Chapter Ten
When we return to the BnB, the owners offer us red wine and practically beg us to sit with them in the courtyard. The old man feeds us with the history of the building and how it’s been in his family for hundreds of years. Always run the same way.
Later on, once the sky has turned a dark navy, littered with stars, we manage to persuade them to give us more bedding, making up a story about being chilly sleepers, despite the nightly temperature here at this time of year being lows of thirty degrees, and Gus sets up on the cold floor as I tuck myself in for the night.
I do feel a bit sorry. But then again, I don’t want to share a bed with a stranger. No matter how famous he might be.
We leave the window open, the shutters squeaking when the warm wind whistles through the alleyways.
A mosquito taunts me, brushing close to my ear and then away again. I end up sleeping with the white sheets right over my head, hoping to deter the bastard. The next thing I know, there’s light peeling through the closed shutters and I can hear footsteps on the stairs outside the room.
I sit up in bed, looking for my roommate. He isn’t on the floor. In fact, he isn’t in the room.
There’s a light rap on the door. “Sara, you decent?”
“Yeah?” I croak.
He carefully creaks it open and steps in glancing at me with a bright-eyed expression. “Good morning, sunshine. It’s a lovely day outside.”
What? Why should I care? What time is it anyway?
I don’t need to say any of this, I can feel it being wonderfully portrayed by my face.
Gus carefully places a coffee cup on the side table next to me and steps away. “There were some pennies left after the pizza so thought I’d treat you to a coffee.”
“With my money?”
“That I’m going to pay you back with five hundred per cent interest,” he points out.
Which… “You said two hundred yesterday.”
“Did I?”
“Ugh.” Is all I can manage, flopping back down on the bed and pulling the covers over my face. “What time is it anyway?”
“It’s nine.”
I sit up so fast I swallow air, gasping. “WHAT?”
He flinches. “It’s nine?”
“The coach leaves at ten! It’s a twenty-minute walk from here!”
Gus frowns. “So, what you’re saying is we have twenty minutes to drink our coffees and time for a leisurely stroll to the coach?”
I do the math. “That’s forty minutes.”
He nods, checking his phone. “Well, yeah, more specifically, it’s a quarter past nine.”
“Fuuuuck,” I groan, throwing my legs out of the bed and stomping through the room to the door.
I slam it behind me before realising I forgot the dress that I need to wear again today, without my clothes which are hung beautifully in the closet in my cabin out at sea. I storm in again, grab it and head out.
Gus laughs under his breath. “Not a morning person, I see..”
*
We make the coach with five minutes to spare. There are tons of backpackers milling around, locals who probably work between the cities and a couple of elderly people waiting at the bus station. Gus gently takes my elbow and squeezes it, pulling me closer. I frown at him over my shoulder.
“It’s really busy,” he says. “I’m going to have to hide my face.”
I wiggle out of his grasp. “Then put your sunglasses on. Put your cap on frontways and, well, if you really cared about being noticed, surely you should’ve shaved your hair off? It’s pretty recognisable.”
“How dare you,” he says, deadpan.
“I’m just saying.”
“I forgive you.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m purely stating sensible facts. Oh! You should wear the t-shirt I bought last night. Nobody would expect you to be wearing your own band merchandise.”
Gus gives me a look. “There’s no way you don’t know that was fake merch.”
“Is that why you got all offended? Because you won’t get your tiny cut in the sale?”
He makes a tutting sound. “Please. Big of you to assume I get anything from merchandise with my face on it.”
I wait for him to put his rubbish, flimsy disguise on before we board the coach. By the looks of it, it’s mostly full of hungover backpackers and tired travellers. I doubt they’re going to have any interest in Gus.
I allow him the window seat to tuck himself away out of sight from the other passengers and must end up falling asleep because the next thing I know he’s nudging me awake with his elbow.
“Hey, sunshine,” he whispers. “You’re snoring and attracting attention.”
I sit bolt upright, glancing around to see one girl, a bit younger than me, quickly turn away. A fresh panic rushes through me. If I’m snoring, then I’m probably dreaming, which means… I shake myself out of it.
“I don’t snore,” I tell him.
“Ok. Sure. Then you bark in your sleep.”
“I do not,” I whisper back at him.
“I wouldn’t have woken you, except I’m trying to keep a low profile here and you’re rattling the coach chassis.”
I frown. “This is why I don’t share rooms.”
“Because you snore?”
I stare at him for a moment, scrutinising his expression. When I don’t look away, he raises an eyebrow.
I sigh. “Not just because I snore, but a little bit that, yes.”
“I see. Was it because of the sleep talking?”
I tense all over, clenching my hands into fists. Gus’s eyes drop to my hands, and he takes a deep breath.
“I’m just messing with you, Sara. It’s all good.
I woke you before people started to notice.
” I breathe the tension out of my body slowly and blink back the pressure behind my eyes.
I’m good at pushing emotions back, I’ve had plenty of practice.
It’s just there’s nothing attractive about a twenty-nine-year-old woman who cries out for her mum in her sleep.
“Don’t let me sleep again, please.”
We share a moment of prolonged eye contact, his light brown irises almost golden in daylight. I feel a rush of energy sprint down my spine. “I’m sorry,” he says even quieter. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“No, it’s… Thank you for waking me. Please don’t let me snore again.”
He presses his lips together, a notch forming between his brows. He doesn’t say anymore but gives me one solid nod instead.
The journey moves slowly. I half expected to be on a wild coach trip like that one time Hattie and I went clubbing in Malia and nearly died twice on the shuttle from the airport to our hotel, the driver running stop signs and letting its back wheels hang over the edge of sheer drops.
At least that driver would get us to Dubrovnik with plenty of time to spare.
It’s bad enough, I’ve resigned myself to seeing very little of the city, now I must be on the most sluggish coach journey of my life just to rub it in.
About two hours into the drive, the coach pulls into the one and only stop between the cities. A small town on the main road along the coast of Croatia. The driver hops out of the coach and stands there for a few moments smoking a cigarette.
Fine. We all need breaks, I suppose.
But then, a taxi shows up and he gets in. I watch it leave, flying back the way we came.
Oh, so now he can go fast!
Are we being stranded here? I let out a strangled laughed.
The main door to the coach has been left wide open and some of the passengers have gotten out to stretch their legs, far too relaxed about this.
I leave Gus and head outside. He doesn’t ask after me, but once I’m on the tarmac, I peek back to see him watching me curiously through the darkened window.
“Hi,” I say to a young blonde woman wearing a baggy white Nike t-shirt, her hair pulled into a long, high ponytail. “Do you speak English?”
She gives me a look. “I am English, babe.”
Great. “Did you see the driver leave us?”
“Yeah. Happens all the time here. He’d finished his shift probably. A new driver will be along at some point.”
“Ok… Like soon?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes. Sometimes not.”
I gawp at her. “You’re so chilled.”
“Yeah. Not in a rush, am I?”
“Right. Ok. Thanks then,” I say, climbing back onto the coach.
I check the time again only to feel a splash of rage when I see my phone, which I’ve barely touched today, is already on 25 per cent battery. It was fully charged a matter of hours ago. Why do they do this? One minute they’re fine and thriving, the next minute they’re on a rapid descent into decay.
“What’s the situation?” Gus asks.
“My phones dying.”
“Again? You need a new phone.”
“No. Really?”
He runs his tongue over his top teeth to bypass a grin. “That wasn’t the situation I was asking about.”
“Oh, the driver has just left us here. I guess he only drives it so far. That girl I spoke to seems to think they’ll be another driver along soon.”
“It’s going to get hot in here without the air-con on.”
I roll my head back and close my eyes to think a minute, my shoulders creeping higher with tension.
It’s twelve fifteen. The bus left Split five minutes late at five past ten.
The journey said it would take just under three hours which gave us an arrival time in Dubrovnik of twelve fifty-three.
But the coach was going so slowly, I find it hard to believe we’re less than an hour away.
The cruise leaves the port at four on the dot. The gangway goes up approximately fifteen minutes before.
We should’ve had plenty of time.
I open my eyes again. My phone confirms it’s gone midday already. I attempt to use my maps app to see if there’s a quicker option but not only does using the app’s basic function drop my battery by 5 per cent, I also have absolutely no signal whatsoever.
Ahh!
We wait another forty-five minutes, and I turn my phone off to save the final ounce of life it contains, when a taxi finally rolls up and without so much as a ‘how do you do’ a new driver climbs in and turns the engine on.
We’ve essentially been sat in a metal sweatbox for an hour so now the air-con is blasting again, cooling the thin layer of moisture on my skin, shivers racing up and down my limbs.
For the next hour, I can’t believe I’m considering the chance of me going into a hypothermic reaction.
In Croatia. In July. What the hell? I pull the t-shirt I bought last night out of my bag and drag it over my head.