Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [154]
Then to Katherine’s alarm, he elbowed her and said, ‘Come on, gewl, sing along. Everton bastards, Score, in a brothel…’
‘Sore throat,’ she murmured. ‘Can’t.’
Joe didn’t sing, but he was very focused and genuinely interested in what was going on. Katherine felt she should resent this – after all, why had he taken her if he’d planned to ignore her? – but she couldn’t get cross. His eyes were narrowed, flicking around, following the ball. Joe watched the match and Katherine watched Joe, his knife-handle cheekbones, his touch-me skin, his messier-than-at-work hair. Repeatedly he checked that she was all right. He was worried that she might be chilly but, though her cheeks had pinkened from the cold, it didn’t seem to matter.
Twenty minutes into the match, he shifted to her, bulky in his leather jacket. ‘You OK?’ he asked for the umpteenth time.
‘Yes.’ She flashed her little teeth prettily.
‘I can’t hear you,’ he said, quietly, angling his face towards hers. ‘Come closer.’
Thinking it was because of all the singing around them, she leant nearer and repeated, ‘I said, yes.’
‘I still can’t hear you,’ he echoed softly, his eyes dark. ‘Closer.’
Embarrassed at invading his personal space, she moved slightly more towards him, and said, ‘Yes, I’m OK.’
She was so close that she could see beneath his skin to where his stubble was growing in a mask around his jaw and mouth.
‘Still can’t hear you,’ he said again. By now his voice was nearly soundless, so that she was almost lip-reading.
Baffled, she pushed herself an inch or so further, so that they were breathing each other’s air, and reiterated, ‘I’m OK.’
‘Still can’t hear you,’ he mouthed.
There was about four inches between them, his warm apple-sweet breath surprising her chilled face. She couldn’t move any closer. Utterly still, their eyes locked, intensity in his, confusion in hers. And then she understood…
Somewhere, in another dimension, Everton missed another open goal and as her ears filled with the sound of thirty thousand Arsenal fans singing tunelessly, ‘You’re shi-i-i-it and you know you are,’ Joe Roth moved a short, short distance, darkening her vision. And kissed her.
57
Rob would have wept if he’d thought that his precious ticket had been frittered away by the occupant of his seat spending the entire match snogging. Luckily for him, they kissed only once.
But, as Katherine thought, what a kiss!
Her eyes were closed, her hands were on Joe’s face, pinpricks of stubble dragging on the pads of her fingers. A special, lime-sharp, clean-man smell reached her, and she noticed, from some remote place, how firm and dry his lips were. He clasped her nearer, his hand cradling the back of her silky head, and the kiss hardened and deepened, the heat of their fevered mouths contrasting with the coldness of their faces, making it all the more secret and delicious.
But, too soon, it stopped. Reluctantly they opened their eyes, and pulled away from each other, teetering on the edge of too much want. Reality came back into focus.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have… This isn’t the right place,’ Joe mumbled, his eyes opaque and stunned.
‘You’re right,’ she agreed, stupefied. Baffled at finding that they weren’t the only two people in the world.
They watched the rest of the match in a twilight agony of waiting. Apparently Arsenal won.
Then they got a taxi back to her place.
As soon as they were there, Katherine felt panicky. It was only five thirty, way too early for shenanigans. This was a mistake.
His presence filled her flat, and she wanted him to go. She hated feeling that she had a tiger by the tail, that she’d bitten off more than she could chew.
‘That’s the living-room,’ she fluttered, her nerves getting the better of her, ‘Sit down and I’ll put the kettle –’
She stopped abruptly as Joe put his fingers into the belt-loop of her jeans. ‘Come here,’ he said softly, pulling her towards him. She felt the tug, felt her feet moving across to him, felt her body