“Crap, I just remembered, I have a meeting in the morning, for the town festival. It’s at eight. I can take him with me and you can come collect him there, it’s at the town hall.”
“Oh, the festival.” I nodded. This had come up a few times in the last few days.
He smiled at me. “The town hall is next to the church. On the main road.”
“Aaaah,” I said.
“You don’t need GPS here.”
“Nope.”
“So come around whenever, I’ll probably be there for a while. After you fetch Harun, you can come back here and hang out if you like, or whatever. I don’t lock the doors, so . . .”
I smiled at him. It was such a sweet, small-town offer.
“I’ll try to clean out that room tomorrow evening, so you can move in the following day. That cool?”
“Thanks again.”
He shrugged. “No worries. That’s what friends are for.”
Dagger. Jeez, dagger in my guts. That word “friends” was giving me something that resembled painful heartburn. And then, just to add to the ailment, he turned and walked back to the house. I found myself staring after him, in a way I hadn’t stared after him before. His entire back was on full display now. And it was taut, with tight muscles that rippled while he walked. Muscles contracting and expanding as his arms swung and shoulders moved. The two muscles running down his lower back that disappeared into the very thin, flimsy sheet, were the most distracting. I felt myself lean a little out the car window, closer to him, even though I was very far away. My head tilted to the side and my jaw loosened as I continued to look. A feeling of longing came over me. A longing to reach out and touch—
I snapped my head to the side when I saw the movement. I looked over at Harun. He was wide awake now and he was staring at me. And I swear to God, that bloody dog knew exactly what I was thinking. I looked away quickly, embarrassed, and then drove off. As I glanced in the rear-view mirror, Harun was still staring at me, looking pleased as bloody punch.
CHAPTER 51
It was ten past eight on the dot when I arrived at the town hall. I hadn’t intended to be there at that time, but I hadn’t really been able to sleep when I got back from Mark’s house. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was rather plagued by images of his naked body. The images seemed to have been seared into my brain somehow, as if I had taken a mental photo and posted it to my internal Insta account that only I could access #formyeyesonly.
It was difficult to get that out of my mind, to be honest, and by the time I walked over to the town hall it was all I could think about. I was also incredibly giddy from lack of sleep, so my mind was feeling a little unhinged. And it wasn’t helping that everything I looked at reminded me: the painted picture of a hot dog on the wall of Jim’s store, a street pole—okay, maybe not a street pole, that was my imagination really running wild there. I giggled to myself.
By the time I arrived at the town hall, I was almost in stitches; the lack of sleep was clearly getting to me. I usually had a good eight hours, tracked by my sleep app to ensure maximum REM and deep sleep. Who knew how much I was really sleeping now? But my laughter stopped abruptly when I walked into the hall.
It was packed. It seemed like the whole town was here. This made me nervous—I had never liked this kind of thing. Big, social gatherings in the past had usually ended badly for me. School dances and socials, sports days and even school assemblies. When I was a teen I’d avoided them at all costs, becoming a recluse wherever possible. That’s why I loved my online life. I could socialize without having to see people. It was so much easier to escape into that world than face the realities of this, clearly overcrowded, world.
I took a deep breath and reluctantly walked deeper into the throng. What made it worse was that everyone around me was having a loud debate about something; the noise in the hall was almost too much to bear. I couldn’t make out the words that were being said, but they sounded passionate. I scanned the room, looking for Mark and Harun, or anyone familiar. I was feeling a little overwhelmed. So many people. I saw some movement and turned to find Samirah waving at me. I was so relieved I almost ran up to her.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were going to be here,” I said to her.
“You were fast asleep when we left, so we didn’t tell you. What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m here to fetch Harun.”
“Where is he?”
“With Mark.” I scanned the room.
“What’s he doing with Mark?” she asked.
“You know when he stole my phone last night and went for a walk with it?”
She nodded.
“He walked all the way to Mark’s house.” The chatter in the room got a little louder and I raised my voice to speak over it.
“What?” She gave a surprised smile.
“Yup, all the way there at two in the morning.”
