gentleman on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘Would you mind leaning on this door, please?’
‘Grandma?’ Leena calls through the door. ‘Grandma, what are you doing?’
‘Meddling!’ I yell cheerfully. ‘It’s my new “thing”!’
39
Leena
This cupboard is extremely small. It’s also lined with shelves, so there’s nothing to lean on; Jackson and I are standing very close together but not quite touching, as though we’re on a tube train.
What is Grandma playing at? I look down at my feet, trying to shuffle backwards, and my hair brushes against Jackson’s shirt. He inhales sharply, raises a hand to his head, and elbows me in the shoulder.
‘Sorry,’ we both say.
I laugh. It comes out far too high-pitched.
‘This is my fault,’ Jackson says eventually. I risk a look up at him; we’re so close together, I have to crane my neck to see his face. ‘I shouldn’t have let her talk me into coming.’
‘Did you … come to see me?’
He looks down at me then. We’re so close our noses almost touch. I’m not sure I’ve ever been quite so aware of somebody, physically, I mean – I hear every rustle as he moves, feel the heat of his body inches from mine.
‘Course I did,’ he says, and just like that, my pulse is thundering again.
There’s just something about Jackson. Even with his hair all fluffed up, and dried-out shaving foam behind his ear, he’s so sexy. It’s the unintentional confidence he has, as if he’s wholly himself and couldn’t possibly manage being somebody else even if he wanted to.
‘Though,’ he goes on, ‘this is not how I imagined we’d see each other again. Bit of a last-minute plan change. Think I got Eileened.’
His hand brushes mine. I inhale sharply, and his eyes search my face, but it’s not an objection, it’s a reaction to the sharp shot of heat that comes when his skin touches mine. I let my fingers twine with his, and I feel like a schoolkid doing seven minutes in heaven with the guy I’ve been crushing on all year.
‘What had you planned? Beforehand?’ I ask. My other hand finds his.
‘Well, I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait before you binned that ex of yours. But I thought you’d see sense eventually, and when you did, I’d wait an appropriate amount of time …’
His lips touch mine, very gently, not even quite a kiss. My whole body responds; I can feel the hair on my arms stand on end.
‘Like six weeks?’ I say.
‘I’d imagined six months. But it turns out I’m impatient,’ Jackson whispers.
‘So you’d wait six months, and then …’
Our lips are touching again, another almost-kiss, a little deeper now, but his lips are gone before I can kiss him back. I shift my fingers between his, holding him tighter, feeling the calluses on his palms.
‘No shame – I’d make full use of all the tools at my disposal,’ he says, his voice husky. ‘Get the schoolkids to sing you that Ed Sheeran song, “Thinking Out Loud”, send Hank around with a bunch of flowers in his mouth, bake you heart-shaped brownies. Burn them, in case you make them that way because that’s how you like them.’
I laugh. He kisses me then, a real kiss, lips parted, his tongue tasting mine. I melt into him, our hands still linked at our sides, and I stand on tiptoes to kiss him better, and then, when I can’t resist it any longer, I let go of his hands to thread my arms across those broad shoulders and press my body against his.
Jackson breathes out. ‘You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined how it would feel, holding you like this,’ he says, pressing his lips against my neck.
I sigh as he kisses the sensitive skin behind my ear. ‘I might’ve thought about it too,’ I confess.
‘Oh?’ I feel him smile. ‘You did fancy me, then. Could’ve given me a clue. I’ve been shit-scared all evening.’
I laugh. ‘You’ve been distractingly fanciable for months. I’m surprised you didn’t figure out I had a crush on you.’
‘Ah, was that what losing my dog and crashing the school van meant?’
I press a kiss to his jaw, feeling that sandy stubble beneath my lips. ‘No,’ I say. ‘That meant I was a mess.’
He pulls back then, rests his forehead against mine. ‘You weren’t a mess, Leena Cotton. I’ve never met a human being who is less of a mess than you are.’