Page 28 of Just for December

She’s ninety-nine per cent sure that he is one hundred per cent out of her league, but she thinks, in this moment, as they continue to get, minute millimetre by minute millimetre, just a little bit closer, that she could kiss him. So she leans in, caution to the wind and taking her chance, willing to risk it all in case she’s wrong and he might just kiss her back, and she swears he leans in as well. He’s not repulsed by her, he doesn’t hate her. Actually, he might want this too …

The church clock chimes again, and Evie leaps back, coming to her senses.

What was she thinking?

She can’t fall for him, can’t kiss him, can’t be feeling any of this.

‘We should head back,’ she announces, clearing her throat with a cough. Duke frowns, just a tiny amount, and then murmurs agreement.

‘Okay,’ he says, and they head back to the hotel in silence, exactly as they seem to have done many times before.

‘Coffee,’ Evie says. ‘I cannot face this day on no sleep without coffee.’

They’re only just getting back to the hotel at 5 a.m. Evie can’t believe that the time passed by so quickly. Even when they took a wrong turn and ended up looping around town in the opposite direction to the one they’d meant to go in they were chatting and laughing. But they’re here now; they’ve figured it out. Everyone must have a later call time than Duke, because it’s quiet. Evie expected to have to avoid inquisitive looks and impertinent questions but, like so much worry is, it was misspent. The place is deserted.

‘I’m going to need a triple,’ Duke agrees, looking around like he’s noticed the eerie calm too. ‘I don’t think I’ve pulled an all-nighter since the 2015 Emmy’s.’

‘He says, offhandedly,’ Evie quips, rolling her eyes.

‘Good morning, Mr Carlisle, Ms Bird,’ says the barista behind the bar. ‘I thought you’d left already with the others.’

Evie is already requesting a double-shot latte as Duke says, ‘Sorry, what? The others have gone already?’

‘Yes,’ the barista says, a pretty thing with long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and delicate, elfin features. ‘Theactress, she said there was an emergency schedule change, I think. Last night.’

Duke looks pointedly at Evie, who is aware that his spine has straightened and his shoulders have become broader.

‘I’ll still take that coffee to go,’ she tells the barista. ‘And one for him, please.’ But she’s already lost him. He’s pulling out his phone and the look on his face means, Evie can surmise, that something has happened.

‘They’ve gone without us,’ he says, shaking his head and reading off his phone. He thumbs through his missed call list – reams and reams of calls from what Evie can see – and then tells her: ‘I’d been on set all day so nobody told me – I hate being bothered by logistics when I’m working. It’s distracting. So they packed up my stuff and were expecting me to get back to the hotel after the shoot but I went for a quick walk and my driver didn’t know, I suppose … my phone was on silent, and … Did I really not check my phone this whole night?’

The barista sets down their coffees, and Evie fishes out her phone too. It never occurred to her that she hadn’t checked it. She often switches it off and puts it in a drawer when she’s working, so it’s not unusual for her to go hours or even days without it. If the nursing home needs her, they have her emergency home phone number, and whilst she’s here they have the number to the hotels.

She takes a look. She also has several calls from the producer, and Katerina, the DP, and her agent, all of whom probably assume she’s made a break for it like she threatened to. Ah.

‘So …’ Evie says. ‘Oops?’

‘Yeah,’ says Duke. ‘Oops. Okay. Let me call my driver. You’ll just get in with us, right? I mean, you kind of have no choice.’

‘I’d like to ride with you, yes,’ Evie replies, slurping from the coffee that has been made to a pleasingly drinkable temperature. ‘Did they really leave you behind?’ Duke looks at her. She says it laughingly, and the look on his face demonstrates that he agrees that it is pretty funny. ‘You’re a pretty expensive valuable to head off without.’

‘Let’s just get that coffee. My head feels scrambled.’

By 6 a.m. they’re in Duke’s luxury people carrier, upholstered in leather that Evie notes is softer than butter. They both had time to quickly shower, and Evie packed her own bags, on account of the fact that as a lowly author nobody had done that for her, as they had Duke. They threw down a breakfast sandwich and another coffee as they waited for Duke’s driver to fill up on gas and so far, now they’re on their merry way, Duke has spent most of the time on his phone.

‘Budgets,’ he grumbles, as they fly down the autostrada at a speed Evie has never travelled outside of a jet before. Apparently Germany doesn’t do speed limits. ‘They’re trying to shave two days off the production because Brad needs to make sure he’s under budget. That’s why the schedules and corresponding locations got moved so suddenly.’

‘Does that really matter?’ asks Evie, trying to watch the world go by out of the window but struggling to get her eyes to adjust to blur after blur. ‘The budget?’

‘Yes, it matters,’ Duke snaps, half looking up and seemingly deciding she’s not worth the effort and so immediately goingback to his phone. ‘It impacts what he can negotiate for his next job.’

His tone is sharp, and Evie decides to write it off as a mix of embarrassment and frustration. All she meant was that surely two days would hardly make a budgetary difference, when you consider the amounts of cash everyone is dealing in. But maybe that’s naïve. What does she know? This isn’t her industry. All she knows is that in order to writeOnthe Romantic Roadshe spent a lot of time googling all the picturesque towns and castles, and to actually visit the Schaezlerpalais in Augsburg is an opportunity she never thought she’d get. It’s the one thing she managed to get even slightly excited about when she signed her contract, and now she’s staying, and even trying to do it in good humour, she doesn’t want to miss it.

The blurs outside the window become more focused, then, and Evie becomes aware of trucks and other cars and vans. They slow, at first, and Duke finally looks up properly from his phone.

‘Traffic?’ he asks the driver, and the driver replies, ‘Accident, I think.’

They stop completely.

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