“I’ll come and fetch him with you,” Mark muttered.
“Oh, thanks,” I smiled at him appreciatively, “but I do have a car now.”
He shook his head. “I’d like to come and see how he’s doing anyway.”
My smile grew. He was nice. A nice guy. Only a nice guy would come here in the middle of the night to comfort a total stranger who had almost ruined his movie night with a shit show, so to speak.
I gave Harun’s paw a big squeeze and then stood up and eyeballed Samirah. “Take care of him tonight! Please.”
She nodded. “I’ll look after him as if he was my own,” she said, and I believed her. And then she turned to Mark. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to give Frankie a lift back to her hotel?”
“I can walk,” I said quickly. “It’s literally a few feet away.”
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but there seems to be a jackal on the loose. Perhaps it’s safer if Mark drives you.”
I smiled. I slowly raised my eyes to Mark’s. He was also smiling at me. We locked eyes and our smiles grew and then my cheeks felt like they were heating up. I put my cool hands to them and looked away, a strange feeling roiling in my stomach.
“I should defo give you a lift, what with the jackal on the prowl and all,” Mark said, and I could hear he was fighting back laughter in his voice.
“Defo?” I asked, feeling amused.
“Sorry, my Australian need to abbreviate coming out.”
“He usually tries to keep it hidden until he gets to know someone,” Samirah added.
“Really?” I felt somewhat touched by this.
“And then it’s all brekkie and footie and Chrissie!” she teased.
Mark laughed. “Let’s get out of here, before she makes me look like a total fool.” I got the feeling from this interaction that Samirah and Mark knew each other well. I started walking out when something caught my eye.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at it.
Samirah walked up behind me and sighed. “I need an assistant. It’s getting too hard to work being this pregnant. And I’m sure I’ll need some extra help when the babies arrive too. I was planning on sticking it up in the town hall.”
“Oh.” I looked at the poster for a moment. “Good luck. Hope you find a good person.”
CHAPTER 26
We pulled up to my hotel, after what was a literal thirty-second drive. But for some reason I didn’t want to get out the car. I was agitated and I didn’t know why. I’d been feeling so relieved a few moments ago, and now I wasn’t. I shuffled about in my seat a little and then, without thinking, reached into my bag to grab my phone, only to realize that it wasn’t there. This made me feel even more agitated.
I caught Mark looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I turned and our eyes locked. I took the opportunity to study them for a while. He was wearing his glasses again. His eyes were brown, nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary and yet . . .yet?
Something familiar about them I couldn’t place. Maybe he was right, he had one of those faces. A generic, nice-guy face with generic, friendly brown eyes. He wasn’t the kind of guy you would find on Tinder posing at the gym with his pecs or sending you dick pics.
“Weird not being able to use a phone?” His question caught me off guard.
I nodded. “It is. More than weird. It’s . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence, because I didn’t really have the words to describe this feeling of not having it. And especially at a time like this. I would usually have told everyone about my dog’s surgery and everyone would have reached out with good wishes and praying hand emojis and emojis with tears. That would have made me feel better . . .I think?
“Do you know why there is no reception in this town?” he asked, as if he could hear my thoughts.
“Some satellite looking at space,” I offered up. “Something like that.”
“No. Not a ‘something like that’ at all.” His voice had taken on a slightly harsh tone.
“Then what?”
He leaned forward and looked out the windshield, casting his eyes upwards. “We can’t see it here. Because of the lights from town. You up for a short drive?”
