Twenty-Seven
The light that came through the gap in the bunk curtain was a pale grey.
Ashley woke up with Molly’s elbow pressed directly into her lower ribs. It was just after seven in the morning. The bus was still.
The bunk was too small for two people to lie flat, so Molly was curled into a tight shape against Ashley’s side, her forehead tucked right under Ashley’s chin.
Ashley didn’t move her arm, even though it had gone completely numb from the shoulder down. She stared at the plywood ceiling.
Molly had said they weren’t going to talk about it. It was a rule she’d made standing in the aisle in her knickers, and Ashley had agreed because she’d been desperate to get her into the bunk. But looking at the back of Molly, asleep, Ashley felt the rule was stupid.
She was in love with Molly.
She had been in love with her when they were sitting in her bedroom drinking horrible wine that first night, and she was in love with her now.
It hadn’t stopped. And the worst thing was that the last five years suddenly felt like a long, dull film she’d had to sit through before she found her way back to Molly Sullivan.
She didn’t know how to say it without sounding like one of her own choruses.
Molly shifted. She let out a long breath against Ashley’s collarbone and opened her eyes. They were bloodshot and small from the lack of sleep. She didn’t move away immediately; she just blinked at Ashley’s neck for a few seconds.
‘Your watch is digging into my arm,’ Molly muttered.
‘Sorry.’ Ashley fumbled with her left hand, unclipping the strap and dropping the watch on a shelf. It made a sharp clink.
Molly didn’t get up. She reached out and pulled the thin checked blanket higher over her shoulder. The green shirt she’d left on the floor last night was sticking out from under the curtain. ‘Where are we?’
‘No idea.’
‘Right.’
Ashley cleared her throat. Her heart was going like the clappers. She worried Molly would hear it.
‘Moll,’ Ashley said.
Molly tensed against Ashley’s chest. ‘What?’
‘Look, last night. In the bush. And here.’ Ashley looked at the black curtain. Her throat felt full of sand. ‘I know you said not to say anything. But we have to, don’t we?’
Molly didn’t answer for a long time. ‘Ashley. Don’t. This was nice. Let’s leave it at that.’
But Ashley didn’t want to leave it at that. ‘Mol—’
An alarm started screeching, a sharp, deafening beep-beep-beep that tore right through the bus.
‘Are you fucking mental, Toby? It’s seven in the morning!’ yelled Elena.
‘I was trying to turn the hotplate off!’ Toby yelled back, his voice high and frantic over the noise. ‘The little red light wouldn’t go out! It was making a whistling sound like it was going to blow up. I was just trying to yank the wire out!’
‘It’s the standby light, you absolute turnip!’ Jax’s voice joined in, loud and dripping with sleep-deprived rage.
The door to their bunk banged open so hard it rattled the partition behind Ashley’s head.
‘You’ve just set off the mains sensor! Don’t touch anything!’ Elena declared.
Toby paused. ‘I knew you were both in there.’
Ashley rolled her eyes. Round fifty-eight of the psychosexual games was commencing.
‘Never mind that!’ Jax bellowed. ‘Figure out how to turn the alarm off!’
Molly closed her eyes and let out a long, exhausted sigh against Ashley’s chest. ‘They’ll kill us all,’ she said quietly.
Ashley let go of Molly’s hand and popped her head out of the curtain to find Toby now arguing with Dave the driver, who was demanding to know what the hell he’d done to his bus and his eardrums.
‘Yeah,’ Ashley said, her voice flat. ‘Probably.’
She turned back to find Molly pulling her ripped knickers on, tying them off at the waist with a thin knot. She swung her legs out of Ashley’s bunk and walked back to her own without another word, holding onto the knot to prevent exposing herself to the various squabbling coach inhabitants.
It was a pretty amusing walk of shame. But to Ashley, nothing was funny about it.