I pull a disbelieving face, spreading my arms out. “Hello? You literally just yelled at me about it being only a little bit cold.”
“I wasn’t yelling at you about it being cold. Why would I yell at you about that? It’s not your fault, is it?”
He seems genuinely nonplussed. I stare back at him in silence, trying to figure him out.
“Sorry, is this a queue for the toilet?” says a small man in chinos, bobbing up at the top of the stairs.
I wave him through. “So you were just . . . yelling?”
“This is frustrating,” Lucas says, looking back at his phone to refresh the page. “I want to be back at the hotel. And I hate . . . this situation. I’m not frustrated with you.”
“Right.” I pause, fiddling with my necklace. “Actually, no. I don’t think that’s OK.”
He blinks at me, taking this in.
“You didn’t need to raise your voice,” I say. We’re in new territory here—I’ve never called him out on this before, but as I say it, I realise how much it pisses me off. He does it all the time at the hotel. I wonder how often our arguments start because he raises his voice and that in itself just winds me up. “I’m frustrated, too. I’m not yelling.”
“You’re just saying unkind things instead,” he says. “Is that any better?”
“Excuse me?” I’m genuinely staggered by this. I have been called many things over the years—weird, stupid, ditzy—but I’ve never been called unkind.
“I am incapable of fun, you said.”
“Oh, I . . .” I did say that. I guess when it comes to Lucas, I’ve always just given him shit like that, and he gives it right back to me, so it never occurred to me that it was unkind. I can feel my cheeks getting pink. I press the backs of my hands to my warm skin. “I thought . . . That’s just sort of . . . what we say to each other. It’s kind of . . . jokey.”
“Is it?” Lucas resumes pacing. “Neither of us seems to laugh very much.”
I don’t know what to say. I feel quite ashamed of myself.
“You two OK?” Shannon calls up the stairs. “Our flight’s delayed, so everyone is heading home for tonight—can you get back all right?”
We glance at each other.
“I’m sure we’ll be fine!” I call. “Trains are a bit ropey, but we’ll get there.”
“Great,” Shannon says, sounding relieved. “I’d offer you our spare room, but a few friends who live further away need somewhere to crash, so . . .”
“We’ll get going, then,” I say, looking at the trains on Lucas’s phone screen. Another one cancelled. Yellow exclamation marks in triangles everywhere. “Thanks so much for having us, Shannon!”
“Safe travels!” she calls, heels already clip-clopping back to the kitchen again.
If this were a Christmas movie, she’d have put us up in her spare room, and we’d have stayed up all night talking. It would have been cosy and gorgeous. But it’s not a Christmas movie, and so Lucas and I end up sitting outside WHSmith at Waterloo, staring morosely at the departure boards, still stewing from our latest argument.
Back there under Shannon’s chandelier, I’d come so close to kissing him. He’s infuriating and short-tempered and there are a hundred things I don’t like about him, but I can’t deny that I’m almost painfully attracted to him. I kept thinking of Sameera and Grigg saying there’s no harm in having a fling with him—nobody can get hurt if you don’t even like each other.
But is it normal to want to have sex with someone you hate? Is that something I need to look at? I did a few years of therapy after my parents died, and I learned enough about healthy thoughts to suspect this is a topic my old therapist would probably have wanted to discuss.
I glance at Lucas. He is eating a sandwich angrily, which I didn’t know was possible, but he’s really managing with aplomb. I roll my eyes. He’s so dramatic. So broody and moody and rude.
And he thinks I’m unkind. I press my hand to the base of my ribs as the thought hits, accompanied by a quick flash of shame. My parents used to have a sign dangling above the oven in our kitchen that said No act of kindness is ever wasted—it was important to them that whatever else I became in life, I’d always be kind, and I’m suddenly terrified that I’ve let them down. The thought takes the wind out of me.
“There! Platform seven!” Lucas yells, exploding up from his seat.
His sandwich packaging goes flying as we race each other to the snow-topped train. He’s a fast runner, but I’m craftier—by the time I jump on, he’s still floundering around between two tourists and their luggage.
“Ha!” I say, sticking my tongue out as he eventually hops through the door, breathing hard.
I’m expecting a comeback about how infantile I’m being, but when he looks at me, for a moment his face is unguarded. He’s smiling.
“What?” I say, suspicious.
His smile smooths away. “Nothing,” he says, moving past me, angling—of course—for the only available seat.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
Mrs. SB texts an update when we get to woking.
I’ve given Mrs. Rogers no. 1 our spare room in Opal Cottage for the night, and invited Mr. Graham Rogers and Mrs. Rogers no. 2 here for brunch and a civil conversation in the morning. Amazing what the promise of a free meal can do.
The message ends with a thumbs-up. Mrs. SB only ever uses a thumbs-up without irony, so she must be calmer than she was when Ollie called. Still, I feel awful for causing her all this trouble. It’s the last thing she needs right now—and even though she was super nice about us both being off on this trip, I do feel very guilty for leaving the hotel on a job that really only needed one of us.
Woking station is packed with pissed-off travellers, all alternating between staring at phones and departure screens. It’s too cold; my nose hurts. I just want to go home and crawl into my bed.
“Replacement bus service cancelled,” Lucas growls, not looking up from his phone. He mutters something in Portuguese, and then says, “What do we do now?”
I’m surprised he’s asking me. Lucas usually likes to plough on, making his own decisions and expecting me to trot along after him.
“Cab?” I say, already wincing.
“I can’t,” Lucas says, and there’s real anguish in his voice at the very thought of it.
I get it—I’m not rolling in it, either, and a taxi from here would cost us at least ?200. I get my phone out and hit up Google. A cheap hotel right by the station has rooms available for ?40. I doubt they’ll stay at that price for long—other people will have the same idea as me soon enough.
“Look, it sounds like everyone’s fine at Forest Manor now, and we can’t afford a cab, so . . .” I hold out the screen to him.
He stares at it for a moment. His eyes flick up to mine.
“We can get two rooms,” I say quickly. “If you want.”
“I would rather . . . Well, it’s up to you,” he says.
“One’s fine for me. I’ll just sleep on the floor.”
He looks irritated. “I will sleep on the floor.”
“I don’t know if there’ll be enough floor for you,” I say, nodding at the size of him.
His lip lifts ever so slightly. “Book it,” he says decisively. “Before it’s too late. I’ll transfer you my share now.”
He’s already back on his phone when I open my mouth to say don’t worry, it can wait. I swallow it back. I know Lucas is skint, but he’s also very proud.
“Thanks,” I say instead.
A few clicks later, and it’s done. Unbelievably, incomprehensibly, I am about to spend the night in a hotel room with Lucas da Silva.
* * *
? ? ? ? ?
The first thing that strikes me about the room is that nobody will be able to sleep on the floor in here. Every spare inch is taken up with a desk, a chair, side tables for the bed, and a footstool that’s way too big for the space. Plus that ridiculous thing they put out for your luggage, like a small hammock for your suitcase. Who uses those, and why?