Chapter 24
24
I’m homeless – yay.
Unlucky for me I have no other ex-boyfriends who are willing to put me up in exchange for the faint hope of getting back together, so I’m really up shit creek this time.
I can’t afford anywhere, not on my own, because it’s not just the bills, it’s the huge deposit everyone wants, the references, the good credit score – ironically, I’ve never had a problem with credit, other than no one wanting to give me any, so that’s why my score is so low. The bank of Dad has always been closed for withdrawals, even in emergencies, which only really leaves going to live at Saltburn itself. I could probably live there without anyone noticing, in one of the bedrooms no one goes in, but if Bea didn’t take me out with a shotgun then the commute to the office would probably kill me.
My phone vibrates on the bedside table. Of course, I forget that I’m on the floor, so when I reach out to get it I just punch the bottom drawer instead. God, that hurt.
I reach up this time, successfully grabbing it, noticing that it’s half ten so Steve must have gone to work. Presumably, he didn’t look in here, to see if I – or my gentleman caller – had gone. Ethan is still flat-out asleep on the floor.
‘Hello?’ I say quietly, answering the call, because it’s Faye.
‘Hey, so we forgot you weren’t in today, and we’re dying to know – how did it go last night?’ she asks.
‘Oh, not good,’ I tell her. ‘The guy was a total creep.’
‘But don’t you fly later?’ she checks.
‘In less than twenty-four hours,’ I reply with a heavy sigh.
‘What are you going to do? Go alone?’ she says.
‘Tell her she can’t go alone,’ I hear Molly’s voice in the background.
‘One of them must be some good?’ Faye continues. ‘Who is the best of the bad bunch?’
‘I suppose I could ask Joseph if he wanted to come?’ I suggest. ‘He was only pretending to be a bad boy but, I don’t know, I’m sure he could still cause some havoc with me, maybe…’
‘Yeah, give him a call,’ Faye suggests. ‘If he was keen…’
‘He was keen on the free holiday,’ I reply. ‘He wasn’t keen on having fun – I’ll bet he would behave impeccably the whole time – and I don’t think he was keen on me either. I didn’t get the impression he was interested in me, just the holiday.’
‘See what you can do,’ Faye says, her voice turning into more of a whisper. ‘Gotta go, bye.’
She hangs up.
Is Joseph really the best I can do? A good boy pretending to be bad? Perhaps I would be better off going alone.
‘Good morning,’ Ethan says, snapping me from my thoughts.
‘Morning,’ I reply – well, what’s so good about it?
‘Reckon your dad has gone?’ he replies.
‘Yeah, I guess he’s gone to work,’ I say. ‘That gives us a chance to sneak out.’
‘So, you’re going to Australia?’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I reply, my tone guarded.
‘I heard Steve say so last night,’ he reminds me, reading my thoughts.
‘Ah,’ I say, rolling onto my side to face him. ‘Yeah, my sister is getting married there. I actually found out, that night we met. She’s tying the knot in Australia – because the moon was fully booked.’
Ethan laughs softly.
‘So, who is Joseph?’ he asks.
‘Huh?’ I reply, knowing exactly what he means. Shit, he must have heard me on the phone just now.
‘Joseph,’ he says again. ‘It sounded like you were taking him with you – are you seeing someone?’
The truth sounds horrendous but the idea of Ethan thinking I was going to cheat on someone with him seems far worse.
‘Okay, don’t judge me,’ I begin, taking a deep breath.
‘Would I ever?’ he replies.
‘So, my sister, Seph, is getting married in Sydney – Chester, her fiancé’s parents retired there,’ I explain. ‘But what you need to know, for all of this to make any sense, is that Seph and I had completely different upbringings. My dad’s side of the family has money, and when he and my mum split he remarried and had Seph, so she’s grown up in that lifestyle, whereas I was raised by my mum, who didn’t have much money. That lot are just so, so out of touch with reality – it’s embarrassing – but the worst thing of all is that they think that about me, that I’m out of touch with their reality. They think I’m some tacky commoner – the poor relative who they have to include – and seeing as though they’re my only family in the UK now, I think they’re posho morons who I have to dutifully turn up to events for.’
‘Well, that’s family, right?’ Ethan replies. ‘Turning up, doing things, trying to get along.’
‘Yeah, and I’m hap… and I’m willing to do it.’ I was almost going to say happy to do it, but willing is more accurate. ‘Except, they called me over for a pre-wedding lunch, and I thought it was for everyone to talk about wedding stuff, but it turns out it was exclusively some sort of class intervention, just for me, where everyone had a go at me for how I dressed, acted, and to warn me about not bringing a date they wouldn’t approve of.’
‘So…’
‘So, I became obsessed with finding a date to take, who they wouldn’t approve of, to say: fuck you,’ I reply. ‘Obviously, I’m not a monster, I don’t want to ruin Seph’s wedding, and I do want to be there, but I need to show them that I am me, and I matter, and they have to love me as I am.’
‘That sounds like something Jennifer would have on a mouse mat,’ Ethan says with a smile, lightening the mood a little.
‘The worst thing of all though…’
‘It gets worse?’ he replies in disbelief.
‘Yeah! The worst thing of all is that they’ve moved their wedding day, last minute because Chester’s gran is superstitious or something, and the date they have moved it to is my birthday – my thirtieth birthday, no less – but absolutely no one has mentioned it. I don’t know if they don’t care, or they’ve forgotten, but either way I’m fuming.’
‘None of that is cool. I’m sorry,’ he says sincerely. ‘But so much makes sense now – when I saw you with the vagina neck guy, I started to worry about you, like you’d gone off the rails, like you were going to extreme lengths to find a man who gave you as wild a time as I did.’
I smile. He’s obviously joking about that last part.
‘You say that but, hey, it’s almost true,’ I point out. ‘You fit the bill almost perfectly. You’re fun, you’re chaotic, I have a good time with you, they would hate you…’
‘Oh, stop, you’re going to give me a big head,’ he says with a touch of playful sarcasm.
‘Well, they would,’ I say with a laugh. ‘You’re a lot like me, in all the ways they hate.’
‘Take me with you then,’ he suggests.
‘What?’ I blurt. ‘No, that’s okay, you don’t need to do that. I’ve got this one guy, Joseph, who is willing to pretend to be what I need – a free holiday to Sydney will motivate anyone to do anything.’
‘I want a free holiday to Sydney,’ he says with a shrug. ‘Take me. I feel like I’m the man for the job.’
Right, except the problem with Ethan is that while he may be absolutely perfect to cause chaos and piss everyone off, it’s that I actually like him, and want him, and when we get together there is too much chaos. Even in separate hotel rooms, I don’t know, if we keep our distance we’re fine but if we – pardon the pun – rub together, we’re like two sticks. Everything goes up in flames.
‘No, honestly, I think I’m better with someone things are… easier with,’ I continue.
‘You think we make a mess when we get together, right?’ he says, and I nod. ‘So, okay, I get that, we need to stick to being mates. But there’s no reason we can’t pretend to be together, to go on the free holiday, have a blast. I really, really want to go.’
As fun as it would be to go with him, even if we could pull off keeping things platonic, it’s just too much of a risk.
‘Don’t you have to work?’ I reply. ‘Are you not doing something for Jennifer?’
‘I work remotely,’ he tells me. ‘I’m free as a bird.’
I think for a second but, no, I need to stop entertaining the idea. Ethan is too much trouble.
‘Thanks,’ I say, trying to sound like I mean it – I do appreciate the offer, after all. ‘But no thanks.’
Ethan scoots across the floor, until he’s sitting on the edge of my mattress.
‘Have you booked a ticket for this Joseph?’ he asks. ‘For the flight?’
‘Not yet,’ I admit. ‘It was a while ago when they told me, but Seph and Chester said they had reserved two seats for me, and I would just need to work with the wedding planner, and they would sort the paperwork and put the seats in the right name. So there is a seat reserved next to me, it just needs booking in the right name.’
‘Okay, makes sense,’ he replies. ‘And what about a visa?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Presumably you have a visa to visit Australia?’ he checks.
‘Erm, yeah,’ I reply. ‘The wedding planner basically did all of that.’
‘The wedding planner did that for you,’ he replies. ‘What about your plus-one?’
‘Oh, erm, I guess we would sort that when we sorted the ticket?’ I say, audibly draining in confidence as my sentence goes on.
‘You thought you were going to get a visa for a plus-one today?’ he says, raising an eyebrow.
Ah, shit, I think I did. Well, no, it wasn’t that I thought I would, I guess it was just that the wedding planner sorted mine, so I didn’t really think about it.
‘So I can’t take Joseph,’ I say, stating the facts. ‘I can’t take anyone.’
‘Wrong again,’ he says with a cheeky smile. ‘There is someone you can take.’
I just stare at him.
‘Me,’ he says, as though it were obvious. ‘You can take me.’
‘Why, do you have a secret Australian passport?’ I ask sarcastically.
‘No, but I have a New Zealand one,’ he replies.
Again, I just stare at him.
‘That’s where my dad is from,’ he reminds me. ‘So, I have a UK passport and a New Zealand one, and if you’re from New Zealand then you don’t need a visa before you travel to Australia.’
‘Is that true?’ I reply. ‘Like, is it still true? Could the rules have changed?’
‘I spent Christmas there,’ he confirms. ‘I told you, Australia is my family’s supposed midpoint between New Zealand and the UK.’
I laugh. His family sounds almost as interesting as mine.
‘So, unless you know Chris Hemsworth’s number, it seems like I’m your only hope.’
He grins at me, that cheeky twinkle in his eye that usually precedes him doing something crackers… but it’s when he’s crackers that he sets my entire body alight (it’s just that usually, in my experience with him, the room usually follows suit).
I know him, I like him, I trust him, he’s fun to be around, my family will hate him… and, yeah, he’s right. He’s the only one who can get into Australia, the only real contender.
‘Do you have your passport?’ I check.
‘Yep, I keep it in my case,’ he replies, his excited smile slowly powering up.
‘And you have your suitcase but it’s summer there, right? You’ll only have winter things with you.’
‘I’ll go buy some,’ he says, like it’s no big deal. ‘Someone told me all of the shops are minutes apart, it will take me no time at all.’
‘Oh, God, and it’s black tuxedos for the wedding,’ I add.
‘Black tuxedos? In the Aussie summer sun?’ he replies in disbelief. ‘Does your sis want everyone to die?’
‘Probably,’ I say. ‘So long as they die with a wingtip collar.’
‘Right, okay, I’d better get going then, if we’re on?’
His question hangs in the air. He sounds like a little boy, asking if he can sleep over at his mate’s house.
I guess it’s him or it’s no one.
‘Okay, fine,’ I say.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Woo, I’m going to Sydney,’ he says, punching the air. ‘I’ll go buy what I need. Lana, you won’t regret this. I’m going to be the best worst date you’ve ever had. I understand the assignment and, truly, I was born to do it.’
Ethan grabs his things and heads for the door, to go and buy his holiday essentials – and a tux, presumably. Oh God, what have I done? But this is what I want, right? I need someone like him on my arm to show them that I’m my own person, they can’t tell me what to do, or who to date. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more perfect he seems for the job.
Well, you know what they say: Don’t get mad, get Ethan.