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I take a full paw to the face, and while Gollum’s not a very strong cat, it’s probably not great for my concussion. “There’s a latch at the top.”
It takes a second, but he does find it. The moment the carrier’s open, I dash over and try to cram Gollum in. It mostly goes okay, apart from the help-I’m-being-murdered noises, except he manages to get one paw sticking out the end like he’s in Jurassic Park and he’s just been dragged into the velociraptor enclosure. Eventually, I fold him back inside and slam the door, and he looks out with huge eyes that say “I will never forgive you for this. My descendants shall haunt your descendants to the end of time and their vengeance shall be legendary.”
Jonathan’s white streak has come loose again, and he flops down onto my sofa. “Yesterday my life was very normal.”
I flop down next to him. Gollum keeps cursing us with his eyes. “I mean, I assume mine was as well.”
He tries to smooth his hair back into place. He probably shouldn’t wear it so aggressively slicked because it kind of suits him now it’s a bit more disarranged. “I have known you for two years and, from everything I’ve seen, I don’t think that’s true.”
I shouldn’t ask. I shouldn’t ask. I ask. “What am I like then?”
“You live in a flat like this with a cat like that. You do the maths.”
“So, I’ve got a slightly unfurnished bedsit with a slightly ugly cat. I think you’re reading too much into it.”
Folding his arms, Jonathan gazes up at the ceiling like he’s not sure how much to say. “You’re very stubborn and you care too much.”
Somehow I’m expecting the first, but not the second. “I think I’d rather be someone who cares too much than someone who cares too little.”
“Trying to care about everything is the same as not caring about anything.”
I’ve lost track of who we’re pretending to be, but I’m pretty sure the me I want to be right now is the me who calls bullshit on that. “It’s not though, is it?”
“Yes,” Jonathan tells me in his familiar not-used-to-being-disagreed-with tone. “it is.”
I might not have amnesia, but having a concussion is no joke. By the time we’ve piled up Jonathan’s car with my holdall and my cat and the stuff for my cat I’m fucking knackered and—which is more worrying—kind of dizzy. On the plus side, though, it does mean I drift off almost as soon as we pull out, which would’ve meant I could skip the next four hours of awkward small talk with my dickhead boss.
Except.
“Sam?” says the dickhead boss, leaning over me. “Sam, are you okay? If you don’t respond I’m calling an ambulance.”
I groan and open my eyes. We’re halfway down the fucking road. “I’m responding. I’m responding. I’m just trying to have a kip.”
“You need to stay conscious.”
“I needed to stay conscious straight after the accident. But I have to sleep sometime.”
Jonathan’s frowning at me. Which, to be fair, he usually is. “Excessive drowsiness could mean there are complications.”
“I’m drowsy because we’ve been in a car since eight and you kept me up all night.”
“I did not keep you up all night. I just checked on you a couple of times.”
“How is that not keeping me up?”
He frowns even harder. “Sam, you look pale. Are you all right?”
“No, I’m trying to have a kip.”
“Sam.” He’s almost snarling.
“Okay.” It takes me a second to admit it because he’ll probably overreact. “I did have a moment—just a moment—of feeling the tiniest bit wobbly earlier, but I really think I’m just tired.”
“And if you’re not?”
I shrug. “Then I suppose I’ll drop dead of an aneurism but there’ll be nothing you can do about it.”
Jonathan Forest is giving me a very hard stare.
