Just Last Night(83)

Time ticks past in the lobby and my edginess increases: is he trying to make an alpha male point by keeping me waiting? When it’s almost half nine, I decide something is up and call his mobile. It rings out. I ask reception to contact him in the room.

“I’m sorry, madam, I’m getting no reply,” says the brightly lipsticked woman in the pussy-bow blouse.

I check my watch. 9.35 a.m. Did I get the time wrong? That still doesn’t explain the lack of response. Did he get a tip on his missing father and rush out at dawn? But why not answer his mobile, if so? Or message me? I conclude there’s nothing left for it but to go up there myself, hammer on the door, and see if he’s fallen asleep or something.

I cross the lobby, catch the lift empty. Seconds later, the doors slide open on the third floor with a ping, and I follow the arrows to the correct section of the rabbit warren of corridors to find 312.

I turn a corner and almost bark out loud at the sight confronting me. Which is Fin Hart, back against the door of his room, naked but for a scrap of towel being held taut across his groin to protect his modesty. The cotton covers the essentials but stops short of his bare hip, making it clear he’s got nothing else on. I realize the rest of the towel is on the other side of the door, leaving Finlay with these half measures.

“Eve!” he shouts and holds up a palm like he’s stopping traffic.

“What on earth?!” I turn my eyes upward and shield them with a hand. “And good morning to you, sir!”

“Someone knocked at the door when I’d got out of the shower, I answered it, there was no one here. I got my towel trapped in the door and it locked shut on me!”

“That’s called knock down ginger,” I say. “Knock down definitely NOT ginger it seems, hahaha.”

“Har fucking har. Please can you get another key card from reception so I can open this bloody door?”

“OK, will do. First, I have something to say, and I’m about to make eye contact—my gaze strictly staying at head level again. Are you ready?”

“Where else would you make eye contact other than at head level, fuck’s sake?”

“Hahaha. Well now you’re asking.”

I risk a glance at Finlay’s furious, blushing face. He must still go to the gym as I’ve not seen a chest like that anywhere except in magazines bought by Justin.

“What was it you want to say?”

“Do you want my coat?” I say, tweaking at the red fur hood.

“No, I do fucking not! Key card, now!” Fin says and I guffaw. The more indignant he gets, the funnier this Carry On and Don’t Try to Glimpse My Willy skit gets.

“If you say so, it was a generous offer. It’d be me landed with the dry-cleaning bill if you rubbed your goolies on it,” I say, hooting as I turn and retreat the way I came.

I snigger all the way down in the lift, across the lobby, and even when I’m asking for another key card, and explaining the contretemps.

“We can send a staff member to open it,” says the lipstick woman, dubious about casually running off spare room key cards.

“I think it had better be me, or he’ll go off on one about his privacy. Seriously, please don’t get me in that much trouble,” I plead.

After a short negotiation where she needs to be reassured that Fin and I checked in together by tapping on keyboards and calling up records, and I’m safe to be given access to his room, she produces an envelope with a card.

I head back up again, still smiling.

“Where did you go for it, fucking Delhi?!” Fin shrieks as I round the corner and I collapse, bent double laughing.

“Stop being angry while naked, it’s too funny, ahahahhaa.” I pass the card to him and Fin snatches it with his free hand.

“This is going to be a dance of the veils, eh,” I say, as I realize Fin’s got to somehow twist around to use the card while staying behind his towel. And when he opens the door, the towel will drop?

“Yes, which is why you’re going to turn around, please,” Fin says.

“We are all naked under our clothes, nothing to be ashamed of.” I mock sigh, while turning my back.

A moment later, I hear a small commotion, swearing, and a female shriek behind me, and turn to see two sixty-something women clutching each other. There’s a fraction of a second’s blur of pink, as an unclothed Fin disappears into the room and the door slams shut behind him.

“That was an unexpected treat!” whoops one of the women. “Better than dress circle seats at Mamma Mia!”

“What a lucky girl you are,” says the other.

WE DRIVE TO Leith in a terse mostly silence with the radio blaring Pulp. It’s a shame it’s “Do You Remember the First Time?” as it immediately feels like discomfiting commentary. Nevertheless I suspect Fin and I are in the kind of atmosphere where anything other than “Hi Ho Silver Lining” would seem loaded with subtext. Probably even that.

We park up and Finlay’s phone points us to his uncle’s old place, a five-minute walk. It’s much smaller than the family home, a simple, boxy but appealing stone two-bed terrace. It reminds me of my house.

I comment on the disparity with the last property.

“Yeah. Remember my grandad’s addictive personality? Uncle Don had it worse, and with less money to squander,” Fin says. “Horses were his thing. Leith’s taken off since he bought here so his house probably shot up in value.”