The Flatshare(66)

‘Tell me,’ I say.

He tilts his head, but at the last moment I pull back just a little, and he lets out a quiet huff, half amused, half frustrated at the teasing.

‘Much shorter,’ he says reluctantly, pulling back too and reaching for another square of tiffin. I watch him lick chocolate from his fingers. Amazing, really – I’ve always found it weird how in films people think licking things like that is sexy, but here Leon is, proving me wrong.

‘Shorter? That’s it? You told me that already.’

‘And . . . dumpier.’

‘Dumpier!’ I crow. This was the stuff I was after. ‘You thought I’d be dumpy?’

‘I just – assumed!’ Leon says, shifting in and pulling me closer again so I’m almost bundled up against his chest.

I lean into him, relishing the feeling. ‘Short and dumpy. And what else?’

‘I thought you would dress weirdly.’

‘Well, I do,’ I point out, gesturing to the laundry drying in the corner, which includes my bright red pantaloons and the rainbow knitted jumper Mo got me for my birthday last year (though even I would draw the line at wearing those two items simultaneously).

‘You make it look good, though,’ he says. ‘Like you do it on purpose. It makes you look like you.’

I laugh. ‘Well, thanks.’

‘And you?’ he asks, shifting his hold on me to take another sip of his wine.

‘And me what?’

‘What did you think I’d look like?’

‘I cheated and looked you up on Facebook,’ I admit.

Leon looks shocked, wine halfway to his mouth. ‘I didn’t even think of that!’

‘Of course you didn’t. I mean, I would want to know what someone looked like if they were moving in and sleeping in my bed, but you don’t care about appearances much, do you?’

He pauses to think about it. ‘I cared about yours once I’d seen it. But otherwise, why would it make a difference? The first rule of the flatshare was that we wouldn’t meet.’

I laugh despite myself. ‘We broke that one, then.’

‘That one?’

‘Don’t worry.’ I wave him off. I don’t fancy explaining Gerty’s ‘first rule’, or quite how much time I’ve spent thinking about breaking it.

‘Ahhh,’ Leon says suddenly, catching sight of the time on my Peter Pan clock on top of the fridge. Half midnight. ‘It’s late.’ He looks at me worriedly. ‘Lost track of time.’

I shrug. ‘That’s OK?’

‘Can’t get back to Mam’s now – last train was at ten past twelve.’ He looks pained. ‘I’ll just . . . sleep on the sofa? If that’s all right?’

‘On the sofa? Why?’

‘So you can have the bed?’

‘This sofa is tiny. You’d have to curl up in the foetal position.’ My heart’s thumping. ‘You have your side, I have mine. We’ve stuck to the left and right rule all year so far. Why should we change it now?’

He watches me, his eyes flicking back and forth across my face as if he’s trying to read me.

‘It’s just a bed,’ I say, moving closer again. ‘We’ve shared a bed before.’

‘Not sure . . . this will be quite as straightforward,’ Leon says, in a slightly strangled voice.

On impulse, I lean forwards and press my lips lightly to his cheek, then again, and again, until I’ve kissed a path from his cheekbone to the very edge of his lips.

I sit back and meet his eyes. My skin is already buzzing, but the look he gives me sends a jolt through me, and now it’s as if eighty per cent of my body has suddenly become heartbeat. I swallow. We’re as close as two humans can possibly be without kissing. There’s no flicker of panic this time, just blissful, fiery wanting.

So, at last, I kiss him.

When I kissed him on the cheek I’d planned to make our first proper kiss soft and slow, the kind of kiss you feel in your toes, but when I actually get there it’s clear there’s been way too much waiting and sexy tiffin-eating for that. This is a proper kiss, the kind that promises very imminent undressing, the kind that generally happens while in the process of stumbling towards a bed. I’m not surprised, then, to find that when we surface for air, I’m straddling him, my hair hanging down on either side of us, my long skirt ruched to my thighs, his hands on my back pulling me as close as I can possibly be.

We don’t pause for long. I twist to dump my wine glass uncere-moniously on the coffee table and shift a little to ease the angle on my ankle, and then we’re kissing again, hungry, and my body is responding with a heat I genuinely don’t think I’ve felt before. One of his hands shifts to the back of my neck, grazing the side of my breast en route, and I pretty much yelp as the sensation hits. Everywhere and everything seems to be in overdrive.

I have no idea what will happen next. I actually can’t even consider the question. I’m incredibly grateful for that – all thought of flashbacks and exes has evaporated altogether. Leon’s body is hard and warm and all I can think about is getting all of these clothes out of the way so I can be as close to it as possible. This time when I move to unbutton his shirt, he drops his grip on my waist to help me, shrugging it off and chucking it over the back of the sofa, where it hangs like a flag from the lamp. I run my hands over Leon’s chest, marvelling at the strangeness of being able to touch him like this. I break away from him for just long enough to wriggle out of my top.