Before I Do(38)

One Saturday in February, Audrey was in Covent Garden, taking photos of cobbled streets for a stock image company. She moved her lens up from the ground, and there, in the viewfinder, she found Josh. She hadn’t seen him since the Sausage Fandango dinner several months before.

“Amy,” he said, and she looked up.

“James,” she replied, grinning.

He was wearing a pale blue shirt and jeans, his brown hair ruffled, as though he’d just gotten out of bed. He had a day of stubble on his chin and a slight tan, both of which suited him. As he walked toward her, she was reminded just how tall he was, how broad his shoulders were, how nice it might feel to be wrapped in those firm arms. These were inappropriate thoughts to be having about Bad Jeans Josh.

“Are you working?” He indicated her camera. The smile in his eyes told her he was pleased to see her.

“Taking arty photos of cobbles and fire hydrants—living the dream,” she said, raising her lens to snap a photograph of him.

“Have you—” He paused, dropping his gaze to the ground. “Have you got time to help me with something? Just for ten minutes, and I’ll buy you a coffee.”

Her heart leaped in her chest. Why was the image of him shirtless, digging holes to plant trees in, so fresh and vivid in her internal fantasy image library? She shrugged, trying to hide this giddy feeling with nonchalance.

“Sure,” she said, and they fell into step walking down Long Acre.

“Paul once told me you had this nickname for me,” he said. Audrey frowned in an overblown show of confusion. “Bad Jeans Josh.” He narrowed his eyes at her, but there was a spark of mischief in his tone. Audrey opened her mouth to deny it but then found she could not, so she laughed instead.

“That was mean of him. They really aren’t that bad—”

“No, you’ve put it out there now, you can’t take it back,” Josh said, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “It’s not just you, Kelly mentioned my wardrobe could do with an update. I’m supposed to be here clothes shopping, and then I run into you and . . .”

Audrey felt slightly annoyed with Kelly for trying to change Josh; she had grown fond of his dorky jeans.

“Sure.” Audrey smiled. “Though I’m sorry I ever said that.”

“I forgive you. The nickname I used to have for you was far worse.”

“Oh really. What was that?”

“You won’t like it. It’s not complimentary,” he said, swinging his arms as he walked.

“Well, I won’t help you unless you tell me.”

“Fine. Up Herself Audrey.” He said it with a sigh, glancing at her sideways. “Sorry.”

“Up Herself Audrey, wow, that is worse than Bad Jeans Josh. What made you think I was so up myself?”

“I don’t know,” he said as they walked, avoiding other pedestrians on the pavement. “You always acted like you didn’t want to talk to me, like I was too irrelevant even to remember.”

“I can’t think what gave you that idea, James.”

“It was my issue. I liked you back then, and you wouldn’t give me the time of day . . .” He trailed off but then turned his head and made a face, as though to illustrate this was a funny story from the past, rather than anything still relevant today.

“I would have given you the time of day,” Audrey said, the giddy feeling building inside her. “Though I do have a strict policy on the number of new names I will remember per day. I think I’d hit my daily quota when we met.”

He tilted his head, biting his lip, an acknowledgment that he liked her joke. “If you’re going to be nice to me, I’ll have to think of a new name for you.”

“And if we’re going to buy you new jeans, I’ll have to think of something else to call you.”

“Then we’ll just have to be Amy and James.”

“Which one will I be?” Audrey asked, and Josh let out a loud, unfiltered laugh, which sent a satisfied glow right down to the soles of Audrey’s feet.



* * *





Audrey led them to a fashionable store on Bow Street. Josh followed her around the shop as she started scouring the shelves full of jeans in every shade of blue, black, and gray.

“What size are you?”

He shrugged. “Maybe a thirty-six long?”

She pulled five or six different designs from the units, and a shop assistant guided them to a large changing room with a red velvet chaise longue positioned outside it.

“Promise to be brutally honest,” Josh called from behind the curtain. “Don’t spare my feelings.”

“Have I ever been known to do that?” Audrey jumped up to try to fix her fringe in a shop mirror while he was changing. She quickly added some nude gloss to her lips and rubbed some smudged mascara from beneath her eyes.

When Josh pulled back the curtain, he was wearing a pair of fitted dark blue jeans. They looked amazing on him, but his oversized shirt hung loose over the waistband.

“You need to tuck your shirt in, I can’t see the fit properly. Maybe try them on with a T-shirt.”

The eager shop assistant handed Josh a T-shirt from the shop floor, and Audrey watched as he unbuttoned his shirt in front of her, momentarily revealing his bare chest before pulling the T-shirt over his head. Okay, wow. Look away, Audrey. She found herself searching the ceiling, suddenly conscious she didn’t want to be caught staring at his washboard stomach. Why was it called a washboard stomach anyway? Was it because it looked hard and firm, and you could scrub clothes clean on it? She would definitely take off her clothes and scrub—