‘Christ,’ Charlie muttered, heart beating faster. This was worse than he’d thought. ‘What are those?’ It was a politician’s worst nightmare, he thought; photographs were more likely to be digital and pop up all over Instagram these days, but the thought of being caught on camera doing something that looked incriminating was an unnerving one.
‘Oh, calm down,’ Holly replied. ‘They’re nothing that would drag you into a scandal. But before I show you them, will you let me do something?’
‘That depends.’ But, intrigued as he was, Charlie couldn’t refuse. He’d crossed the threshold after all, and the wine and the candles were working their magic on him. ‘Oh, all right then.’
‘Just stay there for a sec.’
Charlie did as he was told, and before he could catch a glimpse of the pictures, Holly had tucked them into the back pocket of her jeans. Grabbing her phone, she swiped to Spotify and selected a song. As the song began to play through the Bluetooth speaker, Charlie raised an eyebrow. ‘Getting a bit retro tonight, aren’t we?’ The song was one from a few years into the millennium, possibly even old before then, with a sultry beat and a smoky-voiced singer. Charlie’s spine began to tingle. ‘This takes me back…’
‘Ssh.’ Holly swayed a little to the beat. ‘Think…’ She took the glass from his hand and placed it down on the side table, where it glinted in the candlelight. Straightening back up, she drew a little closer to Charlie. He could see the flecks of light from the candles reflecting off her tousled hair and, just for a moment, a slight hesitation in her expression as she put a hand on his chest.
Charlie, entranced, but mind still whirling from the strangeness of the situation and the elusiveness of his own memory, slipped his hands around Holly’s waist. They began to sway to the beat as the rhythm throbbed in the air. Charlie felt Holly slip her hand upwards until it rested on the back of his neck, causing his skin to tingle and a shiver to run down his spine. He drew her closer to him until their hips were almost touching and his hand was resting in the small of her back.
He looked down and saw the top of Holly’s head, and as she lay her cheek on his shoulder, nestling closer and closer, he was assailed by a memory, long lost and almost forgotten, of two people on the cusp of adulthood. On the cusp of… something. Of swaying together in a nightclub in Leicester Square as other people danced and pressed in around them until they were far closer together than they’d intended to be. Of a throbbing R&B beat and a drink or two to lower the inhibitions, a face upturned to his, and a gentle, feather-light kiss on the lips that promised so much but never had the opportunity to be delivered. The shiver down his spine, the breath that he’d unconsciously been holding, the sudden, sharp pinprick of desire. And then he knew.
‘It’s you…’ he breathed, as the memories of a strawberry-blonde bob, a sexy yet conventional black velvet evening dress and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of a longish nose came back to him. And the feeling of a pair of demurely painted pink lips brushing his in a kiss that was more nerves than passion.
‘It’s me…’ Holly replied softly as she drew closer to Charlie. ‘And it’s you. Lovely Charlie from Leeds University, who made me feel safe in London.’
Although his eyes had closed in anticipation of the kiss, Charlie could sense how close Holly’s lips were to his, and he felt his body responding immediately, as it had done fifteen years ago when she’d been in his arms in the nightclub. Back then, he’d been achingly self-conscious about his near instant hard-on; he’d sensed how reticent she was, how both of them weren’t ready for anything other than a kiss and a moonlit walk, despite what his body was screaming at him. Now, as the blood surged to his cock and he felt that familiar ache of lust and longing, all he had to do was dip his head for his mouth to reach hers. Time and experience had taught him that to betray a response wasn’t always a bad thing; that it could, in fact, be a very good thing. And something was telling him that this time Holly wouldn’t be the nervous girl he remembered. It was her, then. The one who wasn’t even there long enough to get away. Life, and coincidence, had thrown her into his path and taken her away. But now they were here, together again. How had he not realised before? He was determined that nothing would get in the way now.
The kiss, fifteen years in the making, was as sweet for the waiting as he’d wished it could have been back then. Back then he’d wanted so desperately to find the words to get to know her better, to kiss her again, for longer, but there was no time. As the pressure of their lips gave way to open mouths and exploring tongues, Charlie ached.
Eventually, they broke apart.
‘You were going to show me something?’ Charlie asked, when his brain had begun to engage again.
Holly laughed breathlessly. ‘You’ll never believe how dorky we looked back then.’ She pulled the photographs from the pocket of her jeans with a smirk. ‘I mean, it’s no wonder we both didn’t recognise each other, really.’
Charlie glanced at the first photograph and gave a snort of laughter. ‘Thank God I ditched those glasses and got contact lenses. I don’t know why I ever thought they suited me.’ His brow furrowed. ‘And that side parting is hell. Not to mention that godawful blazer and tie.’ Embarrassed at just how gangly and awkward he looked in the candid snap, taken a decade and a half ago, he felt his stomach clenching and his cheeks burning, a complete antidote to the fiery passion that had been building a moment ago. ‘I honestly don’t remember you taking that picture at the Tube station though. We must have been really drunk – or really tired!’
‘Give yourself a break,’ Holly said. ‘You haven’t seen the one of me, yet.’ She passed him the other photo and Charlie had to suppress another grin. ‘You looked very, er, lovely.’
‘Give it a rest,’ Holly murmured. ‘That skirt length was about ten years too old for me and bobs went out in the early nineties, unless you suited a Rachel cut. I was about the most sensible girl in the world. Hence my interest in party politics, I suppose.’
‘Well, I remember you now,’ Charlie said, a husky note in his voice. ‘And, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to make up for lost time. Fifteen years of lost time, in fact. So, will you dance with me, and kiss me again, and maybe allow me to do a little more than just hold your hand?’
Holly smiled. ‘I’d like that. I’d like that very, very much, Lovely Charlie.’
As their lips met again, Charlie felt his defences begin to come down. He spent so much of his life taking steps to be seen to be doing the right thing, saying the right thing, that to be alone, in this room, with Holly now was a feeling so powerful, he felt himself losing his breath. Fifteen years ago, their paths had crossed so briefly that it hadn’t warranted further exploration, even though he’d never really forgotten that night, that girl. Despite not having recognised her again until now, he did have some sense that he’d kept the memory with him. Who knows what would have happened if the two of them hadn’t been those awkward teenagers in that terribly conventional setting, part of a world that was too old for them, wearing clothes that were too old for them. But now, they’d rediscovered each other, and Charlie wanted to seize the moment.