Last Christmas by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

Author:Harriet Reuter Hapgood
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471403392
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2013-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

In the end, we left mid-way through Die Hard 2. Outside, I was surprised to find it was still daytime – just. It was snowing, and everything was golden-blue, the light bruised with evening. The promise of our almost-kiss hovered between us in the air, punctuating my every thought. Watching Jamie yank on his stupid bobble hat, kiss. His goofy, flustered grin as he held out his hand to me, kiss. Christmas shoppers surging past us, talking about Saturday night plans and what to have for dinner, kiss.

But as we started walking, silently, shyly, directionless – not discussing where we were going, though there were really only two options – that promise began to fade.

It had been so easy with Matthew. He wasn’t my first kiss – that was Tristan O’Grady, in a game of Spin the Bottle when I was thirteen – but he’d been my second, and third, and all the ones after that. How many kisses? If you averaged it out, all the days of no kisses and all the days we’d made out till my lips were bruised, every day, for four years. More than four thousand, maybe? Until, by the end, our mouths had fit together perfectly. Too perfectly – there was never any fumbling, any searching. There were no question marks in our kisses. Not like that moment back there in the dark.

I wanted that moment again – the way the kiss was left unfinished, things left unsaid. I wanted to be surprised. To be kissed too much, too fast, and have to slow down, start over, try again. To accidentally knock our teeth together, use too much tongue, or not enough. But I didn’t know how to get back there, to close the gap.

‘Shall we walk over the Mathematical Bridge?’ I suggested, pointing left down Silver Street. A wooden footbridge, in the snow, in the deepening dark – very Robert Frosty, an ideal kissing location. ‘Isn’t that near you?’

‘Aye, ten minutes, more or less – I’m up at Trinity,’ he told me, stopping on the corner. ‘So, straight ahead’s easier, but if I invite you in … ’

‘That’s OK,’ I said quickly. ‘I mean, you don’t have to.’

‘No,’ he said, packing about ten syllables into the vowel. ‘No – if I invite you in, well. The main entrance is about ten minutes that way,’ he pointed. ‘And involves sneaking you past the half-eagle, half-bat, all-seeing dragon that is our warden. Truly. George can sense unorthodox use of the kitchen toaster to make Pot Noodle à la pitta bread like that. It might be easier if we go to your room. If you want. Where do you stay?’

If I told him the truth, Corpus Christi, we could just cross the road – we could practically touch the walls from here. From a kissing perspective, I was all for the sooner, the better. From a ‘Jamie seeing my Hello Kitty alarm clock and Reese’s Pieces duvet set’ viewpoint, things were a little trickier. ‘Magdalene,’ I fibbed, picking a college as far away as possible.

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