I know. I could hear your brain whirring.
‘We could both keep lying here pretending not to be wide awake, or we could give up and do something less stressful instead. That way, one of us might actually end up getting some sleep tonight.’
Daniel’s voice was soft and deep in the darkness. Twisting my head slightly, I could just about make out the outline of his face, looking up at the ceiling. My heart thumped faster beneath the bra, T-shirt and jumper I’d worn, in a vain hope that increasing the layers between us would somehow lessen the impact of being in such close proximity.
He turned to look at me, expression swathed in shadow, and every inch of my flesh broke out in goosebumps.
I couldn’t breathe.
‘Or you keep pretending and I’ll carry on wittering until I’ve bored both of us unconscious? Okay, I can roll with that.’
I couldn’t imagine anything I’d rather do right then than lie here and listen to Daniel’s gentle murmurs through the dark. Except, perhaps, wriggle close enough to feel the warmth of his breath, lean forwards and…
‘Gnnnnnn!’ Our roommate let out an anguished groan before inhaling her lungs to maximum capacity and letting rip with precisely how she felt about waking up in the middle of the night in a strange cot, with a strange blanket, strange potpourri smells and strange shadows dancing on the walls.
There was an ungainly scramble while I tried to tuck myself out of the way so that Daniel, on the side furthest from the cot, could clamber over to grab Hope before the entire B & B were jolted awake in a manner that definitely went against Tufted Duck policy.
An age later, she still hadn’t settled. Every time she dozed off, and Daniel placed her back in the cot, she woke up, squawking in outrage.
‘Okay, so there is something else I can try,’ he whispered, after she’d nodded against his shoulder for the fourth time.
‘I could squeeze into the cot, and she could have my space in the bed?’ I suggested, only half joking.
‘If I tuck something that smells of me in there, that usually settles her.’
Good plan. I could imagine the gloriously sweet dreams I’d have surrounded by Daniel’s reassuring scent.
‘The only trouble is, if I put my T-shirt from today in her cot, and then wear another one now, I won’t have a clean one for tomorrow.’
I squinted through the shadows, my brain failing to decipher his point.
He shrugged awkwardly. ‘I’m asking if you mind me sleeping without a T-shirt.’
Okay, sonowI couldn’t breathe.
I grabbed my phone and skedaddled out of there.
24
Grabbing my phone wasn’t some automatic millennial addictive response. I needed to set an alarm to ensure I got up before my parents, which on a Tuesday morning in March would be somewhere around five-thirty. After all, the Weighbridge Walkers would be setting off with the sunrise, and a whole lot of eggs needed cracking and sausages needed sizzling before then.
Unfortunately, due to my disturbed emotional state when setting my alarm before collapsing on the biggest sofa in the lounge room, I failed to actually switch the alarm on.
Fortunately, Grandma was up, about and on the prowl well before her son, and while being woken up to find her wrinkled, bloodshot eyes an inch from my own was not the best start to the day, it beat a poke with an umbrella or a lecture from my mother, so I forgave her even before she’d made me a coffee.
By the time my parents emerged, I was showered, changed and already sprinkling the first pot of porridge with cinnamon and brown sugar.
Daniel and Hope arrived towards the end of the breakfast sitting. I left my apron in the kitchen and went to join them with a platter of eggs, smoked salmon and home-grown tomato salsa.
Daniel busied himself loading up his plate and making sure Hope had her toast under control before squinting at me. ‘I’m so sorry about last night. If it makes you feel any better, I spent several hours reflecting on my disgustingly creepy, white male privileged behaviour and putting strategies in place to ensure it never happens again.’
I sat back in surprise. For someone so attuned to, well, everything, Daniel had seriously misread the situation.
‘I also kept my T-shirt on.’
I ducked my head, sure that my cheeks must be on the brink of bursting into flames.
Daniel lowered his voice even further. ‘I really am sorry. I honestly meant nothing by it beyond trying to get Hope to settle and keeping a clean T-shirt so I didn’t stink in front of your family.’
