Over a week has passed since my meal out with Joel, since he moved me to tears with his story about Scamp. I held that moment in my mind during my interview at Waterfen yesterday, kept close what he said about passion.
I’m out shopping in town when I receive the call, and have a conversation that makes me altitudinous with joy.
I’d planned to nip back to my flat and at least run a brush through my hair, but when I get home the urge to hammer on Joel’s door is just too strong.
He’s dripping wet when he opens it, with only a towel around his waist. Water droplets are scattered like dew across his soap-smooth skin.
I flounder, trying to focus on what it was I came here to tell him.
“Sorry,” he says, before I can speak. “Wanted to answer the door before you—”
“Joel, I got it.”
“You got what?”
“Fiona just called. I got the job at Waterfen—a one-year contract.”
“Callie, that’s incredible. Congratulations.”
As our eyes meet—just for a moment, before he softly half laughs and turns his gaze to the floor—I realize how much I like him, enough not to care if this is the right thing to do.
He lifts his head as I step forward. We hesitate for a moment, faces so close our noses are almost touching. My blood is abuzz. I could measure my heartbeat in kilowatts. And now I’m reaching up on tiptoe to kiss him, and he’s kissing me back—gently at first, like a question, but then fuller and stronger as our mouths lock together. I feel the heat of his hand in my hair, and now we’re drawing even closer, his body warm and firm against me, wet from the shower. I feel him shiver with pleasure and for spoonfuls of seconds I can think of nothing but the taste of him, the wet press of his lips against mine, the sweet corkscrew of his shower-gel scent.
Eventually I pull away and draw breath.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, glancing down at my T-shirt, damp now from his soaked skin.
Outside, it’s started raining, a comforting percussive rhythm against car roofs and paving slabs, the bare bones of the trees.
I smile and bite my lip. “That’s okay.”
“Callie, I—” He opens the door a little wider to let me in. “Can you give me, like, five minutes? Should probably throw some clothes on.”
Suddenly, I feel shy. My heart is racing, piston-fast. “I need to let Murph out anyway. I’ll just go and do that.”
He nods. “I’ll leave the door on the latch.”