Lucy in the Sky

a yawn.
    ‘What’s the time?’ he asks.
    ‘Bloody hell, it’s four o’clock!’
    ‘In three hours from now I’d usually be getting up to go surfing.’
    ‘In three hours from now I’d usually be getting home from work.’
    ‘You must be knackered. Still jet-lagged?’
    ‘I should be. I have no idea how I’m still awake and talking to you.’
    But of course I have every idea. There’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be right now. Must be the vodka talking. But Nathan is already getting to his feet. He holds his hand down tome and I take it. His hands are rough, I notice, as I hang on for a second longer than is necessary. We make eye contact in the darkness. I can’t see the expression on his face; I’m just glad he can’t see me blushing.

Chapter 3
    I’m hung-over, I’ve barely slept and my eyes feel like they’ve been doused in vinegar. But regardless of all that, I’m walking on air. I can’t stop thinking about Nathan. James barely registers in my thoughts. I don’t care if he’s shagging a planeful of air hostesses–I just want to think about that sexy, messy-haired surfer.
    The disappointment was crushing when I woke up this morning, expecting to see him at the breakfast table.
    ‘Where’s Nathan?’ I asked Molly.
    ‘He would’ve gone at the crack of dawn,’ she answered casually.
    But we were sitting outside under the stars only a couple of short hours before that, so I was sure he’d still be around.
    ‘What time did you get to bed?’ she enquired.
    ‘Oh, I’m not sure. Not too long after you guys went.’
    I don’t know why I couldn’t tell her we stayed up talking until 4 a.m. That’s something I want to share with Nathan and Nathan alone.
    I keep my phone close in case he calls about going surfing, although I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have sought out my number. I wish we’d made definite plans about meeting up again. We said we’d go today, but now the thought of us heading off to the beach together and alone seems surreal. I wonder if he even remembers. We did have a lot to drink, after all.
    I go to the shop with Molly in the afternoon for a couple of hours. Every time the bell rings to announce the arrival of another customer my head hurts, and the whiney R&B music doesn’t help either. Luckily Molly’s boss isn’t in this afternoon; I’m not sure how much she’d appreciate her customers seeing the green-faced girl sitting to the left of the cash register.
    ‘You’re quiet today,’ Molly says. ‘You’re not still worried about James, are you?’
    ‘Oh, no, I’m not worried about him.’ I brush her off, perhaps a little too hastily. A flicker of something passes over her features and I’m not quite sure what it means. ‘I mean, I do miss him. I’m just really hung-over,’ I moan, and she smiles at me strangely but lets it be.
    The truth is, I don’t want to chat because I’m too busy replaying my conversation with Nathan over and over again in my head. I could have easily stayed out on the porch talking to him until the sun came up.
    I heard him sigh when he went into his bedroom last night to sleep and it was heartbreaking. What used to be his cosy teenage retreat is now neatly made up for B&B customers. I can’t begin to imagine what it must’ve been like for him to lose his parents at the age of fifteen. I still regret not being here for Sam when the accident happened. But at least he had Molly. I was selfishly jealous of that fact at the time, but that wasprobably when he and Molly finally realised how precious their relationship was.
    In the early evening, when tiredness finally gets the better of me, I tell Molly and Sam I’ve got a bad case of jet lag and head to bed. I might not see Nathan now until the wedding in nine days’ time and I don’t know how I’m going to wait. I wonder if this bizarre crush will have passed when I wake up in the morning.
    Soon after I fall asleep my phone beeps and I come to and grab it, imagining it could be him. But it’s a text from James and I feel foolish and disappointed. He asks me to call, but I don’t want to. That conversation with Nathan last night about his ‘stories’ troubled me. My unease is growing, not shrinking, and I can’t help but doubt him again.
    I try to go back to sleep, but ten minutes later my phone starts to ring. Is it Nathan? My heart hopes.
    No, it’ll be James. And it is.
    ‘Lucy! How are you?’
    ‘Sleeping.’
    ‘Oh, sorry, baby. I should’ve known.