Chapter Seventeen
I’m not sleeping well.
It’s not my new king-sized bed, in my newly decorated room – that’s great. I think it’s just, oh, everything that is on my mind.
I feel like my life has imploded. I don’t have my own home, a job, a partner – I’ve been basically run out of London. It’s hard to accept that I’m basically going to have to start from scratch.
Wow, is it only 7 am? That’s the kind of time where it’s hard to decide whether to try and get back to sleep or get up. It feels too late for one and too early for the other.
I guess I’ll get up.
I leave my room – sneaking, for some reason – and walk across the landing, noticing Adam’s bedroom door is open. Is it weird that I can’t resist peeping inside? No, no, I shouldn’t do that. That’s definitely weird.
I carry on down the stairs and when I’m finally at the bottom I walk with a bit more confidence, but as I step into the kitchen I crash straight into something – Adam.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I babble, but as I compose myself I realise that Adam is wearing nothing but a fitted pair of boxer shorts and… wow. I knew he was muscular but I wasn’t expecting him to look quite so much like an underwear model. I force my gaze upward and try to maintain eye contact, but it’s not easy.
‘Good morning,’ he says with a big smile.
‘Morning,’ I reply, shifting about awkwardly because I’ve just remembered I'm in the shorts and cropped vest I slept in (or tried to sleep in, anyway). ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you were here.’
‘That’s okay,’ he replies. ‘It’s your home too. I’m not usually up this early but I’ve got a work thing.’
‘This early?’ I reply. ‘Wow. I’m not usually up this early either but… I can’t sleep. I thought I’d make myself a coffee, try to stay up for the day.’
I sigh midsentence. I don’t mean to, it just creeps out.
Adam looks at me for a second, the cogs turning in his brain, I’m just not sure why.
‘Do you want to come with me?’ he asks.
He grabs a pair of trackies and a t-shirt from the drying rack in the kitchen and throws them on.
‘Oh, I, er… to your work thing?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, it’s on the beach,’ he tells me. ‘It’s sunny out, and it’s a nice walk. I’m leaving now but I’m going to grab a takeaway coffee from the hut on the beach. What do you think?’
‘Oh, I’m not dressed,’ I point out. ‘I don’t want to hold you up.’
Adam looks at the drying rack before grabbing a zip-up hoodie from it.
‘Here, wear this,’ he tells me. ‘It’s just the beach. No one wears much to the beach in the summer.’
I laugh. I want to say yes so badly. Fuck it, why not?
‘Yeah, okay, sure,’ I reply. ‘Do I have a few minutes to nip to the bathroom and brush my teeth?’
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘I’ll wait by the door.’
I don’t want to brush my teeth – well, I do, obviously – but what I really want to do is throw on a bit of make-up, lightning-fast. I want to look my best.
I put on Adam’s hoodie as I head up the stairs and, wow, it smells so good.
this is the last thing I expected to happen, when I got up early, but suddenly I’m quite glad I couldn’t sleep. Let’s see where today takes me.