‘Exactly.’
‘Okay, yes, let’s do it. Let’s sightsee. What’s this building?’ She points and I grab my phone to check before doing my best impression of a tour guide as I yabber on about thepiazzaswe pass through.
We wander around the city for a good hour, until Emma, yawning, says, ‘I’mreallytired and I’m going to make you very smug about your own rightness and tell you that I’m wondering what I was thinking wearing flip-flops this evening because clearly they aren’t the best sightseeing footwear.’
‘Back to the hotel?’ My watch tells me that it’s after midnight now.
Emma nods. She actually looks as though she’s going to fall asleep standing up; her eyes are closing every so often and then pinging wide open.
‘Want a piggyback?’ I suggest, barely joking.
‘Ha,’ she says. ‘A very tempting offer, but no thanks.’
She does, though, accept the arm that I can’t help myself holding out to her. And off we go.
Our rooms are on the same floor in the hotel, at diagonally opposite ends of a rectangular landing around a staircase.
I walk her to her door, because it would be weird not to, and then say, ‘You need to sleep. I can’t have my driver nodding off on the motorway.’
She nods – sleepily – and then smiles up at me.
And I – because I am apparently the most stupid man ever born – lose my mind and lean down towards her.
We stay like that for a few long moments, kind of hovering in front of each other, and then, with great care (and great stupidity), I cup her face in my hands again and lean further forwards and brush her lips with mine. It’s the lightest of touches and yet I immediately feel as though I’m drowning – in lust, inlove, in something, I’m not quite sure what – and I kiss her again, a little more firmly this time.
She kisses me back and it’s the most wonderful – and stupid – kiss of my life. I’m aware, even as I keep on kissing her, pushing my fingers through her hair with one hand and hugging her body into me with the other, as she threads her arms around my neck, that it’sinsane.
And then, thankfully – because I’m not sure whether I’d have summoned the strength of mind myself – she pulls back a little, and so I pull back too.
We just stare at each other. Her eyes are glazed and her mouth is slightly open, in an O shape, like she’s surprised. I imagine that my eyes are glazed too.
‘We should really both go to sleep,’ she whispers.
‘We should,’ I agree, and then finally I drag some common sense from somewhere deep inside me and say, ‘Goodnight,’ as definitively as I can.
I take a step back and watch her as she goes into her room and closes the door, with a final just-for-mebeautifullittle smile, and then I walk around the landing to my own room, wondering whether I should just smack my head hard on the wall next to me, becausewhatwas that?
My luxury bedroom does have a particularly luxurious bed, which I am deeply grateful for, and – as it turns out – it was very fortunate that I had such a poor night’s sleep the night before: when I wake in the morning I realise that I went to sleep a lot more easily than I would have expected given how much I had to think about.
The second I get into the shower I’m thinking again though.
I really, really can’t decide whether it’s for the best or not to tell Emma about Thea. And maybe Thea about Emma too. I’m beginning to think it isn’t. It would probably just upset Emma and confuse Thea. And if Emma and I aren’t going to see each other again, neither of them actually need to know about the other.
I fuckingkissedEmma. Why, why, why?
Might she and I actually stay in touch? I don’t think so. I don’t think that would benefit either of us. I know that I couldn’t bear to see her in a relationship with someone else and I shouldn’t want to have a relationship with her myself so…
Yeah, I need to get out of the shower and stop thinking.
I message Emma when I’m dressed and we agree to meet in ten minutes’ time in the breakfast room.
I spend those ten minutes reading emails to avoid any more of the circular thought torture.
I’m already seated for breakfast when Emma arrives.
I obviously did know that she was coming and yet my heart does a little leap when she actually shows up, and I feel my lips spreading into a wide eager-puppy-style smile.
I stand up and we exchange ‘good mornings’.
