The Road Trip(36)

There’s something in my throat.

I cough but it stays there, and it’s hard to breathe, I can feel it sitting there right in the top of my throat. Whatever it is feels enormous, like a golf ball, and my breath’s coming too fast. I’m starting to panic.

Someone hits me on the back, right between my shoulder blades. Hard. A small lump goes flying out of my mouth and I can breathe again. I double over, gasping for air. I retch and taste acid in my throat. My neck hurts again, a nasty hot pain like when you twist it the wrong way too fast.

‘All right now?’

I straighten slowly and turn. It’s Marcus. He’s looking at me properly, as if he’s actually trying to see me – so far today he’s looked at me like he’s really trying not to.

It was him who slapped me on the back. I don’t know how he got over here so fast. Dylan and Rodney are coming but they’re still a good few seconds behind him.

‘Fine,’ I croak.

Marcus is frowning. His eyes move over my face. The feel of his gaze on me is suddenly so familiar, and I flush, remembering how he used to look at me, once.

‘Addie, are you all right?’ Dylan says, appearing behind Marcus with Rodney in tow.

I swallow and wipe my eyes. I can still feel where it was, that lump in my throat.

‘All fine, just a bit of bacon rind.’

Marcus has backed off now, but I know his eyes are tracking me. I look at Dylan – he’s glancing at Marcus, but he turns back when he feels my gaze, and as he meets my eyes his expression is so tender. It makes my heart ache. He shouldn’t be looking at me like that, not now.

The sun beats down. Marcus watches me, I watch Dylan, Dylan keeps his eyes on both of us.

There’s a plop, and suddenly everyone’s gaze turns down, following the sound. Rodney has just dropped the whole fried egg out of the end of his butty. It lies there, flaccid and pale, right next to the lump of bacon rind I just spat out.

‘I’d imagined this road trip being a bit more glamorous than it’s turning out to be,’ Deb says to me after a moment. ‘Hadn’t you?’

‘Careful, Rodders,’ Marcus says, nodding to Rodney’s butty. ‘You’re about to lose the bacon, too.’





THEN





Dylan

I wake the next morning to a crushing headache and a tall blonde straddling me, one hand firmly gripping my face. If it weren’t for the headache and the fact that the blonde is extremely familiar, I would assume this were a particularly exciting dream, but alas, it’s just Cherry.

‘Oof,’ I say, pushing her off me. ‘What are you doing, woman?’

‘Just finishing up!’ she says. ‘There!’

She has a pen in her other hand – an ominous sign. I wipe the back of my hand across my face and it remains clean, which is even more alarming, since it indicates permanent marker.

‘What have you done to me? And why are you even here?’

‘Everyone’s here!’ Cherry says, hopping off me.

‘What do you mean, everyone?’ I sit up, rubbing my eyes.

Cherry, true to form, is bounding about my suite like a puppy exploring new terrain, which feels particularly ridiculous given that this villa not only belongs to her parents but is in fact named in her honour.

‘Marcus messaged yesterday saying you were holed up here on your own with my Addie!’ Cherry says, blonde ponytail flicking as she disappears into the bathroom. ‘Why didn’t you tell me! I am such a fan of you and her as a couple, I predict huge things, huge – wow, that’s a lot of condoms, Dyl! Ambitious much?’

I shove back the covers and climb out of bed, following Cherry into the bathroom and steering her away from where she’s rifling through my toiletries.

‘Boundaries,’ I say. ‘Remember we talked about those?’

The door to my bedroom bursts open before she can respond. In they all tumble: my brother, Luke; his boyfriend, Javier, with Marcus riding piggyback on his back; plus Marta and Connie, two of the girls from our third-year house at university. And Grace.

I’m only wearing my boxers, but that doesn’t stop them all piling into me; I manage to stagger back so that when we fall, we land on a chaise longue in a tangle of limbs. Connie kisses one of my eyes – I think she’s aiming for my forehead; Luke ruffles my hair like Dad used to do when he was in a good mood; Marcus grins down at me, his face no more than an inch from mine. Cherry has given him the artistic treatment too: one of his eyes has been covered with a drawn-on eyepatch, like a pirate, and he is sporting a very detailed goatee.

‘Morning,’ he says. ‘I thought things were getting boring. Didn’t you?’

‘We’re going hiking, Dyl,’ Cherry calls, disappearing out of the bedroom door. ‘I’m getting Addie!’

‘Wait!’ I yell, but she’s already gone, and there are far too many exuberant bodies piled above for me to follow her. ‘Shit,’ I say. ‘Marcus . . .’

‘You didn’t think to tell me you were going on the family holiday solo?’ my brother says, heaving himself off me and settling on the floor, arms loosely braced on his knees. He lifts his eyebrows enquiringly as Javier collapses down beside him, his waist-length hair falling across Luke’s arm as he tips his head on to my brother’s shoulder.