Laurel looked over Lower Houghton and bit her lip.
‘I nearly asked him back to mine last night. I was fully prepared to jump his bones.’
Rebecca squealed. ‘Laurel, you dog! Why didn’t you?’
Laurel pointed to the picture of Anwar hugging the toilet and rolled her eyes. ‘Anwar throwing up is why. One of the girls screeched for Nate and he had to go.’
Rebecca’s brow furrowed in thought and she opened her mouth, obviously thought better of whatever she was going to say, and snapped it shut again.
‘What? I know that look,’ Laurel said.
‘Maybe,’ Rebecca started and then sighed. ‘Laurel, don’t take this the wrong way, but do you think you could just have a one night stand with him?’
The breeze ruffled her hair.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, warily.
Rebecca turned to face her, squinting into the sun.
‘I know you, Laurel Fletcher. I see how you watch him, how you’re awkward and weird around him.’ Rebecca hesitated. ‘You like him, much more than a one night stand.’
Laurel glanced away from Rebecca because once again, her all-seeing, all-knowing best-friend-slash-sister-in-law was right. The last few weeks in the same office, spending last night with him. Yeah, she wanted him for a whole lot longer than one night, and if he didn’t, sharing her office with him would be horrendous.
Rebecca pushed on. ‘What if he doesn’t feel the same? What if you’re just a quick shag for him?’
Laurel looked at her hands, because that would be shit. Sure, they’d probably have a night of wanton, rampant, all-night sex, but how would she feel when he left afterwards? You knew what you were getting with Tinder dates. Thank you for your service, off you pop. Perhaps a second time around the mulberry bush, but perhaps not. No ties, no expectations.
What had Nate said? That he didn’t allow himself to expect things, so why would she be any different?
Rebecca was still talking.
‘I’m just warning you to be careful. I just don’t want you to be hurt.’ Laurel could hear the unspoken words that Rebecca would have to pick up the pieces. That was unfair of her. She would never ask Rebecca to take on her emotional baggage, but that wouldn’t stop her best friend from trying, from being there while she cried into a vat of rice pudding.
Laurel perked up. ‘Did you see him with his t-shirt off?’
Rebecca tipped her head back and laughed at the sky. ‘Yes, I most certainly did!’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell Jack you said that.’ Laurel shouldered her friend lightly.
Rebecca’s eyes darkened a little. ‘Seriously, I love you and I don’t want you to get hurt, okay?’
‘Yeah, I know.’ She was so lucky to have Rebecca. ‘But you have to talk to Jack.’
Rebecca nodded despondently.
Laurel pressed Rebecca’s hands to make her look at her.
‘Then you call me, yeah?’
‘Yeah, I will,’ Rebecca said. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Nate
Nate didn’t spend any time in the office on Monday morning. With Alex visiting, he needed the site to be immaculate. Although Alex was his oldest and best friend, it didn’t mean that he’d get any special treatment, in fact, the complete opposite. He squinted at his costs spreadsheet under the picnic umbrella put up on site and desperately hoped Alex wouldn’t pick up on anything wrong with it. If he did, it would be another week’s delay in processing the funding application for the site tent and other bits he needed, because Alex would make him resubmit the whole thing. It wasn’t that Alex was a jobsworth or a stickler for getting stuff right, it was that he liked to break Nate’s balls. Alex thought taking him down a peg or two was funny.
Paul had sent the information about the Cathar site he was working on, and it looked amazing. A mature dig of a small, long forgotten stronghold, a huddle of burned bones and, wonderfully, some English coins from Simon de Montfort’s ‘crusade’ to wipe out the Cathar religion. Nothing that was earth shattering, history changing, but a nice addition to the well-known canon of Cathar history. And, of course, the beautiful rolling hills and lazy sun of the south of France. It was tempting, especially as autumn and winter were coming up. An archaeological site in England in the winter? Not fun. Nate wondered idly if the university would let him have a secondment for a few months.
