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He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah.”
“Jesus. I guess I’d better get up if you’re so hungry that your stomach is rumbling loud enough to wake me up.”
Actually, I was kind of hungry too. I glanced down at my watch. Apparently I’d been asleep for two hours, and it was now six o’clock.
“You should have woken me up sooner,” I said, shifting into a sitting position.
“I’ve not been awake long myself. The stomach rumbling woke me up too.”
As I looked down at him, I chuckled at the fact that he hadn’t moved yet, in spite of his hunger. If my stomach had made that sound, I’d have been headed for the nearest Pizza Hut in seconds.
“Where do we eat around here?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I wondered if we could charm Mrs Kay into cooking for us.”
“No chance. The ‘old bird’ might have a sense of humour but I reckon she’s strict with dining rules. And this is a bed and breakfast. No dinner included.”
Logan groaned. “That means I have to get up and go out in the rain again.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” I mocked. I looked to the window, squinting to see through the ugly net curtain. “Looks like the rain has slowed a bit now.”
There was a lot less thunder and lightning too. The rumbles sounded more distant. Technically, we could have waited it out and still arrived home at a sensible time; more sensible than if we’d stayed for the festival, but I wasn’t complaining. Even though we’d both slept for a couple of hours, and I’d expected to mourn the time we hadn’t spent talking, mostly I was happy we were so comfortable with each other. An early start, plus a change of plans, minus some clothes, plus a shopping trip would have equalled tiredness for a lot of people.
“Ha ha.” Logan smiled as he sat up. “I saw a pub down the road when we came back earlier. Shall we give it a try?”
The pub Logan had spotted was literally at the end of the road, and it looked as worn as the B&B we’d just left. It even smelled a little musty inside, though there were more than a few people in there, drinking. Some sat by the bar, some sat in booths around the edge of the room. The old jukebox in the corner pumped out dreary tracks from the sixties; not even the fun ones that created a good atmosphere. However, Logan’s stomach still sounded like a wounded cow, so we had no choice but to look over the menu instead of hunting elsewhere. We both ordered British pub classics – steak and chips for Logan, and pie and mash for me. With our orders placed and our first round of drinks in our hands, we slipped into one of the booths to wait for our meals.
The Truth-Telling Stage aka And It All Comes Down To You
In spite of the aged look of the pub, the food was particularly good, even if the music choices hadn’t improved much. Two hours after finishing our food, Logan and I remained in our booth, knocking back the bottles of beer we should have been drinking out in the open air.
“All in all, it hasn’t been a bad day,” Logan said, placing his bottle on the table.
“Were you expecting to have a bad day?” I asked. It wasn’t with the nervousness that had accompanied every other question that had the potential to break my heart, though. My confidence had soared with the alcohol. I was by no means drunk, or even close, but the beer had knocked the edge off any lingering doubts I had about whether Logan truly wanted me there.
“No. But… I didn’t think it would be this good considering everything we were supposed to do got ruined.”
I nodded. “It’s been fun.”
My stomach was still hurting from it all – I expected rock hard abs after the amount of exercise they’d had from laughing.
“And it’s not over yet,” Logan added. “You do realise I plan to drink you under the table?”
With a cocky eyebrow raise, I said, “Good luck with that. I have Irish blood in me and we absorb alcohol like a sponge. You will be drunk way before me!”
“We’ll see. Don’t forget I train for this most weekends!”
“Rubbish! I have never once seen a drunken photo of you on social media. That means you are either really good at dodging cameras, or you never get drunk.”
He held his hands up. “Okay. You got me. But I still reckon I can stay sober longer than you.”
I raised my bottle and took another sip. “Good luck with that.”
“Seriously though,” Logan said, his eyes fixing on mine and causing that familiar tingle to shoot up and down my spine. “Thanks for being so cool about everything. I’m glad we stayed, even if we did get a bit wet.”
“A bit?” I choked. “That was more than a bit! But I agree. And thank you for putting up with me for the day.”
I purposely lowered my gaze from his because I wasn’t quite ready to stare into his eyes just yet. Sounds silly when I’d wanted that for so long, but the tone of our conversation had changed, and I’m not immune to moments of insecurity. Probably never will be.
