Another ten minutes later I have established that Callum was again completely right. Given the constraint of having to get anywhere we go on foot, we both have two options. Camp in or out of the van, or go to the one hotel there is within five kilometres.
I have also established something beyond ridiculous, like fate istryingto set us up in true clichéd rom-com style.
I decide to tackle it head-on.
‘There’s only one room in the one hotel,’ I say.
‘Yup.’
We are not sharing it. Obviously.
‘So you’re soaking wet and you have no towel so you should take the room,’ I tell him.
‘While you…?’
‘I’ll stay here.’ I try not to gulp as Samira’s doom-laden warnings come back to me. It’s all nonsense. I’ll be fine if I stay in the van and lock the doors. Oh, God, what if the murderers havetools? It’s definitely easy to break into the van; I’ve done it myself twice (with a bit of help) when I’ve locked the keys inside. Okay, no, that’s an easy problem to solve: I’ll stay awake all night. No, but then I might go to sleep at the wheel tomorrow. OhGod.
‘This is a tricky one.’ Callum frowns a little under his drying curly hair. Ridiculously, the frown somehow just makes himlook even more gorgeous. It kind of adds a moody edge to the handsomeness. ‘I don’t want to be sexist and I obviously have no right whatsoever to dictate to you. But I would be very worried about you if you stayed here alone. So it looks like if you insist on staying here I’ll have to stay here too.’
I stare at him in horror. A whole twenty-four hours or more just the two of us in the van? No.
‘Outside the van, I mean,’ he says, hurriedly. ‘You in, me out.’
‘Well, we can’t do that,’ I say. ‘You’re wet and you’d freeze or go mouldy overnight and I mean just obviously not.’
‘So you have to come to the hotel.’
I stare at him in more horror.
Then I decide just to say it.
‘But we can’t share a room.’
‘No,’ he agrees. Thankfully. ‘I’m thinking we go to the hotel and we explain and there’s bound to be a communal area where I can sleep and just use the bathroom in the room. If that’s alright. When you aren’t there.’
‘But that would be very uncomfortable. No one likes sleeping in a chair.’
‘You have to drive tomorrow and I don’t.’ He smiles like he’s just played a huge trump card, and to be fair, he has. ‘I can snooze on the journey.’
I’d be quite happy if he snoozed, actually. People can’t talk or be sarcastic while they’re snoozing.
‘Maybe, then,’ I concede.
‘Shall we phone back to confirm our booking and then get going now?’
‘Okay.’
‘Let me pay?’ Callum holds out his hand for the phone.
‘No, no, my treat,’ I say.Treatis not the right word. ‘I’m the one who stupidly did not have working windscreen wipers.’
‘I mean, youarethe one who stupidly did not have working windscreen wipersbutyou are also doing me a huge favour.’ The expression on Callum’s face does not indicate that he’s currently receiving a huge favour; he actually looks like he’s just discovered that he’s trodden in something quite grim. ‘And I would very much like to pay.’
‘Half each?’ I suggest. I don’t like the whole being paid for by a man thing.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Callum slightly snaps. ‘Without you I’d be completely stuck in Rome. As it is I at least have thepossibilityof getting back to London sometime this week.’
‘Okay, er, thank you,’ I say eventually.
