Chapter Thirteen
It took us a long and gruelling time to get James back into the tent. Initially, he managed to use me as a leaning post to guide his feet back up the slope, wincing and groaning the whole way. I pointed out, helpfully, that he wouldn’t be able to stand if it was a broken back, so respectfully, he was probably being a big baby. He slithered to the ground outside the tent, hissing like a snake. Then, wiggling as a half-squished worm might, he somehow managed to get himself inside the tent and in his sleeping bag, where he promptly fell back to sleep.
I wake first, the promise of morning light pushing through the thin material. I yawn, and then I realise James has both hands on me, his fingers twisted into my baggy t-shirt. If I didn’t know it was James, I’d find it very endearing. Boyish, even. The need to hold onto something in his sleep, like I’m his teddy bear. I forcefully push away any of the feelings this is trying to stir up in me. I blink across at his sleeping face, relieved he can’t see how I’m reacting. He is so relaxed in slumber, his hair sticking out at hundreds of different angles. I stifle a laugh, biting my lip. His eyelashes are offensively long. Always something I’ve found rude in men – they don’t need long lashes, it’s such a waste. In the morning light, I can’t help but admire how beautiful his features are.
God, am I really suggesting James is beautiful? I mean, I have always liked the little bump on his nose. It suits him. He’s this perfectly smart, suited man, but he’s clearly not perfect. Just like his nose.
I sigh. I need some fresh air. My “end of the world” horniness is going to get me in serious trouble if I don’t escape the confines of this tent.
Cool down, lady.
I unravel myself from James’ grip carefully, trying not to wake him. He grunts, turning himself slowly away from me. I take that as a good sign. His back can’t be too injured if he’s rolling over in his sleep.
Pulling on my trousers, socks and trainers, which at this point are working up all sorts of aromas, I unzip the tent and emerge under a glorious morning sky. Long strips of fluffy white clouds smear the rich blue landscape as if they’ve been painted there with a fat brush. I stretch my arms upwards, sensing that familiar post-drinking body ache. It could also be from all the walking and the fact I was dragged down water rapids yesterday, but, in an attempt to start the day positively, I push that from my mind. It’s impossible not to notice the foreign feeling in my shin though. I can’t bring myself to check on my wound just yet. Hopefully it hasn’t got infected overnight.
I take our bottles down to the little lake and fill them, remembering how we washed my bloody knee into the same water the day before. However it is clear to the bottom now, and I noticed the lake is fed by downhill streams, so I assume it’s ok since this must be fresh hill water. I think about it for another minute, scrunch my face and decide if we die out here from water poisoning, at least this whole stupid journey is over and my parents can sue the bejesus out of Michael.
When I get back, I take a seat on the floor beside the almost completely burnt-out fire, and start returning the ground to how it was before we arrived. I’ve seen on adventure shows like Bear Grylls that you should leave it all the way you found it. I aspire to be a non-destructive human being to the best of my ability.
James makes a wailing sound from inside the tent. When he finally emerges a few minutes later, he looks adorably awful. His face is scrunched, one eye still struggling to open against the bright morning light. He doesn’t sit down, slowly pacing around the spot we’ve claimed as our own, doing strange stretches with slow movements.
“I’d offer you a coffee if I had one. Except if I had one, I’d drink it myself,” I say helpfully.
James grunts in response.
The silence is dragging, it’s making me sweat. I need to get a response out of him before I start to squirm. “At least you haven’t broken your back?”
More grunting.
“Hopefully the castle isn’t much further now?”
He gives me a look, squinting down at my seated position. “Are you trying to fill the silence?”
“All you have to do is reply with actual words and it soothes me.”
“You’re incredibly high maintenance.”
I pout. “I’m not… I just…” Meh. It’s too early to argue and he’s clearly in a worse than usual grump. I start packing up all our stuff into the bags, taking the tent down and offering him a protein bar. He takes it, still refusing to sit down, walking a little further towards the lake to glare out at the scenery, doing his Austen hero stance.
It’s nothing personal, Fliss. Sometimes people get grumpy, and it isn’t you who caused it. You aren’t responsible for other people’s feelings.
James peers over his shoulder and catches me watching him. I blush, warmth pooling through me. Why am I embarrassed? Was I checking him out? Was he checking me out? Am I officially losing my mind? I kneel on the ground to cram the tent into its packaging. Shrugging my own bag onto my shoulders, I pick up James’ to meet him down by the lake. I take one last look across the place we camped to check nothing has been left behind.
It’s as if we were never there.
“Here,” I say. “Do you think you’ll be able to carry it?”
“Yeah. Sorry I called you high maintenance just now. I didn’t mean it. You’re not. And you didn’t have to pack everything up on your own.”
“Well, it’s done now.”
James nods, giving me a look. His gaze catches on mine. I take a deep breath as his eyes flit down the length of me then away back to the river so fast I almost can’t trust it even happened. He’s definitely checking me out. I know he was. He must be suffering from “last two people” syndrome as well. Poor soul. Let’s hope our horny arses can make it to the castle without doing anything we’ll regret.
“Better get going,” I say, striding off in the direction we think we should be heading in. At this point, who even knows. We don’t have a compass. Our map skills are so wanting we’re essentially having to guess and hope for the best. Our generation have been spoiled with Google Maps and Citymapper. We don’t have the same navigation skills as our parents. I remember watching from the back seat of our car as a map the size of the windscreen would be held up, twisted and argued over as they worked out which road to take next. I haven’t had to do that in forever.
James stumbles along behind me, dragging his feet. Every now and again, his foot catches on a stone or a lump of grass, and he trips or sends something flying.
“So,” James says out of nowhere. “What was your worst date?” I wonder if he’s now trying to fill the silence for a reason, or if he is considering my need to fill the silence. Maybe he feels bad for snapping at me this morning.
I don’t look back at him as I respond. “Mini golf. Two years ago. Guy got so angry with his lack of skills, he threw his putter through a window.”
“Jeez.” I’m pleased when I hear James snort a laugh.
“You?”
“Few months ago, I went out for a nice dinner with this girl on a dating site. Was all going really smoothly. She was alright. Funny, pretty, had some decent banter. Then she started telling me about her boyfriend.”
“What?!” I laugh.
“Yeah. It was like her kink or something.”
“What!?”
“I don’t know. Clearly, I got caught up in something. She wanted me to go back with them. I’m up for some shit but that’s too much even for me.”
I’m gawping at the path ahead. His story doesn’t surprise me. There were several dates I had myself where it was pretty obvious the guy was fielding calls from other women. Sad part is, they were usually the ones most keen to meet up again. Lowers your opinion of people in general.
“I hate dating. I hardly do it these days. It’s far too stressful,” I say.
“Stressful?”
“Very. You just never know where you stand, or what the other person’s expectations are. Some dates would be going great then I’d suggest splitting the bill and the conversation would nosedive. The whole vibe would change. I really thought our generation was better than that.”
“Fragile masculinity.”
“It is. But it’s more than that, it symbolises, to them, that the date isn’t going to be simply transactional. I’m worth more than a meal.”
“You are.”
A warm swell surrounds my heart, squeezing it. I bite the inside of my cheek. “I know. That’s why I’ve given up. Also, I swear none of these guys know what they want or even what they like. They can barely talk about themselves or their lives. It’s all very superficial and boring.”
James is laughing. Without turning I can almost hear his head shaking, and his eyes rolling. “I know where you’re coming from.” He pauses. “What do you want then?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“Ok, I’ll guess. You probably have quite a list for dates to pass before they’re even considered. So, must be above a certain height. Must have good teeth. Must have a decent job or working towards a career. Must have similar interests. Am I about right?”
“Yes…” I admit. “Apart from the height thing. So far, I’m yet to meet a man shorter than me, but if I did, it wouldn’t necessarily put me off. As long as they were confident in themselves. I’m not about propping up egos. And I’m not wasting my time on someone who still lives with their mum. Or if they do, doesn’t even have a plan to leave.”
James snorts. “Ok, once you get on the date… Must want… marriage?”
“No, actually.” I shrug as I step across a small ditch in the ground. “Must be willing to commit long term. I want someone to share a mortgage with.”
“How romantic.”
“And I want a dog. Something like a cavapoo or corgi.”
“I can see that.”
“They don’t even have to want kids. I don’t even know if I want them yet,” I add. “And I do find some guys are really put off by my career. So they need to have their own professional ambitions and be supportive of mine.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.”
I stop, turning to face James. He steps right up close, his face barely inches from mine. I’m suddenly thankful we’ve had toothpaste in our bags and been using it twice a day. His minty breath blows down across my nose. I find myself locked in his blue eyes, watching how his dark hair hangs down across his eyebrows.
I clear my throat. What was I going to say? I stare into his eyes and then blurt, “Why do you say that?” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. My limbs are buzzing, my fingers tingling. Either that water from the lake is finally getting into my blood and I’m about to die, or I’m having a weird meltdown.
“Some guys are intimidated by successful women.”
“Oh. Right. I know,” I say. And then for some mad unknown reason, I ask, “Are you?”
James takes a moment to answer. “No. Although you’ve been known to intimidate me from time to time. You’re a lot of things I always wanted to be.”
I’m very cautious of my breathing right now. It doesn’t sound normal. It sounds choppy. Desperate. My eyes drop to James’ lips. I’ve never noticed how pink they are. Slightly parted. Kissable. I bite my bottom lip, imploring my sex-starved brain to silence itself. “Like what?”
“Educated. Positive. Funny.”
“You find me funny?” I interrupt.
“And annoying,” he adds to keep me grounded.
I laugh in a breathy way, forcing myself to look away, focussing on a patch of pink wildflowers swaying softly in the breeze. James’ eyes are on the side of my face, I feel trapped by them. I can’t look back now, or I might actually lose my mind. I’m not in control of my own body. This is really quite unacceptable.
Must remember that not only is this a work trip – granted, it’s a terrible, dangerous work trip – but James is my colleague – a colleague, until about five hours ago, I absolutely could not stand. I can’t want him. And I certainly cannot allow these thoughts to get the better of me. He should be firmly set aside in the no-go zone in my head. I hate him, don’t I? He ruins everything. He adds to my stress and anxiety all the time in our normal daily lives. So, why does telling myself this make me flush even more?
“I kind of like how you’re not always thinking about money,” he says. “I wish I could do that. You know, find pleasure in other things. For me, having money has always been this insatiable need. It can be really toxic. It makes you do things you’re not proud of.”
I can’t help myself. I look back to read his face. Connecting with his eyes once again sends a shot of sensation through to the spot between my legs. Instinctively, I cross them. James catches the movement, dropping his eyes.
This is so, so inappropriate.
And then he steps even closer. I panic, putting my hands between us. They land on his torso and because he’s simply much bigger than me, it ends up producing the opposite effect of pushing him away and has me stumbling backwards. He grabs my arms to steady me.
Oh hell.
Now he’s holding onto me. Too close. We must look like a couple on a romantic hike. At least nobody is going to see it.
Fliss, wake up!
I shake myself out of whatever the hell is happening here, twisting out of his grip and striding off again, way too quickly. I seal my lips shut, willing this persistent buzz in my body away. James jogs gently to catch me up, as if he waited a few moments to gather himself, a slight hitch in his breathing.
*
The first signs of civilisation we encounter are the occasional grey stone walls. They’re scattered about at random, as if they used to have a purpose holding something in or out, but now they’ve crumbled and only the best parts of the walls remain. We cross a stream, James helping me through again, this time far more successfully than the river. We then follow it until we finally reach a bridge over a brook.
The bridge is another sign of human existence. The only problem is it doesn’t look as if anyone has crossed it in hundreds of years. Clearly it was once a track of some sort, there’s an underlying sturdiness that suggests a dirt road. Now mother nature has reclaimed it, saplings growing on top of the bridge as well as under. A sign of how long the roots have been able to plant themselves.
“It looks safe enough to cross,” James says, leading the way.
It’s wide enough that it was probably designed for carriages. I trust it was once able to hold the weight of horses and therefore is capable of carrying two humans. However, my faith in there being a fully functioning castle hotel is diminished. I’m about to vocalise this to James, but he walks steadily on ahead with a sense of purpose.
As the castle finally comes into view, my heart drops like an anchor thrown from a ship. It’s a total ruin, complete with toppled turrets and massive gaping holes. It’s surrounded by thick forest, eagerly encroaching on the structure, more unruly saplings and weeds claw back the space, claiming what was once theirs. Even if it was hundreds of years ago.
“This would’ve been a home,” James says, peering up at the slanted tops.
“What makes you say that?”
“There’s no moat. It’s not a hill fort. There are practically zero safety measures. Looks like they have some arrow slits in that tower over there, but this forest is ancient. No way they would’ve used this for battle. It was someone’s home. Or maybe a hunting lodge.”
“How do you know that?”
James shrugs. “I read quite a lot of medieval history books as a teenager. Believe it or not, but I may have been a bit of a nerd back then. Now I mostly watch historical documentaries instead.”
I nod, listening. It’s good to know he’s got other interests outside of work. That he’s a whole human being. James ventures further into the ruins, touching the walls as he goes. Ivy hangs down from what looks like a collapsed second floor. “Be careful,” I say. Who knows when a wall might fall on top of him when he’s that close.
“Don’t pretend you care about me now, Felicity,” he says in jest.
Oh, crap. Yes, caring about James all of a sudden would be a real one-eighty. Most importantly, we can’t let Michael think his insane task succeeded. “Just don’t fancy being left with a dead body in a rural, creepy-arse, derelict castle,” I shout at his disappearing back. “Seriously? You’re abandoning me?”
He doesn’t reply, fading in between the walls. I hug myself, a dreary dread pouring through me. A gust of wind pushes through the dense, dark trees surrounding us. They’re so close together you can see the spider webs intertwined. They creak as they sway, branches colliding in an ominous crackling. I shudder. I have no choice but to follow him in.
I take tentative steps towards the “home” as James called it, listening out for his footsteps whilst also hoping any long-ago residents aren’t still occupying the halls. It’s not a huge castle. It sort of reminds me of where Drew Barrymore’s character in Ever After would meet the prince. All hanging ivy, gorgeous shadows and that real rich unknown history charming the walls. So much so, as I walk under an archway, stepping down into what must have been one of the old rooms, I disturb a flutter of small white butterflies. They surround me, lifting up into the rafters. I stop, mesmerised.
“James?” I call out.
My body is tense in here on my own. Has he come this way, or not? My imagination is running away with me, seeing things I’m not really seeing. The shapes of trees swaying through gaps startle me, playing tricks on my mind. The call of an animal nearby has me freezing with fear. Are there predators out here? I’m pretty sure they culled wolves from the Scottish landscape some time ago but now I’m worried I got that snippet of information wrong.
I wait, standing stock still, but I don’t hear so much as a twig snap under James’ shoe. Has he already fallen down a hole or been crushed by something? My lungs accelerate as I move to search harder, quicker, spinning under more archways, up and down unstable steps, into courtyards and through pitch-black tunnels.
I stop when I see a stained-glass window of greens, blues and purples still enclosed perfectly in its frame, the outer wall completely gone. A man and woman, embracing passionately, stare back at me, as if I’m intruding on their intimate moment.
That’s when something touches me from behind and my heart explodes. I spin on the attacker, launching myself backwards with a high-pitched scream.
Instantly, the attacker stops, crunching over with laughter.
Gloatman.
“Arsehole! You nearly gave me a bloody heart attack!”
This only makes him laugh harder. Big, gulping belly laughs.
“You’re such a shit. Honestly.” I hold a hand over my recovering heart. His laughter, despite being irritating as hell, starts to rub off on me and I find myself smiling like an idiot. “What happened to the flippin’ castle hotel thing, hey? Can I say I told—”
“Don’t!” James says, straightening up to his full height again and giving me a daring grin. His eyes connect with mine, the fire between us fuelling up for a fight or… I don’t know. Just fuelling. “Don’t you dare say it,” he breathes, our faces so close now that I can see the flecks of gold in his irises.
“But I did te—” I start to say as James’ lips collide with mine.