Mr Nicholls walked over and pushed. It gave the tiniest amount. ‘It’s not locked,’ he said, working the handle. ‘There’s something blocking it.’
She squatted down, trying to see, and Mr Nicholls turned on the landing light. Through the two inches of door space, she could just make out Norman’s bulk on the other side of the door. He was lying on the mattress, his huge back to her.
‘Norman,’ she hissed. ‘Move.’
Nothing.
‘Norman.’
‘If I push, he’ll have to wake up, right?’ Mr Nicholls began leaning on the door. He rested his full weight on it. Then he pushed. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said.
Jess shook her head. ‘You don’t know my dog.’
He let go of the handle and the door shut with a gentle click. They stared at each other.
‘Well …’ he said finally. ‘There are two beds in here. It’ll be fine.’
She grimaced. ‘Um. Norman is sleeping on the other single. I moved the mattress in there earlier.’
He looked at her wearily then. ‘Knock on the door?’
‘Tanzie is stressed. I can’t run the risk of waking her. It’s fine. I’ll … I’ll … just sleep on the chair.’
Jess headed down to the bathroom before he could contradict her. She washed and brushed her teeth, gazing at her alcohol-flushed skin in the plastic-framed mirror and trying to stop her thoughts chasing themselves in circles.
When she arrived back at the room, Mr Nicholls was holding up one of his dark grey T-shirts. ‘Here,’ he said, and threw it at her as he walked past to the bathroom. Jess changed into it, trying to ignore the vague eroticism of its clean male smell, pulled the spare blanket and a pillow out of the wardrobe and curled up in the chair, struggling to bring her knees up to a position that made it comfortable. It was going to be a long night.
Some minutes later, Mr Nicholls opened the door and turned off the overhead light. He was wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of dark blue boxers. She saw that his legs bore the long, visible muscles of someone who does no-excuses exercise. She knew immediately how they would feel against her own. The thought made her mouth go dry.
The little bed sagged audibly as he climbed in.
‘Are you comfortable like that?’ He looked at her over the lavender-coloured bedspread.
‘Totally fine!’ she said brightly. ‘You?’
‘If one of these springs impales me while I sleep, you have my permission to take the car the rest of the way.’
He gazed at her across the room for a moment longer, then turned out the bedside light.
The darkness was total. Outside, a faint breeze moaned through unseen gaps in the stone, trees rustled and a car door slammed, its engine roaring a protest. In the next room, Norman whined in his sleep, the sound only partially muffled by the thin plasterboard wall. Jess could hear Mr Nicholls breathing, and although she had spent the previous night only inches from him, she was acutely conscious of his presence in a way she hadn’t been twenty-four hours earlier. She thought of the way he had made Nicky smile, of the way his fingers rested on a steering-wheel. She thought of him slumped on the dry stone wall, his head in his hands, as he talked about what he had lost, the hurt and anger etched deep on his face.
She thought about some expression she had heard Nicky use a few weeks ago – YOLO – You only live once – and remembered how she had told him she thought it was just an excuse idiots used for doing pretty much anything they felt like doing, no matter what the consequences.
She thought about Liam, and how she knew in her gut that he was probably having sex with someone right this minute – that ginger barmaid from the Blue Parrot, maybe, or the Dutch girl who drove the flower van. She thought about a conversation she’d had with Chelsea when Chelsea had told her she should lie about her kids because no man would ever fall in love with a single mother of two, and how Jess had got angry with her because deep down she knew she was probably right.
She thought about the fact that even if Mr Nicholls didn’t go to prison, she would probably never see him again after this trip.
And then, before she could think too hard about anything else, Jess eased herself silently out of the chair, letting the blanket fall to the floor. It took only four steps to reach the bed, and she hesitated, her bare toes curled in the acrylic carpet, even then not quite sure what she was doing. You only live once. And then in the near-total dark there was a faint movement and she saw Mr Nicholls turn to face her as she lifted the duvet and climbed in.
Jess was chest to chest against him, her cool legs against his warm ones. There was nowhere else to go in this tiny bed, with the sag of the mattress pushing them closer together and its edge like a cliff-drop just inches behind her. They were so close that she could breathe in the remnants of his aftershave, his toothpaste. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest, as her heart thumped erratically against his. She tilted her head a little, trying to read him. He put his right arm across the duvet, a surprisingly heavy weight, gathering her in closer to him. With his other, he took her hand and enclosed it slowly in his. It was dry and soft, and inches from her mouth. She wanted to lower her face to his knuckles and trace her lips along them. She wanted to reach her mouth up to his, and run her teeth gently along the soft curve of his upper lip.
You only live once.
She lay there in the dark, paralysed by her own longing, by the fact that just this once she did not know the answer, or even the question.
‘Do you want to have sex with me?’ she said, into the darkness.
There was a long silence.
‘Did you hear what –’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And … no.’ He spoke again before she could turn completely to stone. ‘I just think it would make things too complicated.’
‘It’s not complicated. We’re both young, lonely, a bit pissed. And after tonight we’re never going to see each other again.’
‘How so?’
‘You’ll go back to London and lead your big city life, and I’ll be down on the coast leading mine. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.’
He was silent for a minute. ‘Jess … I don’t think so.’
‘You don’t fancy me.’ She prickled with embarrassment, remembering suddenly what he’d said about his ex. Lara was a model, for Chrissakes. But even as she shifted away from him, his hand tightened around hers. His voice was a murmur in her ear. ‘You’re beautiful.’