The Road Trip(20)

Kevin carefully sets Marcus’s suitcase down. Rodney stretches a hand out; it takes Kevin a moment to realise he’s asking for a high-five. Rodney’s delighted expression when their palms clap suggests that Rodney is accustomed to people leaving him hanging.

‘You lot are a right laugh,’ Kevin says, bouncing on his toes, seemingly energised by all the bicep-curling.

‘Really? Even Rodney?’ Marcus says, brushing himself down as he stands. ‘Kevin, you need to broaden your horizons. You know I once met a woman who could fellate her own toes? Now she was fun.’

‘Gosh,’ says Rodney, as Kevin roars with laughter and slaps Marcus on the back.

Deb spots us and waves, then removes her breast pump; it’s only my extremely quick thinking that saves me from the sight of Addie’s sister’s nipple.

‘If you lot want anything else to eat or drink, it’s not a long walk to Tesco from here,’ Kevin says, and there’s a huskiness to his tone that makes me wonder if he might have seen rather more of Deb’s breast than I did.

Deb pushes herself to standing. ‘Why don’t you show me?’ she says briskly to Kevin.

‘Called it,’ Addie says.

‘What? You don’t mean – they’re not going to have sex on the way to Tesco, are they?’

‘You really have changed,’ Addie says dryly, then her cheeks flare as she registers what she’s said. She’s right to blush – I’m gone the moment she says it, thinking of all the nights we couldn’t wait until we got home, sex against walls, in the backs of cars, on the dry chalky soil of the vineyard next to Villa Cerise . . .

‘Off to the shops!’ Kevin says, with a cheery wave. His broad grin looks more like a grimace – I get the impression he’s not especially accustomed to smiling. Looking at Kevin is proving very helpful with the sexual thoughts, so I watch him make his way up the bank and try to concentrate on his grisly balding head.

It doesn’t work. All I can think about is Addie’s soft, curved hip, Addie’s bare thighs, Addie’s long dark hair splayed across my chest as she presses her lips to the band of my boxers. It seems almost unbelievable now that holding her body against mine wasn’t always a fantasy – that once upon a time I could reach out and touch her.





THEN





Addie

Can’t the girl find us another bottle of vino? She’ll have a naughty secret stash somewhere, I’ll bet.

The girl. The girl. There’s been plenty of knobbish visitors in the last six weeks at Villa Cerise, but Dylan’s uncle Terry is getting under my skin like none of the others have. Him and Dylan have been up on the terrace ever since we got back from La Roque-Alric – I’ve been getting on with jobs down here and in the house, but I can still hear them. Terry’s the ‘fun guy’ of the boys you’d see at a pub quiz machine. The one who never gets laid but talks like he’s screwed every girl in the bar. That guy, but twenty years on. Still ‘fun’, still not getting any.

I frown at my reflection in the mirror on the living-room wall of the flat. That was bitchy. I’m better than that. I just . . . need to take a breather.

I examine myself more closely. The mirror’s a bit convex – or maybe the other one, concave. Anyway, it makes my nose look tiny and my eyes buglike and huge. I turn my head a little to and fro, wondering what Dylan sees. Whether he’ll still see it tomorrow.

I’ve always felt like I have a forgettable sort of face. Deb has these beautiful thick eyebrows that she’s never plucked – they make her face look iconic, like she’s a model. My eyebrows just look like . . . I don’t know. I can’t even think of anything to say about them.

Ugh. I look away from the mirror and reach for the bottle of wine I just fetched from mine and Deb’s ‘naughty secret stash’ – because, as irritating as it is to prove Terry right, we totally have one. My heart thumps too fast as I make my way up to the terrace. It’s ridiculous, the way my body reacts to Dylan. I’ve not fancied anyone like this for ages.

‘Here you go!’ I say as I approach them.

My mood improves a bit at Dylan’s expression – that cool, practised stare he was doing earlier has gone, and he’s sort of gazing, as if he’s longing for me, as if he wants to undress me slowly. My stomach tightens. I kind of assumed that Terry arriving would put an end to the staring. Like having an extra onlooker would make Dylan realise, Oh, she’s not that special after all.

‘Good girl,’ says Terry, reaching for the bottle. ‘I knew I liked you.’

I give a tinkling laugh that sounds nothing like my real one. ‘Anything else I can get you?’

‘Won’t you join us?’ Terry asks, pointing to an empty chair. ‘It must get lonely down there in the bowels of the building . . .’

Dylan frowns, shifting in his seat. He doesn’t have to worry. I’m not about to sit through an evening of family banter with pervy Uncle Terry.

‘I think I’ll just go to bed, actually,’ I say. ‘Long day.’

They let me go with minimal protest, and when I close the door to the flat behind me, I lean against it, eyes closed. I remember that look of Dylan’s. The longing look. My breath catches.

I try to go to bed – I’ve been so low on sleep all summer – but I’m too restless. It’s so hot. I kick one leg out from under the sheet, then the other, then give up on it altogether and leave it crumpled in the bottom corner of the bed.