Page 50 of Read Between The Lines

‘Which you will be, it’s obvious in your face,’ said Rami. ‘Has anyone ever told you that your expression gives away everything that’s going through your mind?’

Leo had, not that I was going to tell these two and add fuel to the fire.

Before I could respond, my phone buzzed, setting my heart racing. I leapt forward to grab it before either of my so-called friends could seize it first and cause more trouble for me.

‘How’s he replied?’ asked Moira. I could tell she was fighting the urge to jump up and read the text over my shoulder.

I tried to hide my excitement as I read the message, lingering over every word. Then I nervously scrolled back to see if the text Moira had sent really was as bad as I feared. She had been exaggerating about the number of kisses, but putting even one was bad enough after the whole self-defence class encounter. On the other hand, Leo’s message had ended with kisses of its own for the first time, so maybe Moira had done me a favour. Or maybe I was reading far too much into a reflex response. He’d probably spent all of five seconds tapping out his reply and not thought twice about its contents. Whereas I was inevitably going to spend the rest of the night over-analysing every word and dreaming about potential hidden meanings.

‘I’m not sure you guys deserve to know after invading my privacy like this,’ I said, half teasing, half rebuking them.

‘We’re very sorry and we won’t do it again,’ said Rami. ‘Will we, Moira?’

She exhaled resignedly. ‘Fine, as you insist, we’ll leave you to your own devices… for now. But if you don’t hurry up and make a proper move on that man, I may be forced to retract. You’re a fool if you let fear get in the way of something that’s staring you in the face.’

I decided it was best not to rise to that particular provocation. And I still didn’t really want to share Leo’s message. I wanted to hug it to myself and come to my own conclusions about it, rather than have my friends chipping in with what would inevitably be far too optimistic interpretations. But it was clear that they weren’t going to let up until I did, so I read it out loud to them.

LEO

Hey Kat, I have to deal with a few things this week, but I will be back soon. It’s time to take things up a notch.

At this point, Moira squealed at an unnecessarily high pitch.

‘Don’t get too carried away,’ I warned. ‘He’s only talking about the investigation.’

I continued reading.

LEO

How are you with heights? SO Ox is running a ‘Love Can Overcome Any Obstacle (Course)’ event next weekend. It’s basically a five-kilometre mud run with a pretentious name. I reckon it’s the kind of show-off mass event that could attract our quarry. What do you think? Could be a good opportunity to listen out for Brian. Have booked my place. See you there. Xx

‘Two kisses,’ said Rami gleefully. ‘He’s already missing you. And he’s practically said he’s going to hurry back to be with you. That’s how I’d interpret it, anyway.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s lovely of you to say, but you’re an English tutor. You spend half your life coming up with alternative interpretations of text, the more implausible the better. Most likely what he actually means is that he can’t wait to have a laugh at my expense while I struggle to climb a rope ladder. An obstacle course? There’s nothing romantic about that.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. The app people obviously run it for a reason,’ said Moira. I shot her a look. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll stop sticking my oar in,’ she added, putting her hand over her mouth for good measure.

I tapped on the app to read more about the event. ‘According to this, it’s the most popular event that SO Ox runs. It’s strange what appeals to some people. I guess it’s worth a try. And the social they’re holding after it will also give us more chance to ask questions. I suppose people might be less on their guard after spending a few hours charging around a muddy field coming face to face with their own mortality.’

I booked a spot, then quickly tapped out a reply to Leo before I could change my mind.

Sounds like a plan. See you there.

My thumb hovered over the screen, then I shrugged. What harm could I do after Moira’s message?

I edited the message, then hit send.

KAT

Sounds like a great plan. Looking forward to seeing you there. Xx.

What had I let myself in for? It was probably a good thing that Leo wasn’t going to be around for the rest of the week. I’d need all the time I could get to transform myself into someone capable of completing a mud run, while retaining enough energy to keep my cool around Leo and still conduct an investigation. The challenge was on.

ChapterNineteen

In retrospect, it was a mistake to cycle the nearly ten-mile distance from my house to Woodstock where the obstacle course was being held in the grounds of Blenheim Palace. After a week of running to and from work, and spending lunchtimes clambering up and down the bookshelf ladders in the library as a makeshift training regime, I was already exhausted. But I was feeling nervous about seeing Leo again, so I decided that it would be a good distraction to cycle along the canal towpath and have a peek at the new floating bookshop on my way, rather than sit stewing on a bus, which would inevitably take around the same time to make the journey because of traffic.

Leo and I hadn’t communicated much over the last week. I’d sent him a few messages updating him on my progress chatting with Scammer Brian, which he’d acknowledged, and he’d promised me he was reading through my research on Marc again. But any tentative attempts by me to move the conversation away from the investigation into more general topics had been met with even briefer responses. I tried to take some hope from the fact that he continued with the kisses at the end of his messages, but the more rational part of my brain told me they were merely a reflex, and that he was not actually interested in getting to know me better. I was becoming more and more convinced that he hadn’t really left Oxford at all and had instead engineered a pretend absence in order to avoid me after I’d nearly kissed him at the gym. If that was the way he wanted to play it, then that was completely fine, I lied to myself. I would do my best to act as if everything was normal, and as if I hadn’t spent the week catching myself looking for him in the library’s business section and being sad he wasn’t there.

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