nightcap?’
‘For anything you want,’ Charles promised and they hadn’t even reached the first-floor landing yet somehow they were in each other’s arms, balancing precariously on one stair, kissing like it was the end of the world.
Sophy couldn’t think straight when Charles was kissing a path from the sensitive spot behind her left ear back to her mouth, but she managed to gasp, ‘I love this, love kissing you, but I don’t want either of us to plunge to our deaths.’
‘Neither do I. No kissing until we’ve reached the top,’ Charles said and then it was a breathless scramble to get to the fourth floor.
He’d left the door to his flat open and walking through it seemed significant, life-changing, especially when he shut the door behind Sophy and said, ‘We need to talk.’
