He nodded. “Sure. It was nice.”
“I don’t do stuff like this much. I’m usually a bit of a recluse,” I blurted out.
“I wouldn’t guess that about you.” He was leaning with his back against the wall on the other side of the passage now.
“I am. Usually just stick to myself.”
“So what keeps you company?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe the songs and stories in my head.”
“Sounds lonely,” he said quietly. “You can’t go anywhere, here, without bumping into someone you know. You’re never lonely, here. Even if you wanted to be, you couldn’t be.”
“I’m not lonely . . .” I started saying, and then stopped myself, because suddenly I did feel lonely. Suddenly, after having this evening of laughter and food and drink, I felt like I was already missing it. I imagined myself alone on a Saturday night, watching Netflix and wondering what Mike and Ash and Emelia were doing. “Maybe I was a little lonely, but I didn’t know it,” I said, again without thinking.
Why was I saying all these things to him—these intimate things that made me feel vulnerable and exposed?I didn’t like to feel like this. He looked at me, and that same familiar feeling rose inside, the one that had been rising non-stop since we’d first met.
“Anyway . . .” I said, trying to diffuse the situation, as one does when one feels uncomfortable and throws words likeanywayandsoabout, with no real intention of actually turning them into a sentence at all . . .Shut up!
“Anyway, what?” he asked.
Damn!
“Nothing,” I said.
“Okay.” He nodded and pushed himself off the wall. “Goodnight, then.”
“Goodnight, Mike . . .” And then I said it. I probably shouldn’t have, and maybe it was the red wine . . . “Hey,” I called after him. “Aren’t I still under arrest, or something?”
He turned slowly. I could see he was trying to conceal another smile. “Technically.”
“So . . . shouldn’t you be watching me? Who knows what I might get up to . . . alone?” Whoa! Had I really just said that? I had. I had.
He smiled. “What might you get up to?”
I shrugged playfully. “Well . . . I was thinking of kidnapping a dog, next. Perhaps I might impersonate a human-hair stylist and start giving the good people of Willow Bay perms.”
He laughed. Oh, God—it sounded good. “So, are you saying that, if I don’t watch you tonight, you might get up to something illegal again?”
“Perhaps. I mean, who knows? I am a bit of a criminal mastermind, these days.”
He laughed. “I disagree. You’re perhaps one of the worst criminals I’ve ever met.”
“What?! I am so offended. I’ll have you know that my criminal skills are . . . are . . . are . . .”
“Really shit!” he added, with a massive smile.
I smiled back at him. “Still . . . who knows what will happen tonight, if I’m left alone?” I was flirting. I had no idea whether it was any good, but I was doing it!
He took a step closer. “So, what are you suggesting?”
“That’s up to you, officer,” I said.
He put his hand on the wall behind my head and leaned in. Our eyes met, and I held on to his gaze as tightly as I could, because I didn’t want him to take it away again.
“You know what?” he said slowly.
I shook my head.
