‘I don’tthinkthey’re going to happen to me,’ Freya says, ‘butwhat if they did?’
‘Then they might make good TV and be broadcast or they might not.’
She smiles at me. ‘Ever rational.’ Weirdly, she sounds almost fond, as though shelikesme.
I kind of like her, I realise. She’s good company; she’snice. And funny.
Yeah, weird. Never judge a book by its cover, I suppose.
15
FREYA
‘Oh my goodness, the relief.’ I open the door to our suite and, as Jake closes it behind him, I flop onto the sofa on the far side of our living room. ‘What a ridiculous day.’
Jake sits down on the sofa too, in the opposite corner, and smiles at me. Weirdly, the smile looks quite fond. Equally (possibly even more) weirdly, he has, I realise, grown on me today, and I feel almost fond of him too. He didn’thaveto get me away from that reptile experience.
‘Do you like reptiles?’ I ask, suddenly aware – now I’ve stopped panicking – that Jake might have been looking forward to seeing them. ‘Sorry; that was really selfish of me. Please feel very free to go back to the tent and listen to the talk if you’d like to?’
‘No, I’m good, thanks. I don’t have any reptile issues and I’m sure it would be moderately interesting, but also I’m totally happy to have a break. It feels like we’re on some kind of school activity trip. This is our actualweekend.’
‘Yep it’s very weird.’ I put my hand over my mouth as I fail to suppress a huge yawn. ‘Sorry. I’m not used to getting up that early or doing assault courses.’ I suddenly realise something. ‘Ohmy goodness. I don’t think I’ve thanked you for saving me from the reptiles. I’m very, very grateful. Thank you.’
‘I love the way you say “saving me from the reptiles”, like we’re characters in a kids’ cartoon being pursued by giant mutant toads. But honestly, it was nothing.’
‘That sounds like a great premise for a book,’ I tell him.
‘Have you ever written in any other genre?’ he asks.
I think about the two thrillers I’ve had published under a very secret pseudonym, and remember that really we barely know each other and that only a few hours ago I still thoroughly disliked him, so I say, with great vagueness, ‘A bit.’
For all I know, he has something massively against thriller writers too.
More importantly, I don’t want anyone to know about the thriller-writing, because not all readers appreciate authors writing in more than one genre, so I’ve told almost no-one about it. Jake is definitely not someone I trust enough to confide in about that.
‘Oh really?’ he pursues. ‘Which genres?’
‘Just… you know… lots of authors dabble in different things until they settle on their preferred genre. It would be a lot of fun to write kids’ books, but obviously completely different. Very different lengths and so on. What wouldyouwrite if you wrote a book?’
He looks at me for a long moment, as though he knows that I was babbling because I have something to hide, and then says, ‘I don’t think I’d be a good writer. I kind of think it’s offensive that everyone says, “Oh, yeah, I couldtotallywrite a book, I just need an idea and I’d be away.” I think it’s much harder than people think. But if Icouldwriteandhad an idea, both of which are very questionable, I’d go for a legal thriller I think.’
‘Busman’s holiday,’ I comment.
‘Yeah. Although if I’m honest my day job isn’t that thrilling that often…’
I laugh and then we’re interrupted by a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ we call as one.
We’re asked (instructed) to go and do our baking.
‘We’ll be there in five minutes,’ Jake tells the man, forestalling me; I was about to leap to my feet and pathetically do exactly as I was told.
We both spend those five minutes freshening up (aka in my case lying face down on my bed for four and a half minutes fighting sleep; and probably in Jake’s case just being cool, because he’s always cool), before wandering over to the kitchen tent together.
We chat the whole way, about nothing really, like you would with a friend.
Obviously wearen’tfriends, but also Jake – when not being a total arse – is kind of okay. Well, he’s actually really good company.
