by Julie Cohen
She took the coffee and stood back to let him in. He picked up his bag and another cup of coffee from the floor and strode inside. Jane tried not to think about how awful she looked.
‘I’m not appalled,’ she said. ‘I’m just surprised. I thought you’d made up that date on the spur of the moment to annoy Gary. Which worked spectacularly, by the way, and thank you.’
‘I did. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised it would be a good idea for us to actually go away.’
Really go away somewhere romantic with Jonny? Jane thought about spending the entire weekend close enough to touch him without being able to, and she was simultaneously filled with longing and despair.
She shook her head a bit to clear it of memories and the traces of her dream, which seemed to be hovering around the corners of her mind. It didn’t work.
‘Why? Do you think Gary will actually try to check up on us?’
‘You’re the one who knows him best,’ Jonny said. He didn’t sound very pleased about the fact. Jane decided it was superfluous to tell him she couldn’t possibly know Gary very well, if she’d never suspected him cheating on her until it had been rubbed in her face.
‘I can always just not answer my phone,’ she said instead.
‘Not good enough. It’s safer if we get out of London.’ He sat down at her desk and turned on her laptop. ‘Have you done a software update on this lately?’
‘What? No.’
He glanced down at the baseboard. ‘Wireless broadband, excellent. There’ll be enough time for me to do a quick update while you go get showered and packed. I’m guessing your RAM needs defragging, too.’
‘Jonny, I don’t need you to—’
His smile was so sudden and so warm that she couldn’t continue.
‘Jane, let me update your computer. I’m good at it, and I’ll enjoy doing it for you. And let me take you away for the weekend. I’m hoping I’ll be good at that, too.’
‘But why do you want to go away with me?’ she asked, finally, in desperation, feeling as she had in her dream, falling off the tree.
‘I want to start again,’ he said. ‘I feel like we’ve messed all of this up, somehow, and I want to forget about this act we’re putting on and just be you and me for a little while. It’s the same thing you asked me last night on the balcony. Only for longer.’
‘You want to go away as friends,’ Jane said. Again, she had the odd feeling of two opposite emotions warring for supremacy. This time it was both relief and disappointment, and the combination made her stomach do a distinct roll, as if it couldn’t decide which way to go.
‘Sure,’ he said, smiling. ‘Go and get ready.’
In the absence of any clear-cut response, she went towards her bedroom to follow Jonny’s request. Near the door, she stopped and turned around.
‘You’re trying to save money,’ she said. ‘I can’t let you pay to take me away for the weekend.’
‘Okay,’ he said, already typing away on her laptop. ‘You can pay for your train ticket. I won’t let it bother my manly pride.’
Jane stood in the door, considering Jonathan Cole, her childhood friend, whom, apparently, she was going to spend a totally platonic weekend with.
And wondered how she could be so turned on by somebody fixing her computer and talking about his lack of manly pride.
Jane peeped up over the screen of her laptop. Across the train table, Jonny was bent over his own keyboard, his eyes behind his glasses intent. Every line of his body and face appeared totally focused on what he was doing; she could hear his fingers flying over the keyboard.
She’d made it a condition of their trip that she would be able to do some work. There was a meeting with Giovanni Franco and his team on Monday afternoon, where the team would present the mock-ups of the campaign using some of the photographs of Jonny, and, though everything was going smoothly, with Franco’s reputation as a tricky client she wanted to make sure the presentation was extra-carefully put together, especially as neither Allen Pearce nor Michael Grey, the agency’s partners, could be there because they were both at a conference in New York.
Jonny had shrugged and smiled in that easygoing way she’d seen so little of the night before. ‘Fine with me, I’ve got a book to finish,’ he’d said. So as soon as they’d boarded the train at Euston they’d both broken out their laptops and sat across from each other at the table, working the entire time.
Well, at least she’d pretended to be working the entire time. Jonny was distracting. Not that he was doing anything, aside from getting them coffee every now and then. He’d tried to talk with her once or twice, but she’d pretended to be too involved in what she was doing to reply.
But his knees weren’t far from hers underneath the table. Every once in a while he rested his left hand on the table next to his laptop, and, though it was pathetic, the sight of his hand not even doing anything made her think of him holding her, stroking her back as they danced, giving her pleasure. It tempted her to take his hand and rub it against her cheek, just to learn better how his fingers felt, the knuckles and sinews and strength.
He pushed his glasses up his nose every now and then, too. That shouldn’t be sexy, but it was. It was an automatic gesture that made him seem so human, and it made Jane want to push their computers aside and jump across the table and kiss him senseless.
And then, of course, she could smell him. Not an overt scent, just Jonny, in the air she breathed. If Giovanni Franco could bottle his scent as a cologne, they wouldn’t need advertising to sell it.
Overall, it was a good thing that she’d insisted on working, even though she wasn’t being very efficient. She could only imagine how lust-sodden she’d have been if she hadn’t had something to distract her from her friend Jonathan Cole as they sped through the English countryside towards the Lake District.
Her laptop made a soft chime, and she looked down at it in surprise. On the screen was a message:
Twenty minutes till Penrith. Do you think we’ve worked enough yet? J.
She glanced back up at Jonny, who met her eyes and gave her a cheeky smile and, hell, she didn’t just want to throw herself across the table and kiss him—she wanted to throw herself across the table and grab the front of his sweatshirt and drag him off to the cramped and no doubt disgusting train toilet and have wild and frantic sex with him.
I’ve just got to finish this slide show.
After typing that she vowed to keep her attention on the screen for the next twenty minutes.
Well, at least he knew why Jane was so successful at her job. For the entire three hours and twenty-six minutes of their journey she had beavered away on her laptop, and every time he’d tried to catch her eye or start a conversation she’d appeared to be completely absorbed in what she was doing. A couple of times he’d caught her glancing in his direction, but immediately she was looking back at her computer as if it had never happened.
His own concentration wasn’t so good. He’d typed plenty, but he was pretty sure it was gibberish. He’d managed maybe an hour of solid work, but then he’d gone to get them a coffee and noticed how Jane studiously avoided any eye contact or any appearance of even noticing him, and it occurred to him that her dedication to work was just a little extreme. Extreme enough to be interpreted as trying to avoid talking with him.
Sitting across from her was a pleasure in itself. He could imagine the two of them working together, stopping to share a smile, exchange thoughts and solve problems together. It could be that way once they had recovered the ease between them. Which, of course, might never happen.
Jonny pushed up his glasses, shut down his laptop, and folded it up as he recognised the long curve approaching Penrith station. If she wanted to work, that was fine. If she wanted to avoid talking to him, that was less fine, but he could handle it. He had her for the entire weekend, after all, and she wasn’t going to be able to avoid him for ever.
Meanwhile, he would be as friendly as he could be. Jane wa
ited until the very last minute to shut down her own laptop and pack it away.
‘Get a lot done?’ he asked her.
She shrugged. ‘There’s still a lot to do. Giovanni Franco’s team like to have absolutely every “t” crossed and “i” dotted.’
‘Sounds like a lot of work. Is it worth it?’
‘The contract is one of the most prestigious going right now.’
‘I meant, is it worth it to you? It’s a Saturday, after all.’
Jane’s eyes were expressive enough so that he could tell that she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘Of course.’ She slipped her laptop into her case. ‘You’ve been hard at work, too.’
‘Yes, but I’ve got to make a lot of money in the shortest time possible. Plus, writing is a flexible job. I can take a few days off to enjoy myself, as long as I make it up another time.’
‘My job isn’t like that. The team is depending on me to nail the contract, and I have to do whatever it takes to make that happen.’
‘What about you? Aren’t you depending on yourself, too, to make yourself happy every once in a while?’
‘I’ll be happy when this contract is all sewn up.’ She reached up to take down her bag from the overhead rack, but he beat her to it.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she said.
‘When are you going to figure out that I like to do things for you?’ He handed her the bag. ‘I wouldn’t mind making you happy, either.’
‘Amy tells me you did a wonderful job with the photos. That makes me happy.’
She was shut up tighter than a clam, determined not to give an inch. He tried one more time. ‘Is it really only work that makes you happy?’
Jane smiled at him, a little too bright to be true.
‘Well, you haven’t told me where we’re going, but I’m guessing that since we’re in the Lake District we might be visiting your mother. I’ll be happy to see her again. It’s been, what, fifteen years?’
The train stopped. Jane reached for the button to open the carriage door, but Jonny beat her to it again. They stepped out onto the platform. The air felt cooler, fresher than in London.
He looked at Jane. Her clothes were pure city: carefully pressed and tailored trousers and blouse, a light woollen jacket, shiny leather shoes with a little heel. The only reminder of the girl she’d been was her fine skin with the faint flush on her cheeks, her curly hair, her china-doll eyes and lips. She couldn’t hide that. The rest was an image, her professional front, preserved even on a Saturday on holiday.
He thought he’d feel different once he was up here in the Lakes. He’d thought about Jay Richard as a persona he could slip on, walk around in for a while, and then slip off again. He’d thought once he got up here, the place that he always thought of as home even though he’d only really lived here for seven or eight years, he’d be back being Jonny Cole, somebody comfortable and cheerful and straightforward, who didn’t care about appearances or particularly what other people thought about him.
But he didn’t feel different. When he was Jay, he still had all the emotions and the attitude of Jonny. And now that he was Jonny, he was still thinking about appearances and what they said about a person.
For example, whether Jane’s nearly aggressive professionalism was just a front to hide her real self, or if it had, over the years, become her real self.
‘Jonny?’ Jane said, and he realised he’d been standing on the platform, staring at her, lost in his thoughts. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah. I was wondering if masquerading as Jay Richard had given me anything worthwhile except a knowledge of how to use hair gel.’
She laughed, though not wholeheartedly, still acting as awkward as she’d been all day. ‘It’s made you some money, at least.’
He nodded. ‘And given me an excuse to kiss you every now and then.’
She flushed, and looked away from him, down the platform. ‘Where are we going now?’
‘Lunch,’ he said decisively, and touched her arm to guide her down the platform. It was unnecessary, but he’d just sat across from her for three and a half hours without touching her and he was only human, after all.
‘Lunch, and the truth,’ he added. He’d waited a while for that, too.
Jane looked both startled and anxious, but she didn’t say anything, just walked with him through the station to where he’d parked his car when Thom had come to get him on Tuesday morning. He loaded their bags into the boot and drove them into Penrith proper, to one of the cafés in the town centre that catered to both tourist and local trade. It wasn’t high season yet, so aside from two or three full tables they had the place largely to themselves.
‘What do you mean, the truth?’ Jane asked, once they were settled at a table, menus in front of them.
She looked uncomfortable enough that he instinctively smiled at her. ‘Order lunch first,’ he said, noticing a waitress was approaching. ‘You might be able to live on work and air, but I need food.’
They ordered their lunch and Jane folded her hands on the table. Jonny remembered the first time they’d sat across the table with each other. She’d twisted a strand of her hair around her finger, each small turn of her finger another lure to his heart.
‘The truth is,’ he said, ‘I’ve lured you up here under false pretences.’
‘I’m still not quite sure what your pretences were in the first place.’
‘I don’t just want to be your friend.’
Jane’s fingers clenched on each other, and she bit her lip. ‘Jonny, we’ve already talked about—’
‘No, we haven’t,’ he interrupted. ‘You’ve told me that you don’t want to have a relationship with me because you don’t want to lose me as a friend. I haven’t told you what I want, and how I feel about it.’
‘Okay,’ she said, and he could tell she was steeling herself for something. ‘What do you want, and how do you feel about it?’
‘I want you,’ he said.
She instantly flushed, from her delicate collar-bone to the roots of her hair, and it was all Jonny could do not to reach out and put his hand on her skin to feel the heat.
‘From the minute I saw you I wanted to touch you. I’m so attracted to you that I described to you how I wanted to make love with you. And that fantasy wasn’t an all-purpose fantasy. It was about you, Jane. The reason I could tell it to you was because I haven’t felt quite this way about anybody else.’
‘Jonny, I don’t think it’s a good idea—’
‘No, I know you don’t. I also happen to know that you’re attracted to me, too. Let’s face it, Jane, when we had sex it was more than just exciting and good. It was amazing. Absolutely mind-blowing. For both of us. And both of us would like to do it again. You can deny it if you want, but I held you and danced with you and kissed you last night and you wanted me as badly as I wanted you.’
She didn’t appear to be able to answer. Her cheeks were even pinker than before.
‘When I walked away from you at the door it was one of the most bloody difficult things I’ve ever done. It actually hurt. Not just because of how turned on I was—which made it distinctly uncomfortable to walk up and down those stairs, let me tell you—but because I knew you were feeling exactly the same way. I also knew that leaving you at your doorstep was a mean, petty little bit of revenge on you for cutting off our sexual relationship before it even began properly. And that knowledge doesn’t make me feel great about myself.’
‘So you’ve—’ She cleared her throat, and started again. ‘So the real reason why you’ve taken me up here for a weekend away with you is so that we can have sex with each other again?’
Wouldn’t he love that? Drive her to Keswick, carry her up the stairs to his flat, into his bedroom, and lose himself in Jane for the entire weekend.
And her eyes were wide and sexy, her breath was coming quickly. He could do it. A little convincing, a kiss like the ones they’d shared on the dance floor. Whispering in her ear what he’d like to d
o with her.
The attraction between them was enough that Jane would forget all her scruples. She’d been willing to last night.
‘No,’ he said, and a part of him, the part that was ruled purely by libido, was kicking himself.
‘Oh,’ she replied. A definite hint of disappointment in her voice.
‘Because I don’t just want sex with you,’ he continued, before his kicking libido and Jane’s disappointment made him forget all about logic, reason, and self-preservation.
‘I want a relationship. I want us to date and to get to know each other and to care about each other and trust each other. I want something real between us. That’s what I was hoping was going to happen when you told me you’d split up with Gary, and you wanted to go out on a date with me. That you and I would become something much more than friends. More even than lovers.’
Her face was a picture of astonishment, so he kept talking, because he didn’t feel like being let down.
‘But what happened afterwards made that impossible. I’d like a relationship with you, Jane, maybe something serious. But any relationship I have has to be based one hundred per cent on trust and truthfulness. What we’ve got instead is a pact to deceive people. And for whatever reason, you’re doing your best to shut me out of your feelings. So we can’t have a relationship. We can’t have sex, because that will just make me want much more. All I can hope for is that we can salvage our friendship.’
Jane opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment their lunch arrived. From the look on her face, Jonny figured she wasn’t any hungrier than he was, but she picked up her fork and played with a bit of salad anyway.
‘I didn’t know you felt that way,’ she said at last. ‘Not that strongly.’
‘Now you do.’ He made himself take a bite of his beef and ale pie, because, although he’d just exposed his heart to her, he didn’t particularly want to dwell on it or elaborate on it. His libido was kicking him enough without his emotions joining in, too. He’d rather have lunch.
Jane followed suit. The noise of cutlery on crockery seemed less awkward than silence.