Page 32 of The Lucky Escape

‘What day is it today?’

‘It’s definitely one ending in “y”,’ I joked. I was knackered, and I literally didn’t have a clue.

He beamed at me, amused. ‘I feel the same. Are you tired? Could you eat?’

‘I canalwayseat. But I can also feel a thin layer of sweat across my whole body and I know that if I don’t take care of it immediately, it will definitely result in some sort of rash. Which sounds gross, but is nonetheless true.’

‘Room service? My treat? It’s basically night-time now anyway, so we could order food, shower as we wait for it to come, get a good night’s sleep with full bellies and then be Margaret River ready tomorrow?’

I sighed, happy that our vibe was so similar. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘THAT is a perfect plan. There are three rooms, by the way. So that’s good.’

‘Cool. You get first pick. I’ll unpack in a minute. This itinerary they’ve sorted out is blowing my mind.’

I woke up brand-new. Patrick was awake before I was and he’d already spoken to Bianca, who’d said she thought that for our first day she should drive us out to the beach. Apparently she was our designated driver for the week we were on the west coast, before we flew over east to Sydney. I’d texted the Core Four:We have a limo driver!and received a slew of jealous emoji responses in reply.

‘Ready, ready, chicken jelly?’ Patrick shouted from his bedroom.

Ready, ready chicken jelly?

‘I beg your pardon?’ I yelled back. ‘What … are you even saying?’

He appeared at the doorway in a pair of pressed navy shorts, Birkenstocks and a rumpled Oxford shirt in a blue check. His hair was ruffled and unkempt, twenty-four hours’ worth of stubble lending him a dishevelled aura that suited him, like he was officially in off-duty mode. In one hand he had a beach towel, in the other a tote bag weighed down with what I could tell, from the hard corner poking through the fabric, was a book.

‘My mum – Mama Jess, to my friends – used to say it when we were kids.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t think I have ever said it as an adult, except for randomly just now.’

‘What’s your dad’s name?’

‘Mark.’

‘Jess and Mark. What a son they’ve raised.’

He looked at me, then, for the first time. He sort of blinked in rapid succession and I swear I could see him recalibrating his brain, a computer that needed a moment to open a new tab because it already had so many other tabs on the go. I wondered if we were destined to keep dipping in and out of formality for the whole trip, losing ourselves and then pulling back as we realized there was actually still so much we didn’t know about the other. I couldn’t tell which camp he was currently in. I wanted to skip this part – the getting comfortable with each other bit – and just be cool. I supposed that’s the problem with bringing a virtual stranger on holiday with you – there was so much unknown ground. I wanted to fast-forward into the comfort of friendship.

‘You look pretty,’ he told me. I flared my nostrils and made myself go cross-eyed.

‘Fanks,’ I slurred, self-consciously. There was something about how his pupils had dilated that made an innocent compliment feel more loaded than it was. It made my skin tingle.

There was a beat where we looked at each other awkwardly and he said, ‘Do you have sun cream? I forgot mine.’

‘I do,’ I replied, trying to switch up the mood. ‘To the beach! Yee-haw!’

‘To the beach!’ he echoed, but I was timid walking ahead of him. I hoped I looked okay. He’d called me pretty and I wanted, puzzlingly, to do that compliment justice, even if I’d been terrible at accepting it. I’d put on a bit of waterproof mascara but that was it, because there’s no point getting dolled up for the beach. I figured he’d seen me looking worse at bootcamp, and even though I’d lingered over my make-up bag in the bathroom and had briefly considered making more of an effort, ultimately I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. Not that I only wear lipstick to impress men, obviously. Mum would think I was lazy for being so low-key, but it wasn’t a beauty pageant. And anyway, make-up or not, Patrick had seemed to mean it when he said I looked nice.

I pulled at the strap of my bikini and smoothed out the fabric of my jean shorts. When I half-turned to hold the door for him, I caught him looking in the hallway mirror and patting down his hair with his free hand, like a little boy on picture day. It was a tiny gesture of self-doubt at odds with his outward confidence.

‘After you,’ I said, deliberately smiling widely like a good, friendly mate. The door clicked closed behind us.

The beach had mammoth grassy banks and winding narrow roads that led to miles and miles of curved picture-perfectwhite sand. The water was the colour you choose when finger painting as a child: light blue with crisp white breaks where the waves crash in, although it was calm further out. Trees and sand dunes lined the banks behind us as we walked down to the shore, deciding where to set ourselves up. Bianca honked her horn as she drove off. Being hand-delivered to the beach by a limo was the most glamorous thing I’d ever do in my life.

‘Here?’ I said, wanting to throw down a blanket and rush out to put my feet in the water. Patrick placed the picnic hamper the hotel had packed for us on the sand, sighed cheerfully, and closed his eyes.

‘What’s that song about sand dunes and salty air? I’ve got it playing in my head.’

‘Oh yeah,’ I said, unloading sunscreen and my book from my bag. ‘I know the one.’ I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes too. All I could hear was the waves, and all I could feel was the warmth of the sun on my face. Glorious. Needed. Perfect.

‘Do you mind?’

I opened my eyes and Patrick was waving the bottle of sun cream at me.

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