Page 31 of One Night on the Island

‘My game, my rules,’ she says.

‘Eyes open, eyes closed. It makes no difference to me,’ I say.

‘Oh, it will.’

I allow myself a tiny eye-roll. ‘I’ll close my eyes.’

‘On three,’ she says, uber-confident.

‘One, two, three,’ I say, then raise one leg and stretch my arms out to the sides.

Cleo lays one foot flat against her other calf and steadies herself, her arms spread too.

‘Eyes shut!’ she barks through clenched teeth, closing hers.

I do as I’m told, and shit, it’s actually harder than I thought. Much harder. I squint through one eye, struggling; while she’s still bolt upright, I’m about to fall, and oh – there I go.

‘Goddamn it,’ I say, as I hit the floor.

She has her eyes open now, still standing upright on one leg as if to make a point.

I could let her claim victory right now, but I don’t. I wait it out and hold her gaze. She’s turning beetroot with the effort, and then she suddenly starts to sway like a palm tree in high winds and face-plants to the ground.

‘You’re over the line. Five-second penalty,’ I say. ‘Which I think you’ll find makes me the winner.’

She sits up and retracts her foot back over into her own half, rubbing her ankle. ‘Er, I don’t think so. I was standing for a good ten seconds longer than you.’

‘Best of three?’

She puffs. ‘I would but I think I’ve twisted my ankle. I need you to pass me my wine to numb the pain.’

‘A likely story,’ I say, but I get the wine anyway. I snag my beer too, never one to let someone drink alone. I sit on my side of the line again, my back turned to hers.

‘What are you doing?’ she says.

‘Leaning against the boundary wall,’ I say.

I hear her laugh under her breath and then the sound of her shuffling, grumbling about her ankle until she’s sitting back-to-back with me.

‘I went up to the village today,’ she says.

‘You did?’ The back of her head touches my shoulder. It’s unsettling.

‘I joined the knitting circle.’

‘You joined the what now?’ I say, surprised.

‘The knitting circle.’ I feel her laugh against my back when she moves. ‘Do you mind if I pretend you’re the actual wall? I can’t lean against nothing for long.’

‘Okay,’ I say, closing my eyes when she rests her weight against me. I relax too and we jostle until we find the natural point where we’re propping each other up.

‘You’re a comfortable wall,’ she says.

I don’t know how to respond. I’m struggling to respond at all because this is the closest I’ve been to any woman other than Susie for longer than I can remember, and even though we aren’t together, it feels like I’m crossing a line. I’m not. Literally, I’m on my side of the line and Cleo is on hers, and up to now we haven’t had a flirty kind of relationship. But now she’s leaning on me, I’m suddenly hyper-aware of the warmth of her body and the smell of her hair when she tips her head back. It makes me realize how crushingly lonely I am, how much I miss physical closeness.

‘Why the big sigh?’

I didn’t realize my thoughts were seeping from my body. ‘Just stuff,’ I say. ‘Leo sounded upset tonight.’

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