Chapter Nineteen
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Oscar
“Where the fuck are we going?” Ilias asked, looking at the road around us, then down at his phone.
“You told me to go left at the last turning, so I went left.”
“I think you’ve gone wrong.”
“Then who’s fault is that?” I asked. Ilias might have had a point though. The overgrown lane covered in potholes barely counted as a road in my opinion, and I somehow doubted there was a hotel at the end of the godforsaken track.
The car clunked as I navigated it over yet another pothole that looked more like a lunar crater.
“I swear to God, if we fuck up this car—”
“Then we’ll call the fucking AA,” Ilias said exasperatedly. “They can come and find us.”
“If they can.” I sighed. “Look at the map again. Where am I meant to be going? Does this even lead anywhere?”
There didn’t seem to be anything around except stone walls and huge hedges. Every now and then I spied a field full of sheep or cows through a gate.
“I don’t know. I haven’t got any signal,” Ilias said. “I can’t load the map.”
“Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant. I’ll have to find somewhere to turn round.”
“Don’t blame me.”
“I’m not,” I snapped as I looked for somewhere big enough to turn the car around. I knew Marcus had hired us an SUV for a reason, but the bloody thing was too fucking big. Not that there was room to manoeuvre anything bigger than a golf cart on this road.
“Yes, you are. You didn’t have to come down here.”
“Where else was I meant to go? You said this was the way?” I gestured pointedly at the road as if it would somehow illustrate my point.
“According to fucking Google!” Ilias threw his hands up in the air. “This is how you get those stories of drivers stuck in bloody rivers or some shit because they refused to use common sense.”
“So you’re saying I should have ignored you?”
“Yes! But only up to a point.”
“And what point is that?” I asked as we rounded a bend, and I felt a pang of relief as I spied a lonely-looking farmhouse and a yard. The open gateway would be big enough for me to pull into.
“I don’t know, but I’m not always wrong.” He sighed in frustration. “Fine, let’s say we were both wrong and leave it at that. I should have noticed the road looked weird, and you shouldn’t have gone down somewhere with grass in the middle.”
“Fine.” The car crunched on the loose stones in the driveway as it came to a stop, and a thought popped into my head. “Do you think there’ll be someone here we can ask for directions?”
“Maybe,” Ilias said, then laughed. “God, it’s so nice to go somewhere with someone who’ll ask for directions.”
“Your family won’t? That’s so fucking weird.”
“I know. Heteronormative toxic masculinity for the win. My grandpa once spent an hour driving round Exeter because he refused to believe he was lost. My mum eventually lost her temper and got out to ask for help, and my grandpa just pretended he’d known where he was going the whole time.”
“Yeah, we’re not doing that.” I switched off the engine, unbuckled my seatbelt, and opened the car door. The air smelt like manure and salt, so I guessed we weren’t very far from the sea.
It was only supposed to have been a two-hour drive between August House in Fowey, and our next stop near Torquay, but we’d already been in the car for over three hours. First, it had been road works, then an accident, and now at least one wrong turn.
My muscles ached from sitting for so long, and I groaned as something pulled in my calf. I really needed to find a sports massage therapist when I got back to London.
I heard the soft lowing of cows from somewhere nearby—a field or a barn maybe. The other car door thumped closed, and I realised Ilias had gotten out too, stretching his arms over his head and rolling his neck.
“Shall I knock on the door?” he asked, pointing towards the low farmhouse to the left. “Or do you think I’ll have more luck in one of the barns?”
“I don’t know.” It was mid-afternoon, but that meant nothing in terms of farming. It wasn’t as if it was a regular desk job with set hours. “I don’t think we should go poking around though.”
“I’m not going to,” Ilias said. “I’m just going to see if anyone’s around so we don’t spend another three hours driving in circles.”
“You can drive next time.”
“Fine. You can be the map man, and then I can get huffy at you when you send me down shitty grass tracks.” He shot me a grin and headed through the gate before I could respond. A dog barked and made me jump, and suddenly I wondered if we should have even stopped.
I shook my head. This was not a horror movie.
At least, I hoped it wasn’t.
A man appeared from one of the barns. He was younger than I’d expected with dirty blond hair and a confused expression. He was wearing green overalls that didn’t disguise his broad shoulders or firm thighs. Ilias waved cheerfully and called out a hello.
I swallowed, suddenly feeling a weird pang of jealousy as the man’s expression relaxed into an easy smile. He was close enough that I could see him giving Ilias a casual once-over.
Ilias was chatting away, and I heard fragments of their conversation from where I stood—something about “lost”, and “his fault”, and the name of our hotel. It seemed like Ilias was laying on the charm, and I wasn’t sure whether it bothered me or not.
I’d always known Ilias was charismatic, and he’d admitted he’d perfected the skill of charming people, but there was something about watching other people fawn over him that made my gut tighten possessively.
It was a new feeling for me, and not a particularly pleasant one.
That was my issue though, not his, and I wasn’t going to act like some jealous dickhead because someone else could see how amazing my boyfriend was.
I heard my name and looked over at Ilias, who was pointing at me, a bright smile on his face. The other man looked momentarily crestfallen, and I almost wished I’d been able to hear what they’d said. I probably shouldn’t have felt smug.
“What did he say?” I asked when Ilias returned to the car a couple of minutes later.
“We’re not far away. About ten minutes.” He grinned and opened the car door, sliding onto the seat. I climbed in. “Apparently, we should have taken the turn after this one. So we just need to head back along the lane, onto the main road, then take the next left, and that’ll lead us down towards Torquay. Then we just follow the signs.”
“Okay, at least we’re in roughly the right place,” I said as I pulled the car back onto the track. “Nice of him to help us.”
“Yeah. Seemed like a nice guy. Kinda cute too.”
“Seriously?”
“What? I have eyes!” Ilias scoffed. “But nobody is as cute as you.” He put his hand on my thigh and squeezed.
“It’s not… I’m not…”
“Oh my God, you’re jealous!” Ilias laughed, the sound filling the car with sunshine.
“I’m not jealous,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road. “You’re just very charming and gorgeous, and I have to accept that other men will notice that too.”
“Uh-huh, and you’re not going to get jealous at all?”
“Nope, because we are adults, and I trust you. Plus,” I said, a teasing smile crossing my lips, “we’re together, which means I won.”
“You are jealous, and it’s so fucking adorable,” Ilias said, and I heard a note of satisfaction in his voice.
“But I just said—”
“Yeah, but what you really mean is that, although you trust me and you think I’m cute as fuck—which I am—you’d rather other people didn’t acknowledge that I am, indeed, cute as fuck.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “Seriously. It’s just… I’ve never really thought of myself as… I don’t know, relationship material? I mean, I’ve had relationships, but they’ve never ended well, mostly because of work. And I think I’m still struggling to get my head around the idea that you want to be with me. That you want me. And when I see other guys looking at you, I start wondering whether they’d be better for you than me.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“It is to me,” Ilias said, his tone softening as he continued. “But I can see why you’d feel that way. Just remember that I want you for you. I don’t want anyone else.”
“Okay.” And I believed him.
Mostly.
The Orange Pig in Babbacombe Bay, just outside of Torquay, wasn’t what I’d expected at all.
From the name, I’d been thinking more of a rustic seaside pub that was slightly kitsch, but instead, it was a whitewashed stone building with blue windows and a red roof, a terrace that looked right out over the bay, and steps that led down to the sea. It was more of a boutique hotel and spa than a pub, and Ilias and I soon found ourselves being shown into an airy bedroom, lit by the afternoon sun.
“Wow,” Ilias said as he wandered over to the large windows that curved across the far wall. “This is beautiful.”
“It really is.” I looked around the room, making a note of the details I saw. The bed was large and made up with crisp white sheets and orange cushions scattered across the duvet. “Do you like it more than the last one?”
“The view is better.” He turned and looked at the bed, grinning mischievously. “Bed’s not a four-poster though, so I have to take points off for that.” He walked over to it, kicking off his shoes as he went, and launched himself onto the mattress landing with a thump and a happy sigh.
“Oooh, it’s comfy though, and it doesn’t squeak,” he said, rolling over so he wasn’t face down in the pillows. “They get bonus points for a non-squeaky bed. Nothing worse than having a hot man in your bed and realising the mattress is going to tell the entire hotel you’re fucking.”
“Are we going to fuck, then?” I slid onto the bed next to him and smirked. I leant down to kiss Ilias because it had been far too long since I had kissed him. The desire I felt when I was around him was almost overwhelming. I couldn’t remember ever feeling like this before.
“We don’t have to if you’re not up for it.”
“I don’t have any lube, so the penetration part is out,” I said, rolling on top of him. I loved the way Ilias felt underneath me, and I loved the way he looked up at me from under his long, dark eyelashes. “But I want something.”
“We can definitely do that.”
I kissed him again, sliding my tongue into his mouth as an idea strolled leisurely through my head. “You know, we technically had a fight today.”
“We did.” Ilias grinned and hooked his arms around my neck to draw me closer. “We should make up. Thoroughly.”
“Very thoroughly,” I said as I started to trail kisses down his neck.