AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t think so.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Maybe I’m not mocking. Maybe I’m flirting.”
“Maybe you’re stalling.”
Also true. “Fine,” I said, hoping the medication was about to kick in. “Do what you want. Handle my bone.”
He ignored this completely, his fingers moving over my foot with impossible lightness. If I was a cat, I’d have been clinging from the curtains by my claws and hissing at him. As it was, I managed to restrict myself to nervous wriggling and the occasional yelp. “You’ll need to get it seen to,” he concluded, “just to be sure. But for now, you should keep your weight off it and try to rest.”
It was typical of the evening, of the last few years, of me, thatI’d fucked up my ankle in such a spectacularly inconvenient fashion. I couldn’t even call a taxi unless the driver was willing to give me a piggyback to the road. “Not my most pressing concern.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m halfway down the towpath.”
Again, his eyes found mine—though this time there was something wary in them. Shy almost. He ducked his head. “Yeah. About that. You might have to stay here for the night.”
“I can’t do that,” I protested instinctively. As if I had not spent night after night with untold strangers.
“Why not?”
I hardly knew why not. Only that it felt different without the barrier of sex. Without the immediacy of leaving. At a loss, my mouth produced, “I don’t even know your name.”
“Leo.”
“Won’t it be a complete imposition?” It was polite nonsense. But any other question would have been a different kind of nonsense:why are you helping meorwhat are we really doingorcan I trust you. When I didn’t even know what I wanted to trust him with.
He shrugged. “I can throw you out if you’d rather. Leave you to roll your way to Donnington Bridge.”
“I could hop.”
“In those shoes?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I finished for him. And saw his lips quirk up beneath the beard. Probably I was still in shock or something because I was abruptly and overwhelmingly curious about how it would feel to kiss him. How soft it would be. If someone thatsolid and that certain would yield to the right pressure. Except, of course, it wasn’t shock. It was restlessness and recklessness, familiar as breath. I flexed my ankle unnecessarily, hoping pain would substitute for sense.
Leo’s knuckles nudged lightly at my knee. “Are you all right?”
A question best avoided. “It’s Christmas Eve. Don’t you have plans?”
“No plans. And it’s Christmas Day.”
“Is it?”
Turning his wrist, he showed me his watch—the minute hand long since slid past twelve. Apparently time flew when you were spraining your ankle. “What aboutyourplans?”
“No plans.” I sighed. “Just people liable to freak out if they don’t know where I am. Which is another reason I shouldn’t stay.” And perhaps why I finally decided I wanted to. “I don’t suppose you have a phone I could borrow?”
He stood and went to rummage in a drawer, offering a bewildering glimpse into the reality of a man who did not treat his mobile as a part of his body. I’d been without mine for less than an hour and I already felt naked. Or maybe that was something else.
“Are you a time traveller from the early 2000s?” I asked as he offered me a slightly more modern version of the most basic Nokia handset.
“Something like that.”
He moved away, presumably to give me privacy. Not that he needed to. There was only one number I knew by heart. In the end, I sent a tissue of convenient lies disguised as a text:It’s Marius.Dropped my phone in the river. Staying with a friend. Can you let Mum know I’m okay?
Before I could hand it back, there came the buzz of a return message.What? How? Where are you?
Narrowboat, I typed back, knowing not answering would only produce persistence. Now I thought about it, Edwin and Mum had certain traits in common.On the Thames. Slipped on the ice. All well.
