The House Swap: An absolutely hilarious feel-good romance

by Jo Lovett

  She whipped her hand up and knocked, really fast, and far too loudly. It was a good job the window was double glazed, frankly, or she’d probably have broken it. She’d really hurt her knuckles. Ow.

  James turned round, very quickly – not a surprise – he’d probably got a big shock given that her knock had sounded like gunfire – and broke into a smile when he saw her.

  She waved at him and then pointed in the direction of the animals, returned his smile and turned round.

  She’d got a couple of steps away when he opened the back door and said, ‘Hi, Cassie.’ Bugger.

  He was so ridiculously pretty to look at, if you could call large, masculine-looking rugby player types pretty.

  ‘Hello, James.’ She sounded very formal. So odd to be essentially strangers and yet to have been sleeping in each other’s beds and using each other’s bathrooms for the past four months.

  Why was she thinking about beds and bathrooms?

  The silence was too long.

  ‘How was your journey?’ Thank the Lord he’d said something.

  ‘Good, thank you. I mean, lengthy, obviously, but I managed to sleep enough and there were no delays.’

  ‘Feels a bit surreal being here, right? I have to say that I found it odd being back in London but not currently being resident there. A bit like a parallel universe.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Would you like to come in and check out Laura’s cake?’

  No. Cassie really didn’t want to go into her own perfect kitchen that she’d designed herself and loved but which was not currently hers. What if James had moved all her stuff around?

  He opened the door wider and stood to one side. Bugger. She was going to have to go in or look rude.

  ‘I’d love to,’ she said.

  For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to move out of the way and that they were going to end up in an awkward which-way this-way that-way moment, but fortunately he stepped back. He was tall. But not too tall. The perfect height. Also arguably the perfect width.

  And now she was standing in her kitchen, with James. He hadn’t moved too many of her things and he was very tidy.

  And. Wow.

  ‘The cake’s stunning,’ she said, moving forwards to look more closely at it. ‘Laura will love it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ James beamed and Cassie realised two things: one that a beaming James was literally the most attractive man she’d ever seen in her life, and two that the room smelled quite strongly of baking and he’d just reacted as though the cake was his own work.

  ‘Did you make it?’ she asked. Mind-boggling given that his kitchen in London had given the impression of having been completely unused other than maybe one shelf of the fridge, the corkscrew and some glasses.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘This is going to sound rude, so I’ll apologise for that in advance, but did you make it yourself?’

  ‘Yep. And I’m going to be honest. I am so goddamn proud of myself. I mean, look at it.’

  ‘I am looking. I’m so impressed. That ganache is smooth. And the piping on top. I mean, wow. What kind of cake is it?’

  ‘I thought I should do something for everyone. Working from the bottom tier up, we have carrot, Victoria sponge, fruit and chocolate. All with a butter icing filling.’

  ‘Oh my goodness. That sounds fab. Laura’s going to be delighted.’ He was such a contradiction. ‘Do you bake a lot at home, in London?’ It was just so hard to imagine.

  ‘Ha. No. Never. Yeah, I think everyone here was quite surprised when I volunteered to make the cake, but you must be absolutely astonished, given the lack of baking paraphernalia in my kitchen. Your kitchen, I should say. Yeah, no, this is a one-off, but not my first cake. I baked a lot with a much younger sister when she was little.’

  ‘Wow. What a lovely big brother.’ Ridiculously perfect. In the baking department, anyway. ‘I always had shop-bought cakes. I’m an only child and my father’s never baked and my mother, who of course you’ve spoken to—’ so embarrassing ‘—only makes Middle Eastern pastries which are very different-tasting from English cakes and really weren’t popular at Glaswegian kids’ birthday parties. Fortunately she was always at work – not in a bad way, obviously, she was and is an amazing mum and a great cook, actually – but she rarely had time to bake. She’s a doctor and she worked long hours. I say is, she was a doctor. Retired now.’ Honestly. Verbal diarrhoea. Stop talking. ‘I could have done with a big brother like you.’ And that just sounded creepy.

  ‘I was definitely not always a lovely big brother. I used to get very annoyed with my younger sister, a lot. But, you know, needs must. Our mother was—’ James paused, as though he was searching for words ‘—busy and my other sister has never baked, and someone had to do it. You know, birthdays. Important to little girls. And it really isn’t difficult.’

  Cassie wanted to ask if James had had birthday cakes himself. It was like he’d gone somewhere sad in the middle of what he’d said. But oddly – given that they were only talking about cakes – it felt like that was too personal a question.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ she said. ‘It’s really hard. I can’t bake to save my life. I had your neighbours over for afternoon tea and tried to make everything myself but absolutely all of it was a disaster so I had to get Luigi to cater it. The beauty of being in Central London, of course. Here we’d have just had to break our teeth on rock-like brownies or starve.’

  ‘But you’re a great cook. All the meals you left in the freezer were delicious.’

  ‘I do cook but baking’s a whole different thing.’

  ‘You genuinely don’t bake?’

  ‘Can’t bake.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a one or the other thing. I have to say, my cooking hasn’t progressed a long way beyond the absolute basics. I’m excellent with toast and pasta and I can fry a steak and that’s pretty much it.’

  Cassie opened her mouth to say that they’d complement each other perfectly and then realised that she really didn’t need to sound as though she was coming onto him.

  ‘Well I think your cake looks spectacular, much more impressive than making a stew, and Laura’s going to be a very happy eighty-year-old,’ she said.

  ‘Speaking of which, what do you think about candles? I ordered eighty but now I’m wondering if putting them all on could cause a fire. Or if the first ones we light will burn down before we get to the end.’ He’d bloody ordered eighty candles. Honestly. Good at baking and thoughtful. This couldn’t all be to try to butter people up, surely.

  Cassie looked at the cake and tried to imagine. ‘I think there might be a fire,’ she said. ‘How close would they have to be together?’ She moved closer to it. ‘Maybe not that close? It’s big.’

  James moved closer too. ‘So eight rows of ten,’ he said, making line motions over the top of the cake with his hands. He had great hands. Very firm-looking. They were standing very close to each other now. Cassie could see his chest rise and fall as he breathed. There were blond hairs just visible at the neckline of his T-shirt. Now she was imagining his chest naked. What was wrong with her? She looked up at him. And he was looking down at her, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Her own mouth felt very dry. What had they been talking about?

  Candles.

  ‘That would be a lot of flame.’ Her voice sounded very hoarse. She swallowed. ‘It would be very hot.’ She was hot. ‘It might melt the icing.’

  He was looking at her lips. Never mind icing melting. Cassie was melting.

  ‘It would be hot.’ His smile was growing.

  Cassie tried hard to force her mind back towards the cake.

  ‘I don’t think we should do all the candles,’ she said. He was still looking at her with his gorgeous, slightly lopsided smile. ‘I think they might ruin the decorations on top of the cake. And eighty’s a lot to blow out.’

  ‘I think you’re right. What do you suggest instead?’ He’d inched a little closer to her.

  C
assie licked her lips. ‘Um. Maybe just one candle?’

  ‘One candle it is.’

  They were still looking at each other. James still had that smile going and Cassie was fairly sure that the shape of her lips mirrored his.

  ‘What do you…’ he began, and then there was a beeping. A loud and persistent beeping. Cassie blinked. What was that?

  It was her timer.

  ‘Timer,’ she said.

  ‘Timer,’ repeated James, still smiling.

  ‘Is there something in the oven?’

  ‘Oh. Right. Yes. Yes, there is.’ He turned round and their arms brushed. The zing! Cassie felt it right to her stomach. No wonder Dina was so besotted. Honestly, Cassie’s heart was beating so fast. Terrible. Dina was her closest friend.

  James reached for oven gloves and went to the oven to take something out. Two trays, with an eight-shaped bake and a zero-shaped one.

  ‘What is that?’ Cassie asked.

  ‘Shortbread.’

  ‘Wow. Honestly. You’re like some kind of baking god.’ No. Not good. She really sounded like she was coming onto him and, in light of what had just happened – and she had no idea what it had been, but, God, it had felt strangely erotic – she should just leave the kitchen, now. ‘Great to see you,’ she said primly, like she was leaving a coffee morning or something, ‘and I’ll no doubt bump into you at the party. I should get going now. Animals to see. Dresses to change into.’ Cringe, cringe, cringe. Why was she talking like that?

  ‘Yes, great. I’ll see you later.’

  Cassie wondered all the way up the garden whether he was watching her as she walked. She was going to twist an ankle if she carried on walking like this, but it was really hard to move normally when you were wondering whether or not someone was looking at your bum and whether it looked okay in these trousers.

  The good news was that while she’d been in the kitchen with him she’d completely forgotten about the IVF.

  She was so pleased to see the animals. Chickens were like little people; they had definite personalities, as even James had spotted. As did the alpacas, obviously. Donna, Maisie and Fred ambled over to her and she hugged them all in turn.

  ‘I missed you so much,’ she told them. They definitely recognised her. Fred was nuzzling into her. So gorgeous. ‘How you doing?’ she asked him. Maybe she’d be better off doing her next cycle of IVF in Boston after all. Then she’d be home if and when it all went wrong. She could get drunk with Dina and hug the animals. It probably wouldn’t be that hard to sort a Boston trip at short notice.

  Donna came back over towards her and Cassie put her arms round her neck again. ‘So, Donna,’ Cassie said. ‘I just had a very weird moment in the kitchen with James.’ God, she couldn’t believe she’d just said that out loud, even to an alpaca. She still didn’t even know whether she liked him as a person and, more importantly, if anyone should be having any kind of moment with him, it was Dina. Donna lifted her head and looked at Cassie, unblinking. Yeah, Donna was right. Best to ignore what had just happened.

  Seventeen

  James

  James lowered himself into the kayak and pushed away from the beach. It would be much better to be out here on the water when Cassie came back past the house so that they didn’t have to speak again.

  What the hell had happened just then?

  Cassie was absolutely not his type. She wrote ridiculously lengthy notes and she used emojis. She adored her bright colours, apparently clothing-wise as well as with her décor and garden. She kept animals. She was friends with everybody. She clearly had a stable family background, very different from his. She’d chosen to live on this island on the edge of the world. She read a lot.

  He paddled harder.

  She did make him laugh out loud and she did have an excellent line in sarcasm. She was kind and he was pretty sure she’d be very loyal. She had a gorgeous Scottish accent. She was beautiful. When she’d turned up at the kitchen window looking both flight-weary and very cute, in a canary yellow – very Cassie – waist-length top, he’d just wanted to talk to her.

  And then what? He paddled even harder.

  First, he’d indirectly mentioned Leonie to her. He never did that. Second, when they’d been standing next to the cake, and he’d been breathing in her fruity, flowery scent, looking at her expressive face and her somewhat bonkers hair, all he’d been thinking about was how much he’d like to pull her into his arms, wind his fingers into her hair, kiss her until she was breathless. What was wrong with him? He didn’t want to kiss the woman he’d swapped houses with and was now kind of friends with. Far too complicated.

  Anyway, he’d literally been saved by a bell and now his head was clear.

  He continued to paddle furiously around the headland and towards Cassie’s perfect wild beach. Frustrating woman.

  After about an hour, muscles satisfyingly stretched, he made his way back. He needed to check on the caterers and Laura, sort the cake out and get changed. Cassie should be long gone by now.

  James locked the boathouse door, picked his towel up and put it over his shoulder and, as he walked up the steps from the beach to the garden, swiped his phone to check his emails.

  A colleague had just sent through the numbers for a business model they’d been discussing. He turned his phone round to squint at a spreadsheet.

  He only saw Cassie as she rounded the tree where the garden hit its L-shape. Though he didn’t so much see her as bump right into her.

  ‘Oops,’ she squeaked, and tripped. Shit. She was a lot smaller than he was and he’d been paying no attention whatsoever and had barrelled straight into her. James shot his non-phone-holding arm out, encountered a lot of softness, and then found her arm and set her straight on her feet. God, that scent again. And some of her beautiful hair was in his face.

  He took a step away from her to avoid a repeat of the kitchen madness.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘You okay?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ She looked up at him and smiled. Her gorgeous smile was so wide and generous that it went right to somewhere inside him. ‘It was me. I was going at a semi-run. I suddenly realised that I’d been with the animals for far too long and I ought to go and say hi to Laura and then I need to get changed.’

  He was still holding onto her arm. He let go, quickly, and took a step away from her. Her gaze snagged on his bare chest for a moment before she looked back up at his face. James had to fight not to smirk. Seriously. What was he? A teenager?

  What had they been talking about?

  Who’d bumped into whom.

  ‘Nope, my fault. Reading my emails on my phone. Anyway. You going back this way?’ He gestured towards the house. She’d been with the animals all that time? ‘So you missed the animals a lot?’

  ‘I really did, so, yes, I’ve been with them for ages.’ Mind reader. ‘I brought a carrot and broccoli snack for the alpacas and then I just sat and watched them all. And it’s possible that I had a little snooze. That journey’s a long one.’

  ‘It is.’ James nodded. ‘I hope you found the animals well,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting a crash course in animal husbandry when I came here but I’ve genuinely enjoyed looking after them. Apart from Donna being ill, of course.’

  ‘Yes, very well.’ There was that wide smile again. ‘They seem brilliantly looked after. And I saw that you’ve bought them some fancy snacks. They’re going to miss you.’

  ‘Yeah, I realised that the way to an alpaca’s heart was via its stomach so I turned to Google and, yes, I did invest in some serious quantities of strawberries and green beans with handfuls of raisins thrown in.’

  Cassie laughed and they walked on for a few seconds in what felt like very companionable silence.

  ‘I’ll see you later then.’ She stopped for a second at the corner of the house.

  Now she was facing him, he could see her properly. Her face was very expressive, with that gorgeous smile and beautiful dark-brown eyes. Her face was also green.<
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  ‘Cassie.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m thinking that this is like when someone has spinach in their teeth, you know, when you’re doing them a favour telling them.’

  ‘Oh, God. Did I go to sleep in alpaca poo?’ She twisted round to look over her shoulder and James caught a glimpse of smooth, light-brown skin at her waist as her top lifted slightly.

  He really should grow up. That should not have had any kind of effect on him.

  ‘No. Your cheek. I’m thinking alpaca spit.’

  She put her hand on her cheek and screwed her face up. ‘Oh yes. They had a little fight over the food and there was some spitting.’

  ‘Yep, I’ve been there. It’s quite hard not to get caught in the line of fire.’

  ‘I love how you’re such an alpaca expert now.’ Cassie grinned at him. ‘Thank you for pointing this out. Not a good party accessory. I’ll do some serious scrubbing in the shower.’

  It was probably because he’d caught that glimpse of her bare waist that a momentary image of how Cassie might look under a shower flashed across his mind. Seriously.

  Dina and Cassie arrived at the marquee together, twenty minutes before the party was due to start. James was doing some last-minute chair and table arranging with the caterers when they came in.

  James stood up. ‘Evening. You’re both looking lovely.’ Which was absolutely true.

  Dina had on a very Dina-like dress. Black again, straight, knee length, tight and low cut. She was wearing it with bright-red high heels and lipstick to match.

  And Cassie. She was wearing a very different kind of dress. Brighter, and kind of softer. It was emerald green, also low cut, but in a less revealing way, with a wide skirt and a big gold belt. Her shoes were softer than Dina’s too. Gold to match her belt, and he was pretty sure that heels like that were called wedges. And her lipstick was orangey. Not so glamorous, but extremely attractive and very Cassie. She looked beautiful.