She shrugged and walked forward, quickly skirting him and his forearms and avoiding any sort of mind-scrambling eye contact. He was fast though, and by the time she made it to the door he had pulled it open for her. She charged out onto the pavement and turned left. Breathing a sigh of relief when he made no apparent attempt to stop her, she marched forward and let her shoulders relax. That was why, when she felt something brush her neck and fall onto her shoulders, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
‘You forgot your coat,’ Pav said. She turned to see him standing just behind her, a smile on his face and his hands in his pockets. She looked down at her long cashmere overcoat like she’d never seen it before. What was wrong with her? Millienever forgotanything.
‘Right, thanks,’ she muttered, shoving her hands through the sleeves and realising how biting the cold actually was. She tried to smile at him but was unsure of the results. Before she could make an even bigger fool of herself she marched away. Despite the fact she was now power-walking, Mr Martakis’ long strides easily kept pace with her shorter ones and they carried on down the pavement together.
‘I thought you had a car,’ Millie said after a full thirty seconds of silence.
‘Yup.’ Back to silence again.
‘Well … why aren’t you driving it?’
‘Did you enjoy the book club?’
‘Wh-what?’
‘The book club,’ Mr Martakis said slowly. ‘Was it fun?’
Millie thought for a moment. Did she have fun? Fun was not a huge feature of her life and never had been. Had tonight terrified her? Yes. Did she make a fool of herself? Well, no, unless you counted the corridor stand-off with Mr Martakis. She had enjoyed listening to the women’s banter. She’d felt good when Tara thanked her. Libby had held her hand.
‘Yes … I … I think so,’ she told him, and heard Mr Martakis chuckle.
‘You onlythinkyou had fun? Well, they’ll have to do better than that.’
‘What do you me–’
‘What book did you talk about?’ he asked as they rounded the corner. The pace they were going was starting to take its toll on Millie. Mr Martakis didn’t even seem short of breath.
‘We didn’t talk about the book.’
‘I thought it was a book club?’ Mr Martakis sounded as confused as Millie had been and she felt herself smile.
‘I know, so did I.’
They stopped at the crossing and she pressed the button before glancing up at him, still smiling as she thought about the book club that had no intention of discussing books. As soon as their eyes met he blinked and his mouth opened slightly.
‘Jesus,’ he breathed as his gaze roamed her face.
‘What’s the matter?’ Millie asked as she frowned and her smile fell. The crossing started to beep and they both moved away, breaking eye contact. Mr Martakis cleared his throat.
‘Ha! I knew it. I bet half of them didn’t even read it.’
Millie shrugged and bit her lip as she finally turned down her road with Mr Martakis hot on her heels.
‘I betyouread it though, didn’t you?’ he said, amusement lacing his tone.
‘Of course,’ Millie said, heat hitting her cheeks when she remembered the report she’d typed up. She involuntarily held her bag closer to her side – she should have known Mr Martakis would notice. He noticed everything.
‘You wrote notes, didn’t you?’ he asked, his voice now vibrating slightly with humour. ‘Come on, let me see.’
Before she could stop him he had somehow managed to fish out the report from the front of her bag. They arrived at her door and she made a grab for it but he held it out of her reach. In her fluster she collided with his solid chest and sucked in a lungful of his clean scent: soap, citrusy aftershave, and man, all mingled into one glorious combination. She leapt back, her cheeks on fire.
‘Stop it,’ she said, wrapping her arms around her middle and feeling like an idiot. Mr Martakis took one look at her face and sobered immediately.
‘Hey,’ he said softly, holding out the papers with one hand and reaching up with the other to push a few strands of hair that had escaped from her ponytail behind her ear. She snatched the report back, before turning and racing up the steps to her front door. Her house was in a large Victorian terrace in an affluent area. If Mr Martakis thought that was strange he didn’t say anything. As she extracted her keys from her bag and shoved them in the lock she heard his heavy footfalls jog up behind her.
‘I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t making fun of you. I knew you wouldn’t have gone unprepared to that group and I … I was teasing you. That’s kind of my thing: teasing people.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said in a tight voice when she’d finally managed to turn the lock and heard him sigh. She was about to close the door in his face when his foot moved to block the solid oak in its tracks.
