Chapter 6 #2
I stop, bending to put my heels back on.
I’m hopping on one leg when I hear the bus door hiss closed.
‘Wait. I’m almost…’ But it screeches away without me.
‘Nooooooo! For fuck’s sake!’ I sob as a wave of frustration swells up inside me.
I bury my head in my hands. I’m so tired.
My feet are killing me. It’s so dark I can barely see a thing.
I’m literally stranded. This awful night seems never-ending.
I just want to go to bed and sleep for two months straight. Is that too much to ask?
I hear crunching over the gravel as the silhouette of a man approaches, causing me to shriek loudly.
‘Hey. It’s okay. It’s me. It’s Jackson.’
‘Thank God,’ I pant, putting a hand to my chest. ‘You frightened the life out of me. What are you doing out here?’
‘I thought I’d leave the club too. Had enough,’ he says, pointing in the direction of the road. ‘And don’t worry. I’m sure there’ll be another dolmus along soon.’
‘It won’t matter. I can’t walk another step. I’ll be stuck here forever.’ I fling my hands up in frustration. ‘When they find my decaying corpse, years from now, will you please tell my mother I’m sorry? She was right.’
‘About what?’
‘About everything.’
He chuckles softly. ‘Here. I’ll help you over to the road.’
I blink slowly. ‘Why are you leaving the club so soon?’
‘Too many pushy married women. Why are you leaving so soon?’
‘I’m too tired for it. I need my bed.’
He nods understandingly. ‘Same. My own bed I mean. Not yours,’ he hurriedly corrects himself, causing me to snicker.
As soon as I take one step, I wince sharply in pain. ‘It’s no use. I’ll have to take them off.’ Jackson watches as I yank my shoes off and begin to hobble beside him.
‘I could… This sounds forward… and I absolutely don’t mean anything by it, but I could piggyback you over there. If you want me to.’
Relief floods through me. ‘Yes. That would be so amazing, thank you.’
In one swift motion, he hoicks me up and I cling to him with one arm round his neck while holding my heels in the other. I haven’t eaten all day. I must weigh less than a Persian rug.
There’s an audible ‘oof’. ‘How much do you weigh?’ he asks, staggering slightly.
‘It’s all muscle,’ I blurt. ‘I do Pilates. It’s gentle but effective.’ It enables women like me to scale buildings in order to rescue men like you.
He sniggers. ‘The way you’re choking me, I figured power lifting.’
I release my hold. ‘I do really appreciate this.’
He spots a bench by the roadside and gently puts me down before sitting next to me.
‘Thank you,’ I gush. ‘That was very kind of you. Considering…’
‘No worries. I’m Australian. Anything for a sheila in distress.’
He makes being Australian sound like so much more. Forgiving. Understanding. Trustworthy. Used to women behaving erratically.
‘And it’s me who should be thanking you.’ He’s giving me a very appreciative look. ‘That was some very impressive performance you gave back there.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I feel myself blush in the darkness.
‘Seriously. You were nothing short of heroic.’
I give him a pointed look. ‘Go on.’
He chuckles. A low, attractive sound. ‘Funny, clever and modest. A real triple threat. How did you do it? How did you know who was married or not?’
‘You’re asking me to give away my trade secrets?’
He tilts his head. ‘It would really help me out.’
‘Does that happen a lot? Married women coming on to you?’
He nods but I detect a hint of sadness behind his smile.
‘Simple,’ I say, shuffling up. ‘Two were wearing wedding bands. One had taken her wedding ring off recently to get a tan. Two had faint ring marks but an even tan line suggesting they’d been off a longer time. And one looked so dolled up I took an educated guess.’
‘You figured all of that out in three seconds? Who are you? Sherlock Holmes?’
I smirk. ‘I’m just your average femme fatale genius with a photographic brain. No biggie.’
His gaze travels the length of me until he catches me watching him. He visibly swallows. It’s as though he’s only just noticing me. ‘Uh-huh.’ He begins inspecting the bench as though it’s in danger of collapsing.
Something strange is happening as I look at the shy emotion etched on his face.
Even though he’s half in shadow, his eyes are radiating chivalry, and he has such an aura of trust and good manners about him, it causes my mind to book an imaginary one-way ticket Down Under.
Gosh. I think I am in the process of falling the teensiest bit in love.
Four minutes. It can take as little as four minutes.
‘How long do you think we’ll have to wait?’ More than four minutes?
He shrugs. ‘No idea. I just hope that wasn’t the last one heading back to Gumbet.’
I snap to attention. My mother’s words come back to haunt me, sending a chill down my spine. ‘But it’s pitch black. What if we…?’ I trail off. It’s too awful to think of.
‘What if we…?’ he repeats.
I swallow hard. ‘Get kidnapped?’
‘Kidnapped? By who?’
‘It’s just my mother has this… She seems to think that…
Well, it doesn’t matter.’ I pull at one of my pigtails, twirling it round my finger in an attempt to distract me from the anxiety growing in the pit of my stomach.
‘I’m sure we’ll be okay. I’m sure we will. No, we will, I’m sure of it,’ I jabber.
Jackson reaches across to place a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
‘I’ll make sure you get back to the hotel safely.
Don’t worry.’ Our eyes meet, and I notice how his catch the moonlight and twinkle.
Every two minutes we are lit up by the laser beam shining from the nightclub, still in full swing.
Eventually, he begins to pull a face each time the light hits us.
Finally, my shoulders relax and I start to giggle, sagging back against the bench.
He rummages through his pockets. He pulls out a joint and lights it.
I watch in the moonlight as he takes a deep drag on it and slowly blows the smoke out, visibly unwinding.
He offers me a go, and I try not to appear shocked.
Even though absolutely everyone at university was smoking weed, I was never one of them.
‘No thanks. I have a big day tomorrow. Need to keep a clear head for…’ I leave the sentence hanging as he inhales deeply, nodding.
‘No worries.’
‘Not because I’m boring,’ I explain, my old insecurities (not that old) coming back to haunt me. ‘It’s just that…’
He doesn’t even look at me. ‘Not a problem. No need to explain,’ he says, taking another drag. ‘I was just being polite. That’s all. You seem a bit stressed.’
I pause to let his words sink in. ‘You’re right.
I’m so stressed. This has been the day from hell.
’ I lean over, take the joint from his kissable lips and pull heavily on it.
The smoke immediately fills my lungs… and…
holy shit, a few seconds later sends a bullet train full of wooziness straight to my brain.
I take another long drag on it. Actually, it’s not that bad.
‘Careful now. If it’s your first—’
‘Fuck me that’s good,’ I say, giving it back. ‘Between that and all those drinks, I can no longer feel my feet. In a good way. They were on fucking fire.’
He chuckles. It’s the sexiest laugh any man ever did. I watch his mouth curl upwards. Somehow, he’s even better looking.
‘Best take it easy then.’
‘I will,’ I say, plucking the joint from his lips to have another go. I’m really getting the hang of it. ‘Whoa. My brain is like mush. I feel so great.’
‘So, how come you’re on your own? Did you not find your friends?’ he asks, taking the joint from me with a raised eyebrow before inhaling deeply and passing it back.
‘No.’
I’m going to leave it there because between the joint and the tiredness I’m not sure I’ve got it in me to admit to wimping out of meeting my co-workers in favour of collapsing into a nice, comfortable bed.
‘What’s your real excuse for leaving early? It can’t be those women. You must get that sort of thing all the time.’ I take a long drag and hand it back so that he can do the same. I wince at the strength. It really is powerful.
‘I was supposed to meet some work colleagues but… like you, it’s been the day from hell.
The company I work for aren’t happy.’ His chin drops to his chest. ‘I’m going to end up sacking a lot of them by the looks of things.
Thought it best to keep my distance until tomorrow.
’ He sucks hard on the joint. ‘And if the baby throwing up on me wasn’t bad enough, then the sodding LoveIt Holidays bus I was supposed to catch at the airport left without me. ’
Ah.
‘Really?’ He could be talking about any number of buses. ‘That’s, erm, that’s such bad customer service. You must have been furious.’
‘I was.’ He takes another long drag. ‘But it’s all part of the territory. And there’s no point putting a complaint in about the bus. The poor driver would only get into trouble, and I have enough on my conscience already.’
Thank fuck for that.
‘Exactly. For all we know, it could have been a well-intentioned new starter put in charge on her first day. Thrown in at the deep end. We wouldn’t want to ruin a perfectly good career before it had even started, would we?’
‘Can’t see that career lasting long. How hard is it to get the right people on the right bus?’
‘Harder than you’d think, obviously.’
Jackson bursts out laughing as though I’ve just told the funniest joke he’s ever heard in his life. His incredibly accurate depiction of today’s shitshow starts me off giggling and somehow, I can’t stop either. Not even when a dolmus whizzes past and we forget to put our hands out to stop it.
‘Oh well.’ He shrugs, blowing smoke rings casually into the air. ‘We’ll get the next one.’
‘That’s if there is a next one,’ I exclaim. Ho-ho-ho.
We laugh hard at this for about a hundred years, until tears streak our faces. ‘You have lovely musculature,’ I say, suddenly becoming an expert in human biology as my breathing calms. I point to his arms and then his legs. ‘Your muscle groups are arranged very nicely.’
Jackson takes the last drag of the joint. ‘I work out a lot. Sport is one of my cornerstones. It’s like a religion to me.’
‘I would worship that religion too.’
‘You like sports?’ His eyes light up.
‘No. I’ve never exercised in my life.’
‘What about Pilates?’
‘Who?’
I should win a comedy award.
‘You’re so funny,’ Jackson says. ‘How come you’re single?’
Excellent question.
I pause to stare into the darkness. ‘Because, like a loser, I was the last to know that my ex, Dillon, was cheating with the barmaid. The whole pub knew.’
Jackson inhales sharply. ‘Harsh.’
‘They couldn’t keep their bloody eyes off each other and when I… confronted them, it was me who got barred for life! It was humiliating.’
Jackson is quiet for a moment. ‘If it helps, six months ago, I found out my girlfriend was cheating when I spotted her in the queue for a flight… with another man.’
It’s my turn to gasp.
‘It gets worse. I ended up having to sit next to them for the entire flight. So, in a losers contest… I win.’
I giggle as I take another drag on the spliff. ‘Yeah, not bad. I guess you’re in with a shout.’
We are distracted by the sound of another bus.
This time he picks me up and carries me into the road and I wave my arms about until the minibus screeches to a stop two feet away from mowing us down.
Which is hil-ar-ious. The doors open and Jackson lifts me onto the stairs.
It is full of people, but I manage to secure two free seats at the back.
We plop down and I drape my legs over his lap and slump into the corner.
‘Hey. No sleeping. We don’t want to miss our stop.’
My eyes spring open. ‘No. I won’t. I promise.’
My eyelids are so heavy. All that travelling today.
Those drinks. That joint. This heat. The gentle rumble of the bus as we meander around Bodrum dropping people off, picking people up.
The soothing hum of passengers chatting.
The lulling motion as I rock back and forth on these rickety seats.
Jackson gazes at me, his lids heavy with admiration for me.
He must see me as a strong, independent woman of significance.
He really does have kind eyes… I wonder if he fancies me.
I snuggle against him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and resting my head on his chest. I trail my fingers absentmindedly across his clavicle and down his arm.
I can hear the rhythmic beat of his heart. Slow and thumping.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I take a deep breath in and slowly exhale.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
‘SON DURAK!’ shouts the driver, half frightening me to death. My eyes snap open. Jackson jumps a mile next to me. The bus driver is looking at us. The bus is empty.
‘What happened?’ I croak.
Jackson’s eyes swivel about, assessing the situation. He checks his watch. ‘Shit. We fell asleep.’
The bus driver repeats himself, shakes his basket of tips to remind us to leave him some money for this unsolicited, two-hour, regional excursion of Turkey he’s taken us on and points to the door at the front.
‘He wants us to get off.’
‘Get off where?’ I ask as we hesitantly get up and make our way down the aisle. Jackson dips his head to look out of the window, but it is still dark.
‘No idea.’