‘Yes, goodnight, dear,’ Otto says with a broad smile.
Her muscles protest as she trudges upstairs. Haf slumps down onto the bed. A fox barks in the distance, and the telltale twit-twoo of two owls echoes through the dark.
She must stop thinking about what could have happened. For the first part, she probably was imagining it, or misread the signals. Maybe it was the wine clouding her judgement.
But the thing is, deep in her heart, she knows that it doesn’t matter. Because what just happened has proved something to her.
She wants Kit.
There’s no denying it. This crush has spiralled out of control, and suppressing her thoughts and feelings did nothing. She can’t pretend she wants them to be just friends, can’t pretend it’s just a physical attraction.
A crush is just want – lust and the spark of attraction and hunger. And she does want, oh boy, does shewant.
But the problem that’s dawning on her is that she doesn’t just want Kit that way; she’s starting to feel things. Yearning, needful feelings that are deep and scary and real.
She wants more than just the wanting. Shefeelsmore than just the wanting.
And she has no idea what to do about it.
Chapter Fifteen
Despite worrying that they would talk about the events of the evening in bed, Christopher got home late and fell asleep with barely a word to Haf. It had only taken him a few minutes to nod off. Not that she minds; she didn’t exactly want to tell him about what happened, or might have almost happened, between her and Kit. She doesn’t want to admit that she nearly jeopardised everything. Or that she might possibly, definitely have feelings for Kit.
So over breakfast, she had regaled him with the saga of rescuing Cupid, quietly side-stepping around everything that happened after.
Everything seems normal between them, even though the guilt is eating away at her like rust on metal. In her pocket, Ambrose’s check-in texts are unanswered. Haf can’t face talking to them right now either.
Christopher drives them both over to Laurel’s early. It turns out the Howard house is practically a stately home, dwarfing the Calloway house, which she previously thought was some kind of manor. This could be a castle.
Laurel greets them at the front door, in expensive-looking matching yoga wear under a long, loose open cardigan. All of it is white.
‘Haf, darling! The great reindeer rescuer! Let’s get you a dress!’
The white theme extends into the house, the foyer decorated with white marble and gold. Cut flowers provide a splash of colour, but still in a tasteful and pastel range.
Everything smells so nice here, like vanilla and fresh citrus, as well as the heady floral scents from the bouquets.
‘Now, before we get started, Toph, I think Mummy is in the kitchen, so go right through.’
Christopher lurks nervously in the doorway, as though he couldn’t cross the threshold into the room without permission.
‘I think she wants you to help her do some final decoration checks, seeing as you’re so tall. Hope that’s okay?’
This strikes Haf as a slightly mad thing to say given that she’s pretty sure Laurel and Christopher are very nearly the same height.
‘Mummy is tiny, so is Daddy,’ Laurel explains as Christopher disappears off with a wave of the hand. ‘God knows where my leggy genes came from. Normally, I do it but I’m glad to get out of it and do some actual design work. Plus they love him. I bet your parents do too.’
It takes Haf a few too many beats to realise she’s supposed to be in fake girlfriend mode. ‘Oh, they haven’t met him properly yet. Wales is pretty far from everywhere and you can’t get through Wales without going into England for a little bit so...’ She trails off, laughing nervously.
‘They’ll love him when they do,’ says Laurel with a kind smile. ‘You two have such great chemistry, and I know Kit’s absolutely—’ She cuts herself off quickly. ‘We’ll get to work in the sewing room. Come on,’ she says, leading her up a grand curved staircase.
When Haf thinks of a sewing room, she thinks of her converted bedroom back home. A tiny and very stuffed cosy room, with haberdashery hidden in Danish cookie tins.
Laurel’s sewing room is naturally very different from this.
Rails of clothes line the walls, along with shelves and shelves of folders labelled with things likePatterns – Spring 2021andlingerie. A sewing machine plus another more terrifying kind of possible torture device with lots of threads and pointy arms sit together on a very wide desk with one extremely fancy desk chair on wheels behind, presumably to roll between them. Several body forms stand with paper grafted onto them – dramatically cut bodices and sweeping pleated trains.
‘Wow, this is amazing,’ says Haf.
