AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re just stressed and working too much. I know.”
He was being too kind, and I was just huffing and puffing as I tried to figure out what to say. It sounded like he was in a car, and even that insignificant detail made me nervous. I wanted to be where he was. Not here wallowing in desperation and stupidity.
“We’ll figure this out, Conny,” he said softly.
Which was when Aisha barged through the door, and I bloody screamed in frustration.
“Why does nobody ever bloody knock!” I shouted as Matt laughed in my ear. I was glad it wasn’t a video call because…well…
“Iwouldknock if you locked the door!”
“I had!” Hadn’t I? Fuck this hotel. Bloody crap old building falling apart. The window didn’t open. The carpet stank, and the bed was giving me a backache.
“You need to ride down to set with me in the minibus,” Aisha said flatly. “And you need to get up—and put some clothes on.”
“Who’s that?” Matt asked, still laughing.
“My slave,” I said with added sarcasm.
“I hate you,” Aisha muttered as her radio went off, then her phone. I just wanted to cry. Run away and never come back.
“Where are you?” I asked Matt in desperation. “Wait. Can I just get dressed and ring you back?”
“Yeah, OK.”
This was my life. Two minutes. I’d only had two minutes with him and now I was jumping around trying to get a pair of clean pair of underpants on. Aisha tutted in disgust and walked out the door.
Yeah. Inappropriate, but she’d started it.
It got worse. Much worse. By the time I was dumped back at my excuse of a hotel, I was shivering, covered head to toe in cold mud, my shirt and trousers clinging wetly to my limbs under an oversized dry robe. I could barely walk, having had to climb rocks for the past couple of hours. Caroline’s hands were a mess, and we’d both walked off set after the medic had shut us down on health and safety grounds. It had been dangerous and stupid and surely illegal, and even the AD had started to question the whole set-up. There was some kind of mutiny brewing within the camera crew, and the prop guy had been in tears, as they kept demanding that he move the fake body we were supposed to find. On a fake clifftop! Why we were filming this crap on location was beyond me when we could have safely done it in a studio with a greenscreen and warm clothes and bloody showers.
And when I tried to get into my room, the key wouldn’t work, which made me bang the door in a fit of rage. I’d had enough. Totally enough. Until the door opened and there was…
Matt.
I gasped in surprise and flailed my arms through the air as he looked at me uncertainly, and then…
Then I burst into tears.
I cried. Like a bloody baby. Again. And Matt dragged me in and took the dry robe off, asking me why I was wearing a duvet. Was it some kind of new costume prop?
I couldn’t even laugh because my chest was still convulsing with sobs. Fuck. I had no idea what I was doing, but I’d survived almost a week without him, and it hadn’t been good. Not good at all.
But he was here now, hugging me and shushing me and somehow taking my clothes off and…and…and he’d even figured out how to use the old electrical shower on the wall in the bathroom.
“My nan used to have one of these. I can’t believe this hotel. When was it built? In the 1800s or something? It’s only got one socket! No wonder you haven’t rung me. I bet your phone’s been constantly out of battery.”
I wanted to tell him that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t speak anymore. I’d been working and sleeping, and I hadn’t seen a gym for days. My body hurt everywhere, and now he was here, I couldn’t even think of anything but sleep. With him. God, please.
He got me into the shower, got himself undressed and joined me, holding me up as I leant against him, my face in his neck as he tried to get the soap under my arms.
“You stink.” He smiled into my skin.
“I know,” I whispered. At least I was calming down.
“I’m right here,” he whispered back. I wasn’t sure why we were whispering, but I needed it. I needed the calm. His hands stroking down my back. His voice in my ear.
“I love you. Whatever is going on, that’s all that matters. Your…Aisha, is that her name? She’s so lovely. She rang me and asked if there was any way I could take a day off because you were losing the plot and needed a cuddle. Her exact words. You needed a cuddle, and how can anyone resist that? Anyway, the head’s given me a couple of days’ compassionate leave, although if I worked anywhere other than a school, I could probably have taken a month off, the amount of overtime we all do.
