by Kate Hewitt
“Very good, sir,” the waiter said after an unhappy pause. Neither Lindy nor Roger spoke as they waited for the bill; she was afraid of breaking the sudden spell that had come over them, drawn them together. Her stomach was fizzing.
The waiter returned with the bill, and Roger paid it with alacrity. Then they were taking their coats and heading out into the wintry night, the air sharp enough to steal her breath, the sky scattered with a million stars.
Lindy let out a shout of laughter as they came into the car park. “That was amazing.”
“I’ve never done such a thing before in my entire life.”
“I haven’t, either,” she confessed as she turned to him. “It was brilliant.”
“It actually was,” Roger said, sounding wondering. “Strangely.”
“What shall we do now?” Lindy asked. The evening stretched ahead of them, empty yet filled with possibility.
“What would you like to do?”
They’d reached the car, and Lindy turned to him, about to suggest a takeaway and Netflix, but he was closer than she realised and, startled, she stumbled a little. Roger steadied her by putting his hands on her shoulders, and his eyes darkened as a thrill ran through her like lightning.
He kept his hands on her shoulders and she kept her gaze on his, parting her lips slightly, everything in her willing him to do what she desperately wanted him to do.
And then he did.
His mouth came down on hers as he kissed her, and it was everything she’d hoped for and more. His lips were soft and warm, and yet somehow they were hard and cool at the same time. They were perfect. His kiss was perfect, too—gentle yet firm, asking permission yet taking command. Making her whole body spark and then flame. As far as kisses went, she’d never had better—and she never wanted to stop.
But Roger did stop, lifting his head to scan her face with his gaze as if asking a question, and with a trembling laugh Lindy answered it.
“You may panic in a crisis, Roger, but you certainly know how to kiss.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“One, two, three; one, two, three!” Lindy clapped out the beat as four six-year-olds skidded around the floor, doing a vague approximation of a box step. Very vague.
Not that Lindy cared. Her junior class would win everyone’s hearts no matter what, and the Year Sixes, since the addition of the hip hop mash up, were all working hard to produce a stellar routine. Her Monday class was also working hard; Simon and Olivia had finally decided to buckle down, and Helena was gamely partnering Maureen while Ellen valiantly continued on with Roger, even though she’d had to take several rests during the rehearsal.
Over a tea break she’d suggested to Helena that she invite her father to the performance; the young woman had let it slip that he lived in Cheltenham, not too far away, and impulsively Lindy had put the idea forward.
“Oh, I don’t know…” Helena had looked both yearning and appalled. “What if he said no?”
“What if he didn’t?” Lindy countered with a smile.
“You only live once, my girl,” Maureen pitched in. “So you might as well give it all you’ve got, until you can’t anymore.” She grimaced as she rubbed her hip. “Trust me, I know.”
“I’ll think about it,” Helena promised, and Ellen gave her an encouraging smile.
“You never know what could happen,” she said warmly. “Life is full of surprises.”
For a woman facing terminal cancer, it was a heart-rendingly optimistic viewpoint.
The performance was only two weeks away, and Lindy desperately hoped Ellen would have the energy for it. She knew Roger was worried, and he’d practised his dancing with an endearing diligence. He would never be light on his feet, but the man was certainly trying. And Lindy loved him for it.
She loved him, and she had a strange and nearly overwhelming urge to tell everyone so, although fortunately she had managed to curb the impulse. Still, the words kept bubbling up, and she found herself laughing suddenly, for no seeming reason. People probably thought she was going crazy, and maybe she was. She felt like dancing down the street, singing out loud, floating. Everything made her happy. The world felt as if it were sparkling.
It helped that, with the onset of December, Wychwood-on-Lea had gone into full Christmas mode. The high street was decked out in lights and evergreen, and every little shop had a magnificent window display of candles, wreaths, lights, or all three. There was an enormous Christmas tree in the centre of the village green, and Lindy and Roger had watched the lights being switched on one frosty night, holding hands, hearts full. At least Lindy’s was.
They hadn’t actually gone on many dates since that first sweetly sizzling kiss in the car park. After Roger had kissed her, he’d grinned self-consciously and they’d got in the car and done just what Lindy had hoped—had a takeaway while watching a movie back at her cottage. And they’d kissed again—and again—although it hadn’t gone further and Lindy was actually just fine with that. She suspected she and Roger were more tortoise than hare when it came to romance.
They were also pretty uncommunicative when it came to the status of their relationship. There had been no ‘we’re now dating’ conversation, which Lindy had thought Roger would have wanted to have, since he liked to be prepared for all eventualities. However, he seemed as content as she was simply to let things unspool in a glittering, golden thread. Where it led was not something either of them felt the need to discuss as of yet.
“So, I hear there’s a new man in your life,” Ishbel remarked when she was picking up Emma from the junior class, after the four tykes had tired themselves out racing around and pretending to waltz.
“I do,” Lindy replied, feeling a slightly scary sense of liberation in admitting it. The last time she’d had a boyfriend had been over five years ago, and it hadn’t lasted long. Already things with Roger felt far more serious, at least in her own head. Her own heart.
“Exciting stuff. Tell me more?”
Lindy glanced at Will and Liz, who were both listening in on the conversation with undisguised interest.
“There’s not much more to tell,” Lindy said. “It’s all rather new, to be honest. How did you even know?”
“Nothing’s secret in this village,” Ishbel said with a laugh. “A friend of mine saw you and a tall bloke holding hands during the Christmas-tree lighting. She recognised you as the Year Six dance teacher.”
“Ah.” Lindy nodded knowingly. “Word does seem to get around.”
“Is he a dancer?” Ishbel asked, and Lindy thought of Roger’s stiff, deliberate movements around the dance floor.
“Yes,” she said. “He is.”
“Well, good luck,” Ishbel said with a smile. “It sounds exciting.”
“It is,” Lindy assured her. “And thank you.”
She was humming as she left the dance studio; she’d agreed to meet Roger at his cottage, so they could drive into Oxford for the afternoon and go Christmas shopping. Another date. Was it silly that she felt so excited? Lindy didn’t care.
Her heart turned over simply at the sight of him opening the door, looking so very Roger-like in his off-duty uniform of a button-down shirt and khakis.
“Do you own a pair of jeans?” Lindy asked after she’d stepped inside and Roger had kissed her cheek. He stepped back, frowning slightly.
“Is there a reason why you’re enquiring about the nature of my wardrobe?”
“Just curious,” she answered with a smile.
“Well then, the answer is I do possess one pair. I usually wear them for painting or other DIY projects.”
“That makes sense,” Lindy answered, and Roger shook his head.
“Why are we talking about this?”
“I was just wondering.” She laughed at the perplexed look on his face. “Don’t worry. I don’t care what you wear.”
“Good, because I thought you were about to give me a makeover,” Roger replied dryly. “Shall we go?”
*
; It was exceedingly pleasant, to wander down a festooned Cornmarket Street in Oxford, holding hands with Lindy and admiring all the Christmas-themed window displays. Almost too pleasant, because as much as he tried, Roger couldn’t shake the feeling that this was all going to go up in smoke at any second, as soon as he put a foot wrong or Lindy came to her senses. It was only a matter of time; that had been his experience before, after all, although he didn’t feel he could even compare his past relationships to what he felt for Lindy.
With Lindy, he could be himself. It amazed him that she didn’t actually want him to change, and yet even so he couldn’t keep from wondering if there was an agenda, or perhaps just a disappointment, underneath her smiling cheer—what had been that remark about jeans, anyway? He knew his clothes were boring; he was boring. Was Lindy only just coming to realise that? Would it put her off, as she began to realise the extent of his non-jean-wearing self?
As they stopped in front of an enormous Christmas tree and listened to a pair of talented buskers belt out ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ to the rather surprising accompaniment of an acoustic guitar and a tambourine, Roger did his best not to worry about it. He just wanted to enjoy this moment, as he had every other with Lindy since he’d kissed her outside of The White Hare, and their friendship had turned into something wonderfully more.
Two weeks on, it still felt new and strange, and rather miraculous.
“Alice and Henry up at Willoughby Manor have invited us for dinner,” Lindy told him when they were having a coffee in the Waterstones café overlooking the busy street. She spoke casually, but there was a deliberate lightness to her voice that Roger suspected was affected rather than real.
“Alice and Henry?” he repeated guardedly. “I don’t believe I know them.”
“You don’t, but they know about us—” this was said with a slight blush “—and with the dress rehearsal for the performance less than a week away, they’d like to get to know you.”
The dress rehearsal. That was something else Roger had been trying not to worry, or even think, about. Despite several weeks of rehearsals, he was still as heavy-footed as ever. He was going to look ridiculous, trying to foxtrot and samba, but at least Maureen, Helena, Simon and Olivia weren’t all that much better. His mother was the best of the class, and she was determined to shine. Too bad he wouldn’t be shining with her, but he’d given his word and he would go through with it, even if the prospect brought only dread.
“Roger?” Lindy prompted. “I thought we could go to dinner on Wednesday. The dress rehearsal is Friday, the ball Saturday. A busy week.”
“I am aware of the dates of those events,” he replied, his tone a bit sharp to hide his unease. Lindy didn’t look fooled.
“I know you are,” she said with a smile. “So dinner is okay?” She looked so anxious, her eyes clouded as she nibbled her lip, and somehow that hurt. He was making her anxious, because she feared a simple dinner with friends might be beyond him. And the truth was, she could be right.
“Dinner is okay,” Roger repeated. At least he hoped it would be.
Lindy’s smile was like sunlight breaking through clouds. “Thank you, Roger,” she said, touching his hand, and he gave her a rather tense smile.
“Don’t thank me until it’s over.”
She reached over to kiss his cheek, and Roger breathed in her vanilla scent, a burst of happiness in his chest at the sight and feel of her. “I’m thanking you before, because I know having dinner with people you don’t know in a place you’ve never been is not your favourite thing to do. And I’ll thank you after, for doing it.”
“Hopefully you will,” Roger muttered, but he was smiling simply because of her.
*
“My man, Roger.” Chris clapped him rather forcefully on the shoulder. “How is the great romance going?”
Roger had informed his colleague last week that he had ‘moved decisively out of the friend zone,’ to which Chris had crowed with delight and given him a fist bump that Roger had rather clumsily returned. Now, on Monday morning in the office kitchen, Chris forewent any banter about raves for the lowdown on Lindy, not that Roger had any intention of imparting many salient details.
“It’s going very well, thank you,” he said, and poured boiling water into his mug.
“Yeah?” Chris looked pleased. “Any hot dates planned for the weekend?”
“While I would not use such a term, we are going out to dinner with some acquaintances on Wednesday.” Roger paused, wondering why he was actually contemplating asking for romantic advice from a spotty-chinned, gel-haired twenty-three-year-old. “I confess I’m slightly apprehensive about the evening, and what it might entail for our relationship.”
Chris’s forehead wrinkled as he considered Roger’s statement. “You’re nervous?” he finally said. “Why?”
Roger shrugged as he poured milk into his tea. “You might be able to surmise, considering your experience of our working life together, that I am not the most adept at social situations.”
“Ah, Roger.” Chris clapped a hand on his shoulder again, making Roger spill the milk. “I’ll admit, when I first met you, I thought you were a bit of a spod, but once I got to know you, I realised you were all right. More than all right.”
Roger didn’t know what a spod was, but he thought he could guess. “Hence, my apprehension,” he told Chris tartly. “Upon our first acquaintance, you remained unimpressed.”
“Well…yeah.” Chris nodded in agreement as he took a slurp of sugary coffee. “But, you know, be friendly and all that and you should be fine.”
“Thank you for that excellent advice, as always.” Roger turned to go with his tea, still feeling apprehensive about Wednesday evening.
“And, you know, Rog,” Chris continued with a surprising earnestness, “you want people to like you for who you are, not who you are trying to be. So…just be yourself. If they think you’re an anorak, then so what?”
An anorak? “Why would they think I was a raincoat?” Roger asked in bafflement, and Chris let out a bray of laughter.
“An anorak! You know, a nerd, someone who would never leave the house without an umbrella.”
“Or an anorak.”
“Exactly.” Chris grinned at him.
Or a handkerchief, Roger thought, remembering Lindy’s teasing comment about his own neatly pressed one. He was indeed an anorak, it seemed.
*
Lindy was feeling nervous, more nervous than she’d expected to, and mainly on Roger’s behalf. As the days had passed she could tell he was semi-dreading this evening’s dinner with Alice and Henry, and that in turn was making her anxious. What if it all went pear-shaped? Was this just the beginning of a lifetime of smoothing things over when they got awkward or uncomfortable?
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, my girl,” Lindy told her reflection as she touched up her eye make-up and then glanced critically at her outfit—a silk blouse in forest green with a pair of dark skinny jeans and her requisite high heels. Smart but casual, or so she hoped. She pressed her hand to her middle as butterflies swarmed.
She couldn’t figure out if she was nervous for Roger’s sake, or for her own. Was she worried he’d decide the effort of relationships—including the one with her—wasn’t worth the aggro? Or was she worried she was going to decide that?
Lindy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Sensing her agitation, Toby pressed his bony head against her leg and she bent down to give him a quick, loving stroke. She’d been on her own a long time, and Roger even longer. The last few weeks had been wonderful, but they’d also been fairly low-key. A walk along the river, the afternoon in Oxford, an evening watching Netflix. It was as if they were both afraid to ramp it up, to get intense.
And yet at the same time, Lindy thought, part of her craved that. Part of her wanted to grab Roger by the lapels and ask him to marry her, while another part wanted to hide under her duvet. She felt schizophrenic in her emotions, careening wildly from one extreme to the
other, backing away even as she longed to lunge forward, and vice versa. Did Roger feel the same?
She knew this was new territory for him, as well, and new territory was uncomfortable, uncertain, sometimes difficult. What if he decided to back off? What if she did?
The doorbell rang, and Toby sent up a chorus of frenzied barking, a habit she’d yet to train him out of. With one last, fleeting look in the mirror, Lindy hurried downstairs.
“Roger!” She smiled to see him standing there, looking so severe. “You look nice.”
“I’m wearing my blue shirt.”
“So you are.”
“I do own other shirts, of course, but my mother keeps insisting I wear this one to any social function.”
“I like your blue shirt,” Lindy assured him, and then because he looked so serious and really rather adorable, she put her arms around him and kissed him.
Roger pulled her closer, kissing her quite thoroughly, reminding Lindy that while certain aspects of their relationship might have their concerns, this one did not. She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of kissing him.
Roger pulled away slightly, his hands resting lightly yet firmly on her waist. “I might make an idiot of myself tonight,” he told her. “Be warned.”
“I am warned,” Lindy said with a laugh. She laid one hand against his cheek. “And I don’t care if you make an idiot of yourself tonight, Roger.”
“You don’t?” He looked at her seriously, and she nodded.
“I just want to be with you, idiot or not.”
“I suppose that is something of a compliment.”
Lindy laughed again, and kissed him once more for good measure. “It is,” she said. “Trust me.”
*
They walked hand in hand towards Willoughby Manor, the trees and bushes that lined the sweeping drive bedecked with sparkling Christmas lights. It was only a little over a fortnight until Christmas, and Lindy was starting to feel rather festive; Wychwood-on-Lea was decorated to the hilt, and besides the ball, there was a full run of holiday events—a community carol sing, several services at the church, an evening of the requisite mulled wine and mince pies at Ava and Jace’s. She was looking forward to it all.
