Chapter Five #2
The train pulled away from the platform and we were off.
No time to back out now. I undid the toggles on my coat and shimmied my arms out of the sleeves, allowing it to fall to the floor behind me before bending over to pick it up, my forehead grazing his crotch as I went.
He took a step backwards and collided directly with the closed door of the cabin.
‘I’ll sleep on the floor,’ he offered, rubbing the back of his head and bashing his elbow into the wall at the same time.
‘You’d have more hope of sleeping on the roof. You’re taller than the room is long.’
I turned in three tight circles, searching in vain for somewhere, anywhere, to hang my coat. Wordlessly, Callum took it and hung it on a hook hiding on the back of the door.
‘It’s only for tonight and I’ve definitely done worse,’ I said, arms flapping uselessly at my sides. ‘If I can share a blow-up bed with Desi in Joel’s nan’s caravan in North Wales for a week, I can manage this. It won’t be that bad.’
I offered a hopeful smile and the tight set of his granite jaw softened very slightly.
‘Just so you know, I told Mum and Dad we needed separate rooms at the house.’
‘And how did you explain that?’
‘I told them you have night terrors,’ he replied. ‘Very violent night terrors.’
Ignoring the slight sense of disappointment that tugged at my sleeve, I threw up my hands. ‘Then we’ll manage. We’re grown-ups, we can share a bed for one night.’
‘You’re right,’ Callum concurred and the tense atmosphere of our beige cell settled. ‘We should start as we mean to go on. How about a toast?’
Wedging his weekend bag between the wall and his body, I watched as he unfastened the zip and rooted around inside with one giant hand. With a snort of success, he let the bag fall onto the bed and held up a bell-shaped bottle of dark amber liquid, a silver stag’s head emblazoned on the front.
‘Whisky?’ My mouth went dry at the sight of it.
‘The Dalmore 15. It was supposed to be my dad’s Christmas present but he can make do with a box of chocolates from the shop at the station. If he’s lucky. Here.’
He opened the bottle then held it out to me.
Generally speaking, the darker the drink, the worse my hangover, but I’d always wanted to be a whisky girl and this felt like as good a time as any to commit.
Caroline, I’d decided, was a whisky girl.
She was also a woman who smoked cigars, knew how to change a tyre, and could rock a rollneck jumper without looking like she was wearing a cervical collar.
Bracing slightly at the unexpected weight of the bottle, I tipped it back and let the liquid run into my mouth, scorching the back of my throat.
It stung my nose, eliciting a full-body shiver.
An involuntary reaction, I told myself as I resisted the urge to gag.
An automatic reflex, the contraction of the bilateral pharyngeal muscles and elevation of the soft palate, millennia of evolution designed to stop human beings from choking on foreign objects and stop Laura Pearce from knocking back a shot of whisky without humiliating herself in front of an attractive man.
Passing the bottle back, I pinched my eyes shut and rubbed at my nose, willing my body to keep it down, but Callum was already too busy taking a deep gulp to notice my struggles.
I watched him drink, head tilted back, his lips wrapped around the opening of the bottle, his huge hand clasping the weighted glass as if it were no bigger than a teacup.
His hair fell back away from his face and his long eyelashes grazed his cheeks, eyes closed in a moment of rapture.
My own face heated instantly, burning with the twin flame force of the alcohol and an unexpected flicker of desire as I noticed how his throat bobbed when he swallowed.
‘Bloody hell, that’s good,’ he gasped, coming back up for air and offering me the bottle again. Against my better judgement, I took it. ‘You can really taste the orange and the ginger notes in there.’
‘Totally,’ I lied.
It tasted like embalming fluid and nightmares.
Two sips in and I was already entertaining visions of myself embracing the toilet bowl within the next twenty minutes.
Caroline might be a whisky girl but Laura was not.
Fail number one. While Callum capped the bottle and stashed it back in his bag, I rested my hands against the window, watching the outskirts of London pass by.
Cramped streets full of tall buildings gave way to terraced houses with small gardens gave way to bigger homes and green spaces and, finally, fields and fields and fields.
Five quiet minutes in and my mind was starting to fog, senses softened by the two unnecessarily large chugs of a drink I never touched, and when the train shifted unexpectedly, I stumbled forward, straight into Callum’s arms.
‘Hello,’ I said, resting my hands on his waist and leaning my head back to look up at him. He was so tall, so solid. He took up so much space without even a whisper of apology and I wondered what it must be like, to move through the world feeling that way.
‘Hello yourself.’
He placed his palms on my shoulders, a safe, neutral body part. ‘Perhaps we jumped the gun with the whisky. Have you eaten yet?’
‘I had a Pret Christmas sandwich for lunch.’ I lowered my voice so no one else would hear me. ‘And I’ve got another one in my backpack.’
‘Two mouthfuls of whisky and she’s pished,’ he said with a grin. ‘Don’t worry, that can stay our little secret but we ought to get some proper scran in you. Dining car?’
‘Dining car.’ I opened the door to the cabin and waved him through, ignoring his chuckles. ‘And I’m not pissed, I’m pleasantly tipsy.’
‘Famous last words,’ he groaned as I followed him down the corridor. ‘Famous last words.’