Chapter 22 #2
Violet swallowed, snapped a final mental image of the gloriously naked Finn for her memory bank, then slipped out into the corridor, wincing at the bright lights.
She didn’t remember the route they had taken to get back here last night, but she knew that the cast rooms were in a different area of the hotel.
These were suites with names, not ordinary numbered rooms. Violet stumbled down the corridor, looking for any indication of where to go.
Around a corner were two corridors spiking off in different directions.
Violet hesitated. As she swayed from foot to foot, head throbbing, bare feet starting to sweat inside her boots, she heard the distant ding of the lift.
Oh God, she had forgotten about what happened in the lift.
A moment later, Chloe rounded the corner.
She looked groomed and made up as usual, as fresh-faced if she’d just awoken from a refreshing ten-hour sleep.
Violet, meanwhile, was aware that she looked like a refugee from an active war zone.
She tried to smooth down her hair and checked that there were no bra straps poking out of her jeans pocket.
‘Hey Violet,’ Chloe said, with a grin. ‘How are you? Wasn’t last night such a gas? I had so much fun!’ She stopped and looked more closely at Violet. ‘Hey, are you feeling all right?’
Violet swallowed and forced a smile to her face.
‘Yeah, just feeling a bit under the weather. I think that cold that was going around has finally caught up with me.’
She sniffed and dragged her hand under her nose.
There was no cold going around. There was just one liver-bending, stomach-churning hangover that Violet was suffering all on her lonesome. She thanked her lucky stars that Chloe was too young to know hangover pain could reach these levels and accepted her pathetic lie at face value.
Chloe nodded sagely. ‘Oooh, yeah. I can see it.’ She pursed her lips and stepped back. ‘You don’t look good at all.’
Thank you, Chloe.
Violet shuffled on the spot, hoping Chloe wouldn’t notice that she was wearing the same clothes as the night before.
‘Well, I hope you feel better soon. I’m off to grab my stuff. See you down at the buses!’
Chloe backed off further and then turned and walked quickly down one of the corridors.
Violet’s shoulders sagged as Chloe marched off. She wanted three litres of water, her bed, twelve hours sleep and a new liver. Not a five-hour ride on a bus with forty other people.
As she swayed on the spot, she spied a fire evacuation plan and lumbered up to it to work out where she was and how to get to her room.
She blinked uncomprehendingly at the ‘You are here’ marker, and the little green men showing where the exits were, willing her brain into action.
As she traced the corridor plans with her finger, she heard footsteps behind her.
‘Oh, hi, Violet.’
She turned to see Jake, phone in hand. He was dressed and ready to go, wheeling his suitcase behind him.
‘Hi Jake,’ she mumbled.
‘Where did you get to last night? One minute you were there, the next you’d disappeared.’ He studied her, a slight grin around his mouth. ‘Everything okay?’
Violet kept her distance, not wanting him to smell last night’s alcohol on her or get too close a look at her. She was aware she was bra-less, so unless she wanted to put on a show, she needed to stand in an oddly hunched posture.
‘Ah ha ha!’ She felt her cheeks flame and heard her too-loud laugh. ‘Uh, I realised I had had one too many and took myself off to bed. To my bed. In my room. To go to sleep…’
Jake raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
‘Well, I’m glad I bumped into you, cos I was about to call you, anyway. I need you to help load the radios, bottled water and crew lunches onto the bus. Can you meet Chloe and Ethan down there in twenty minutes, please? We want to be sure to leave on time so everyone can get home.’
Violet didn’t even know where her room was, but sure, she could help load a bus.
From the depths of her soul, she summoned a cheery, can-do voice and replied, ‘Sure, Jake. No problem. I’ll be down soon.’
Jake rounded the corner, head down, looking at his phone once more.
Violet sagged back against the wall. The energy it took to seem like she was even close to having it together was exhausting her.
She forced herself to concentrate on the fire evacuation map again, and, after a few moments, she knew which way to head and started down another corridor.
Soon enough, the numbers started counting down to her own room. Thirty-four, thirty-two, thirty.
Sliding inside, Violet leaned back against the closed door.
Her neat and ordered room was at odds with the sock-less and pant-less harlot who now slumped in the doorway.
She glanced at her watch. She had already lost four minutes since seeing Jake, just finding her room.
She had to pack and be downstairs loading water and radios in sixteen minutes.
There was no time to shower. She needed all her energy and remaining brain cells to pack.
As Violet started to gather things up and throw them haphazardly into a suitcase, she somehow managed to brush her teeth, gulp down two paracetamol with a bottle of water and change her clothes.
She hurriedly smoothed on a little foundation, which on the plus side evened out the blotchiness on her face, but on the bad side made it look like a vampire had drained her blood in the night. Still, looking pale and sickly might keep nosey questioners at bay.
Sweat beads pricked around the edges of Violet’s hairline as she dragged her suitcase out of her room, shouldering her work bag.
She made it down to the coach dead on time and dragged her hungover body up the group of ADs by the luggage hold.
She plastered a smile onto her face and said, ‘Hi folks!’
Ethan turned to greet her, then his face dropped. ‘Violet, are you okay?’ he asked.
‘She’s not feeling well,’ Chloe chimed in, as she slid a crate of water bottles into the luggage bay. ‘She’s got that cold that’s been going around.’
Violet was thankful that in any large group of people, it was always assumed that something was going around.
‘Oh no,’ Ethan exclaimed, wrinkling his nose. ‘You poor thing! Look, we can load this,’ he said, gesturing to the piled-up trays of water bottles and cases of radio equipment. ‘You just get on the bus.’
‘No, no.’ Violet shook her head. She wouldn’t be the one who didn’t pull her weight. ‘I’m fine. It’ll be fine.’
She reached for a crate of water and swallowed hard as her stomach churned in response to the sudden movement. The journey home was five hours on the coach, but Violet knew it would feel more like five days as she battled nausea and headache.
‘We’re nearly done here,’ Ethan insisted, taking Violet’s case from her and stowing it in the belly of the coach. ‘Just grab a seat.’
Chloe was nodding behind him. ‘Honestly, it’s fine. You really don’t look well.’
Violet would have loved to argue with this but had seen herself in a mirror. She nodded, smiled weakly and trundled towards the steps onto the coach, sniffing for effect.
A number of crew were already on board, and the vibe was completely different from the heady, party atmosphere on the way down a week before.
Two of the sparks were already asleep, hoodies squashed into makeshift pillows, leaning against the windows.
One of the makeup artists had a neck pillow and was pulling her eye mask down as Violet shuffled down the aisle.
It was quiet and sombre, all energy spent on a week away and impromptu partying.
Violet found an empty pair of seats and settled in, then her phone vibrated in her pocket.
She pulled it out, hoping she wasn’t in trouble with Jake for ducking out of loading the coach.
Two messages from Finn popped up on the screen. She tensed, and her headache briefly disappeared. She hadn’t even had a chance to think about what last night had meant for them, if anything. Was this the, last night was a mistake message?
Violet shuffled down further in her seat, shielding her phone close to her body, then clicked.
It was a picture of black cotton pants dangling off the end of his finger.
‘I found these,’ the accompanying text read. ‘Shall I bring them to work on Monday morning?’