I observe her as she reaches for her drink again. ‘You haven’t told him how you’re feeling?’
‘He knows we have problems,’ she says, her words slow. ‘But I don’t know if I can do this all over again next year if nothing changes.’
‘Does Tim know you want changes?’ Lydia asks.
‘He shouldn’t have to be told,’ Jemima huffs.
Tim emerges from the hotel, carrying a stack of paperback books in his arms. As he sits down, he spreads out the books. ‘I know you’ve read some of these before, but I thought maybe you might want them all, just in case. Are you okay for a drink? Anything I can get you? Massage your feet?’
’Maybe another cocktail?’ Jemima asks.
Tim, having only just sat down, heads straight to the bar.
‘He dotes on you,’ I say.
‘But he doesn’t see me,’ Jemima replies.
I sip my drink, reaching for my phone.
Naked couple drama
I have a plan.
Chapter Thirty-One
SAM
Day Six
If you’d asked me last week if I expected to be setting up an elaborate dinner date in the coffee shop on a weekend for two nudists, I’d naturally have said no. But that was before Will was back in my life. I’m learning that with Will, anything could happen.
The warm coffee shop, usually alight with fresh air and bright light and the atmosphere of the outdoors meeting the indoors has been transformed into a cosy restaurant. Each table has red pillar candles burning, wax dripping down the side, and the main table in the middle of the restaurant has been kitted out with plush pillows and blankets taken from the hotel.
‘They’re on loan,’ Will had said to me when he laid them out.
‘Stolen?’
‘On. Loan.’
Now I look at The Laurel Hotel branding with fear, anticipating the police will come and arrest us.
Will paces at the door, checking his phone. ‘It says the driver is on the way, but they should be here by now.’
‘It’s okay. They’re not even here yet.’
‘No, I know, but the point is the food is supposed to be here first,’ Will says. ‘We’re meant to be invisible.’
‘Invisible, right.’
I head to the kitchen, pouring two glasses of wine, and take them to the table, feeling the warmth of the candle on my hands as I set them down. Will stops at the glass, looking up and down the street alive with revellers spilling out onto the famous stairs. It’s the classic example of someone waiting for a delivery but pretending they aren’t.
‘Remind me what the point of this is.’
‘Well, Jemima feels like Tim doesn’t see her, and so I spoke to Tim last night and told him that Jemima wants to bring a bit of spice into their relationship again, and now we’re here.’
‘Spice?’ I scoff. ‘Like, sexually?’
Will gulps. ‘Oh God.’ He taps his forehead. ‘Well, maybe it will ignite something but at the first sign of anything… untoward… we throw them back out on the street.’ He looks at me, and I want to close the distance between us. ‘You realise they might get nude, don’t you?’
