The House Swap: An absolutely hilarious feel-good romance

by Jo Lovett

  Who knew eating could be so bloody stressful? Cassie took another bite of her croissant and tried to chew normally. Given how well it felt that she and James knew each other, they’d spent remarkably little time actually together. They’d definitely never eaten together before. She was spraying crumbs everywhere. Normally, she was a perfectly competent eater.

  Fortunately, she wouldn’t be sharing any other meals with James today. She had a big lunch with her publisher to look forward to, which was exciting on two counts – one, finally meeting them in person was a big deal, and two, they had the cover designs for her first London book ready – and then dinner this evening with Jennifer, which she was also looking forward to.

  ‘I need to make a move.’ James stood up as Cassie finished her second coffee; she was going to need a lot of it today after close to zero sleep on the plane. ‘I’m out this evening too and busy during the day tomorrow so I’m not sure whether we’ll be home much at the same time, but I’ll definitely see you at the pub tomorrow.’ They were both having dinner with their own friends tomorrow evening, and had agreed to meet at a pub afterwards for late-night drinks.

  ‘I’ll see you there.’ Cassie attempted a chirpy and non-flirtatious tone and ended up with a squeak, which turned into a choke. Bloody croissant crumbs.

  ‘You okay?’ James asked when he’d finished whacking her on the back.

  ‘Yep. Thank you.’

  ‘I thought I was going to have to do the Heimlich manoeuvre there for a moment.’

  ‘I’m obviously so tired from my journey that I’ve forgotten basic skills like swallowing.’

  James laughed. ‘I’ll see you later. Hope your meetings go well.’ He got up from the table, picked up a jacket and left.

  Cassie realised that she was smiling at his departed back.

  He’d be a great housemate. Cassie and Meg had shared a flat together in Glasgow for a few years. Meg had been a fab housemate. They’d had a lot of fun. Then Meg had met her vicar and when they’d got married Cassie had got herself a flat of her own, which had been a lot less lonely than she’d expected, because she’d worked long hours and been out a lot in the evenings. Then she’d met Simon and moved in with him and she’d found that living with someone who wasn’t the ideal housemate was much worse than living alone. Since she’d moved to the island, Cassie had enjoyed her space. She had her friends and the animals and she’d been pretty certain that it would be hard to find someone she’d like to live with.

  Take Dina. A great, great friend. And would Cassie like to live with her? Definitely not. She was an excellent next-door neighbour.

  James, though. She could imagine happily spending a lot of time with him. Eating together, coming home to him, talking through their days, like they’d been doing on the phone for the past few months.

  This was stupid. She really hardly knew him.

  Anyway, it was ridiculous to be sitting around thinking about James; she was making herself late.

  James was sitting on a sofa with a paper and a mug of something when Cassie crept into the flat at midnight, convinced that he’d already be in bed.

  ‘Evening. How was your day?’ He put his mug on the floor and leaned back. She was pretty sure from their phone conversations that he normally went to bed earlier than this.

  ‘Very good, thank you. It was great to meet my editor in person finally, and I love my cover, and we’re on the same page about the rest of the books in the series.’

  ‘Liking your pun there.’ James smirked, but in a nice way.

  ‘Thanks for noticing,’ Cassie joked back. ‘Yes, so, those meetings were great and then I went to this very cool restaurant in Covent Garden with Jennifer for dinner. So all in all a very successful day. Being a writer can be quite solitary so it’s exciting to actually talk to the people you work with in person occasionally.’ Cassie was ridiculously pleased that James was still up, and ridiculously ready to have a long chat with him.

  ‘So tell me about your book cover. Cup of tea or coffee?’

  Half an hour later, Cassie looked at her watch and said, ‘I’m keeping you up on a work night. We should go to bed.’

  ‘You’re right. We should. You must be exhausted after your journey and then a full day’s work. I shouldn’t have started talking to you. Come on.’ He stood up and held his hand out to pull her up to standing from the other end of the sofa. ‘I think you’re sorted for everything but if there’s anything you need, you know where I am.’ Yes, like she was going to go and knock on his door in the middle of the night.

  He smiled at her and her breath caught. It was a good job she was so tired because she was fairly sure that if she hadn’t been she’d have had a hard time not lunging at him.

  James had left for the morning by the time Cassie surfaced, fully showered, dressed and made-up, just in case she bumped into him, which was a little bit disappointing.

  The door to the pub opened and Cassie glanced over. No, not James. More disappointment.

  She hadn’t had this feeling for a long time. Very teenage. The sensation that, yes, she was having a good – no, a great – evening with her university friends, she absolutely was, but there was something missing. Or not exactly missing, but something that would make the evening even better. Specifically, James.

  He’d said that he and his friends would arrive about ten thirty. She really wanted to check her watch but that would be so rude.

  Maybe she’d just pop to the loo. Then she wouldn’t need to go again for the rest of the evening and she could check her watch while she was there. No, bad idea, because obviously James wouldn’t recognise Neeta, Claire and Rach.

  ‘Cassie?’ Rach was staring at her like she was nuts. ‘Do you want another one?’ Did she? Cassie had no actual idea how much was left in her glass. She looked down. Still almost full.

  ‘I’m good, thank you. My round after this one.’ She smiled at Rach and picked her glass up and took a sip.

  Men’s voices came from over by the door and she looked behind her. Yes.

  Honestly, her heart had sped up far too much at the sight of James, and the evening suddenly seemed a lot more interesting. This was like being sixteen and having a mega crush on the most gorgeous boy you’d ever seen. But instead it was being thirty-seven and having a mega crush on the most gorgeous man you’d ever seen. Maybe not everyone would like him as much as she did, but when you’d talked to him, and seen the wicked humour behind his smile and got to know how his face creased when he was about to laugh, and discovered that you just got each other, it was hard not to have a full-on crush.

  He broke into a smile when he saw her, and it was like the whole evening had brightened up.

  And when he leaned in for a cheek-kiss to say hello, it felt like her entire insides lit up.

  He was just as great in a group as he was one-on-one, perfect company – lively but he didn’t dominate the conversation.

  ‘Time to go home?’ James suggested at about half eleven. ‘Shall we walk?’ The flat was about a mile away from the pub.

  ‘It’s such a beautiful night,’ Cassie said as they strolled up Exhibition Road. ‘There’s something so special about a warm evening in November. The first autumn I was in Maine, we had a really hot week and I remember just loving it.’

  ‘Not a lot of warm autumn evenings in Glasgow?’

  ‘Nope.’

  James smiled down at her and turned slightly and his arm brushed her shoulder. Immediate goosebumps. ‘At the risk of repeating myself from the night of Laura’s party, although I have a slight suspicion that you might not remember everything we talked about then, look at Cassiopeia. You don’t often see it this clearly in the London skies.’ He stopped and pointed. ‘Look.’

  Cassie looked up. She had an excellent view of the left side of James’s jaw and cheekbone, and his strong neck. Way more worth looking at than the sky, which she could see any time.

  Could James tell how she was feeling?

  His gaze moved from the sky
down to her face. A smile played at the corners of his mouth.

  Cassie shivered. At this moment in time, all sorts of wrong though it was, she wanted him so much.

  ‘You’re cold. We should go home. Take my jumper.’ He pulled it off over his head, giving Cassie yet another excellent view, this time of the stretch of his chest muscles and biceps through his shirt.

  ‘Thank you.’ Cassie really couldn’t tell him that she wasn’t cold at all.

  His jumper was warm from his body. Something that had so recently been touching his body was now touching hers. And she was surrounded intoxicatingly by his musky smell. If she could just be wrapped in his actual arms and pressed against his chest, she’d be a very happy woman indeed.

  She really needed to get a grip.

  The walk back was lovely, and not long enough. Cassie could happily have worn James’s jumper and walked arm-bumpingly along with him for hours.

  Maybe it was the wine she’d had, but this time the lift didn’t feel awkward so much as like the perfect opportunity to be close to James in their own little world, just the two of them. As it chugged slowly upwards, James leaned against the back wall of it, smiling lazily at her while she told him about her plans for the couple of days she was spending in Glasgow after the weekend. She could totally have launched herself right at him, there and then. It was, frankly, a huge disappointment when the doors opened.

  Once in the flat, Cassie put her bag down and walked over to the windows. ‘I love the view from these at night.’

  ‘Me too.’ James joined her. Even if she hadn’t been able to see how close he was from their reflections in the window, she’d have sensed his – magnificently solid – shoulder above hers. ‘When I viewed the flat before I bought it, it was December and about seven p.m., so fully dark, and I walked in and saw the park lit up by the streetlights, and even a couple of stars – it was a clear evening – and I was sold.’

  ‘You do like a star.’ Cassie turned so that she was facing him and smiled up at him. They were standing very close to each other but not touching.

  ‘I do.’ He wasn’t looking at the sky, though, he was looking at her. Very intently. He’d been smiling but the smile had gone. His eyes were very serious. And very blue. She’d never really gone for blue eyes; she’d always much preferred brown ones. But, actually, the right blue was gorgeous. His were a light navy. Like a clear inland lake.

  His pupils were definitely dilating. He was looking at her eyes. And her mouth. And her chest, possibly because she was taking some very deep breaths.

  Her mouth was so dry. She licked her lips and his gaze returned to them.

  She took another deep breath and he inhaled sharply too.

  Oh God. Something was going to happen.

  She inched a tiny bit closer to him. Their chests were almost touching now.

  A small part of her brain told her that this was maybe not the best thing to be doing and her entire body shouted Shut up.

  James lifted his hand and cupped the back of her head. Oh, God. This was really, really it.

  Twenty-Three

  James

  Cassie’s hair felt beautifully soft. And there was so much of it. James wound his fingers through her curls, put his other arm around her waist and leaned down towards her.

  He brushed her lips with his, very lightly, just for a second.

  It was like the world stopped for that moment.

  And then he drew back.

  Cassie had both her hands on his chest, her head tilted up towards his, her lips slightly open, her eyes half closed.

  There was only one thing that James wanted to do at this point, and he was pretty certain that Cassie felt the same way.

  But.

  She was his guest, and it was Friday night, and she was staying here until Sunday, and what if she regretted it in the morning? She had nowhere else to go. It would be a nightmare for her if she wanted to leave but couldn’t.

  They really shouldn’t do it. It was really unfair on Cassie.

  He looked down at her face upturned to his, her beautiful generous mouth, her deep brown eyes.

  He really, really wanted to kiss her. Undress her. Explore her body. Slowly. A lot.

  And, no, he was really, really not going to.

  God.

  ‘We should go to bed,’ he said.

  Cassie smiled, a languid, beautiful, ‘I’m about to have sex’ smile.

  No, that was not what he’d meant. ‘I mean, separately. It’s late.’ Oh God. How crass. How incredibly crass. His whole reason for not doing anything was not to embarrass her. ‘I really like you.’ Oh, okay. Way to go. Tell her he liked her but… But what? ‘But you’re my guest and I…’ What? ‘I think we shouldn’t do anything we, you, might regret. Would you like a glass of water to take to your bedroom?’

  Cassie’s smile had dropped. ‘Yes, a glass of water would be great, thank you.’ Her voice was a little squeaky.

  James was still holding her. Why was he still holding her? He let go of her and walked over to the kitchen, took a glass out and filled it with water.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, taking great care not to touch her fingers with his when he handed the glass over.

  ‘Great! Thank you!’ Still squeaky and far too bright.

  Seriously. Great job, James.

  He cleared his throat. ‘So I’ll see you in the morning whenever you’re ready for brunch and the exhibition? Before our cooking fest.’

  ‘Perfect!’ Still fake brightness. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing your baking skills in action. So good night then.’ She spilled a bit of her water in her hurry to get away from him.

  So uncool of him.

  After some highly awkward extreme politeness in the flat, they went to Luigi’s for Saturday morning brunch. Mistake.

  ‘My two favourite people together.’ Luigi enveloped them both in a big hug and then drew back for some serious raising and wiggling of his monobrow. ‘Together.’

  James went for big fake laughing while Cassie said No a lot.

  ‘Your favourite table is free,’ Luigi said, ushering them over. ‘It’s like a movie, no? You take it in turns to sit at the same table, never meeting. And then….’

  ‘You are so right,’ Cassie said, while James floundered. ‘We still haven’t met. One of us is a ghost.’

  Luigi laughed uproariously and wagged a finger at her. ‘Yes, and soon you might make little ghost babies.’

  Cassie rolled her eyes at James as Luigi returned to the bar to torture some other customers, and then, thank God, she laughed. James didn’t spend a lot of time having personal conversations with people other than, very rarely, longstanding friends like Matt. He hadn’t been sure how okay Cassie was going to be with the baby reference.

  ‘He means well,’ James said. Clearly Luigi was not to know that the two of them had had a near possible-baby-making experience last night.

  ‘He does. He’s lovely. And he makes a mean pastry.’

  And, in fact, the rest of their brunch was great. You could get over a lot of awkwardness with some people-watching. Soon, the conversation morphed into their usual wide-ranging chat and everything felt okay again. Almost.

  ‘So who’s paying?’ asked Luigi, holding his machine out.

  ‘Me.’ Cassie bent to rummage in her bag.

  ‘Nope. Me.’ James whipped his wallet out and had his card on the machine before her. ‘My treat. You’re the one who got the exhibition tickets.’

  ‘Well, firstly,’ said Cassie, ‘you’re hosting me this weekend, so I should pay, plus Jennifer gave me those tickets. And secondly, how did you even do that? It was so fast. You’d have made an amazing cowboy. It’s kind of sad that there isn’t a lot of call for that kind of speedy reaction nowadays.’

  ‘Actually, there is. Kids’ card games. Have you played Dobble? I took no prisoners with my nieces a couple of weeks ago. They were seriously impressed.’

  ‘I haven’t met your family,’ Luigi said. ‘You shou
ld bring them here.’

  ‘I will.’ He would not. He didn’t need Luigi telling his sister and her family about his romantic brunch with Cassie. Ella would start harbouring hopes that he was about to settle down.

  Cassie nearly tripped as someone jostled her in the doorway – maybe she should stop wearing those wedge heels so much, although they did look great – and James put his arm out to steady her.

  ‘Too cute,’ Luigi called after them.

  ‘I’m still thinking about the exhibition.’ James separated his third egg white and yolk. ‘If I’m honest, I wasn’t really expecting to love it, but there was a lot of interesting social history there.’ The exhibition, at the V&A, had been about the role of the high heel throughout history.

  ‘I know. There’ve been some seriously weird people through the centuries.’ Cassie was doing something with herbs and spices and chickpeas.

  ‘You thinking about the bondage thing?’ James looked over her shoulder and sniffed. ‘That smells mouth-watering. Have I eaten that before? Did you leave some of that for me in my freezer?’

  ‘I did. And, no, you can’t have any now.’ She nudged his arm out of the way with her shoulder before he could sneak a mouthful. ‘You get on with your pavlova.’

  James smiled. This was the kind of day you could get used to.

  There were a lot of hugs when Anthony, Juliet, Jack and Chloe arrived. All between them and Cassie. James shook hands and air-kissed instead. It felt too strange to leap from three years of having ignored people – purposely, if he was honest – straight to hugging. It was genuinely good to see them, though. There was something to be said for knowing your neighbours.

  ‘I’ll get the drinks,’ James told Cassie. ‘You have a lot of catching up to do.’ She was in the middle of a detailed conversation about how Juliet’s ninety-three-year-old mother was recovering after the hip replacement she’d had a couple of weeks ago. Juliet had been worrying that her mother would get depressed during the post-operative phase but apparently she was doing brilliantly. James had had no idea about any of that, which felt slightly odd, given that the operation had happened while he’d been living here, in the same building as Juliet, and Cassie had been back on the island.