Page 44 of Just for the Season

‘Yeah.’ Marcus is also looking away from the screen. ‘Are you thinking we should…?’

‘Turn it off? Yes.’ I reach for the remote, and then jump as a man with half his face blown off steps out from behind the tree up against which the two main protagonists have been having extremely pornographic sex, and, holding a gun in each hand, levels one at each of their faces.

I forget about the remote and stare as more men emerge from behind trees and tie the naked couple up (thankfully inside bags so there’s no more pornography for the moment).

‘Watch a little bit more?’ I suggest. ‘Just to see what happens to them and why they’re being kidnapped?’

Marcus nods.

I edge a little closer to him, because this is scary. When they aren’t having the kind of sex that surely has no place in a regular film (albeit an eighteen), the hero and heroine are very endearing (she’s funny; he’s adorably earnest with some great one-liners) and I don’t want anything bad to happen to them.

I edge even closer to Marcus as they’re bundled into a Toyota Hilux (funny what survives an apocalypse and what doesn’t) and driven into a mud desert.

‘Scared?’ Marcus asks.

‘Little bit,’ I admit, before screaming full throttle and grabbing his arm for comfort when the couple are thrown into a deep cave.

We watch the entire rest of the awful film, because every time we agree to turn it off, another can’t-look-away-from-the-screen thing happens, and I clutch Marcus’s arm for support the entire way through.

When – finally – the torture ends and the credits roll, I look down at my claw-like hands and release my grip.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I just… I mean, that was awful. You’re going to have bruises. I’m so sorry. Really sorry.’ I might be going overboard on the sorries because I’ve just become extremely aware of how our thighs are touching and how very broad his shoulders are and how, frankly, if anyone could survive an apocalypse it would be Marcus, because he’s just… well, basically an amazing physical specimen. ‘Yes, exactly, sorry,’ I repeat. ‘Bruises. Sorry.’ I move along the sofa, back towards my own corner as far away as possible from Marcus.

‘Ha, yes, terrible bruises, no doubt.’ Marcus’s voice sounds a little scratchy, probably because he hasn’t used it for a couple of hours. ‘I’m also going to be scarred by everything we just saw. My retinas might never recover. What the hell was that film?’

‘I know.’ I try really hard not to focus on how gorgeous his stubble-darkened jawline is and how watching him swallow does something to my insides that I can’t ever remember feeling around Rick. What were we talking about? The film. ‘Yes. How is it the most popular one on Prime? To be fair, we couldn’t stop watching it either. But even so. People have terrible taste.’

‘They really do.’ He shakes his head sorrowfully. ‘We should have watched Star Wars.’

‘I’d definitely have preferred it and that’s saying a lot.’

‘Next time.’ He smiles at me and I smile back and realise that I’d love a next time. This evening has been a lot of fun.

Sadly, though, we don’t really need to meet again. We’ve found out a lot about each other this evening; we definitely have enough material to be convincing in front of Gran. Although Marcus did point out earlier that he thought we should meet a couple more times for the sake of those in the village who like to look out for these things. I don’t feel that I can remind him of that, though, given how much I already owe him.

‘I’m thinking that if you do something you should do it properly,’ Marcus continues. ‘This fake relationship.’

For a moment, I nearly gasp out loud, and am suddenly very fixated on his mouth, wondering whether he means that we should… maybe… kiss, or more… and how I feel about that.

I take a deep, shaky breath, knowing that – even though it would probably be very stupid – I would be quite happy to kiss Marcus in the interests of pretending very convincingly that this is a real relationship.

And then he says, ‘And given that Mrs Bittern for one is definitely watching us, I’m thinking we should probably get together a couple of times a week until the party.’

Get together again. In an entirely non-kissing way. Of course. Of course. What is wrong with me?

‘Absolutely,’ I say, very heartily, really hoping that my voice won’t betray the fact that just now I was on the brink of moving closer to him in anticipation of… ‘Yes, No. Excellent idea. Very good plan. Definitely.’

‘Right then. Great.’ He pushes himself up from the sofa. ‘So I’ll see you soon.’

I stand up too. ‘Brilliant. Thank you again for today.’

‘Hey. No problem.’ He grins at me. ‘Best film I’ve ever seen.’

And then he walks over to the door and is out of my flat, leaving the room suddenly seeming very empty.

14

MARCUS