“Fuck me,”Morgan whispered under her breath, and I had to release my breath super slowly to keep my cool. The floral sundress had since been discarded, but her hair still fell over her now-bare shoulders, and the impulse to reach out and tuck it back behind her ears was strong.
With our bodies just inches away from one another on the floor, I reached out towards her, my hand trembling slightly, and plucked away the middle of the three cards in her hand. She let out a small sigh of relief once I’d chosen, and when I didn’t immediately lay down a pair, she cheered.
“You’re going down, Evans,” she said, taunting me. And sure enough, on her turn, she lay down a pair of twos, proceeding to stand up and do a victory dance in the middle of the circle – one that involved an awful lot of “stanky leg”, as Chloe proclaimed. In fact, it was probably a good thing she’d ditched the dress for her pyjamas given the moves she was busting. She still looked great, too, though closer to her usual cute than the bowl-me-over moment from earlier, which was a relief. One could only endure so much humiliation.
It had only been a few hours since we had eaten what had turned out to be a very mediocre soup, but since then Morgan had really seemed to come out of her shell. She’d never exactly been shy – she’d always gone along with the jokes and bits on Monday nights – but this was different. No one was watching the clock. She wasn’t hiding behind a character. She was just … here. Sure, she’d had a few drinks, but she seemed mostly herself, justmore. And as she transitioned from stanky leg to Soulja Boy, I couldn’t help but smile at how at ease she seemed.
The game continued post-dance break, until I found myself the last person with a card: the Old Goat. We were playing Old Maid, but Fatima had insisted we subvert the gender – apparently Goat was the opposite of Maid; who knew? – and now I was staring down at the lecherous lone King in my hand. And it was a good thing I wasn’t at all competitive, because I was getting aggressively (and poorly) trash talked by the group.
“Honestly mate, my nan has a better poker face than you do,” Phil said.
“Your nan literally taught us to play poker,” Chloe retorted, and I laughed. I still remembered that night, shortly after we’d met Phil, playing Hold ’Em in Ethel’s dining room, wagering loose smarties and lemon sherbets.
After that we all dispersed, and I went back into the kitchen to get the ice cream out of the freezer to go with the crumble Phil had made. I started when I turned around and saw that Morgan had followed me in.
“Sorry,” she said, noticing the way I jumped slightly at seeing her.
“It’s okay. Help me dish up?” I held the ice cream tub out to her. She nodded and reached for it. We dished up portions into coffee mugs – me scooping the apple crumble, then her adding ice cream to the top – which she carried into the lounge for the others. But when she came back in for hers, she sat down on a barstool instead of going back in, leaning back against the island as if a wave of exhaustion had suddenly hit her. I sat on the stool next to her and swivelled in her direction.
“Having fun?” I asked, thankful to have my dessert to focus on, but I couldn’t help but glance over at her as she perched on her seat, her legs crossed, her foot less than a centimetre from my calf. I didn’t dare move, even as she pulsed her foot up and down. Naturally, she took a bite at exactly the same moment I asked her the question. “Sorry if Chloe was a bit intense,” I carried on, trying to give her time to get it down. “She’s like a dog with a bone.”
“She’s great,” she said, her mouth still full of crumble despite my best efforts. “And I’m glad I came, actually. I’m really enjoying myself.”
“Well, we’re glad you’re here.”
“So, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”
I shrugged. “Grey’s in charge of tomorrow. Knowing them, it could be anything from a video game tournament to a ten-hour hike.”
Morgan tilted her head to the side and pouted in consideration. “A hike could be fun.”
My interest was piqued. “Yeah? You like hiking?”
She scoffed at me. “You don’t have to sound so scandalised. Do I not look like I like hiking?”
I rolled my eyes and smiled slightly. “I was asking a question, not challenging you. Promise.”
“Well, in that case…” she trailed off, pressing her mouth into a thin line. “I’ve never actually been hiking before. Or walking, or whatever. Other than just, like, around town, obviously.”
“Really? Even when you were a kid?”
Morgan shook her head. “Never. I know it’s weird, but my mum was never super outdoorsy when I was growing up, and by the time she started being a bit more adventurous, I was already at uni.” She shrugged. “I take it you’ve been then?”
“All the time,” I said. “I love it.”
“Why?” She didn’t sound critical, or disbelieving, just curious.
I debated how honest to be, but there was something about the tired-yet-interested look on her face that made me want to match her, so I angled for earnest. “Honestly, for a long time, it was the only time I got to feel like I was having the kinds of experiences I wanted for myself.”
She paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth and put it back into the mug, a puzzled look on her face. “That felt loaded in a few places. Care to unburden?”
“My ex.”
“Ah, gotcha.”
“We used to travel together full-time. We took what was supposed to be a gap year after our second year of uni, and she started posting online about our trips. She got a bit of a following, and within a couple of years she was a full-time content creator.” I couldn’t help but sneer when I talked about Aria’s work; it had been the bane of my existence for years. “She always wanted to get the perfect picture in these hard-to-reach places, but she never wanted to do the work to get there. Like when we went to Macchu Picchu, I did the hike, and she stayed in Cusco a couple extra nights before taking the train. In Japan, I hiked to the top of Mount Fuji whilst she took the bus. Hell, she even took the train to the top of Snowdon. And that was just a day trip.”
She cocked her head to one side and squinted. “I mean, did she just not like hiking? Because I’m a girl’s girl, Jack, and we don’t shame other girls for not being ‘one of the guys’.”
