Page 75 of The Layover
I’m a total matchmaker. Emma Woodhouse, eat your heart out.
I say, ‘Have you been shagging in the loos? Please say yes. Let me live vicariously through you.’
‘We were not shag—’ Fran cuts off, turning even brighter pink, realising how loud she was just being. She is doing precisely nothing to help her case, and I am fizzing with second-hand excitement. Who knew Leon had it in him? She clambers down next to me, cross-legged, and hisses, ‘We werenotshagging. We just – talked.’
‘Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days?’
I waggle my eyebrows at Leon, who glowers in response, and I hoot with laughter.
‘What happened to your hide-out upstairs?’ Leon asks me. He joins us on the floor; he starts to sit down next to Fran, thenblushes, and moves to plop down on my other side instead. My, is the sexual tension so great they’ll jump each other’s bones if they’re less than six inches apart? I almost crack a joke about it, but decide to spare them both. I’m not entirely sure if I’m forgiven, or if they’re just distracted.
I wave a hand. ‘Got kicked out by security. It’s alright, though. He helped carry all our stuff downstairs, and I am not in a French prison, so I’d say that’s a very good outcome all in all.’
Leon rolls his eyes and gives a soft chuckle, then opens up the last pizza box. My stomach growls, a booze-induced hunger hitting me at the smell of greasy cheese. I snatch up a slice, shoving it almost whole into my mouth.
Meanwhile, Leon waits for Fran to take a slice before getting one for himself. Oh my God, precious, they’re like teenagers at the cinema too shy to let their hands touch as they grab for the popcorn.
It’d be perfect, if she weren’t hopelessly in love with that douchebag Marcus.
As we chow down the pizza and dip into some crisps, too, the three of us sit in what I might call, dare I say it,companionable silence.
We’re all just tired, really, I think. We’ve been drinking and it’s been a hell of a day and we’re all dealing with a lot.
So it’s not that I’m forgiven, only that they don’t have the energy to go on the attack and berate me. And it’s not that they’re choosing to stick with me; it’s just that they don’t really have anywhere else to go.
Another flight gets called to its boarding gate, and when I look around, distractedly people-watching, I realise the airport is getting pretty empty. The hubbub dies down, leaving it near-silent. Someone is snoring – great, big, rattling sounds that drift down from the food-court balcony. A kid is watchingBlueyon an iPad, the volume low, and two women in the seats behindbop along to the title music, giggling quietly to themselves. The maybe-siblings/maybe-married ginger pair are sat side by side still; her head is on his shoulder as she snoozes, but that doesn’t really prove anything either way … So annoying. Ineedto know. Is it rude to ask them outright? The messy gym-bro kid with the macarons and thong to woo his gal is sat on the stairs, rucksack hugged to him and fast asleep, a line of drool at the edge of his mouth.
I eye the Ladurée bag poking out the top of his rucksack, then root around our things for the three boxes I got at a steep end-of-day discount that we never got around to eating earlier.
As Fran opens her box to peruse, Leon only holds his in his lap and looks at me with an unnerving focus that makes my skin itch. He takes a deep breath before he speaks, and my spine goes stiff, my lungs squeezing tight.
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to play the video, Gem.’
I snort. ‘You would say that. I’ll cut the bit about your family, don’t worry, but—’
‘No, I mean it. Nobody’s going to believe it was an accident, and it’s going to make you look just as bad as Kay – worse, maybe. I’m not saying you shouldn’t show it to Marcus, maybe he deserves to know, but—’
‘Sowhatif it makes me look bad? Who cares?’ I should laugh, and roll my eyes, but I can’t quite bring myself to do anything except pick a few flakes of blue off the Marie-Antoinette tea macaron in my box. I can’t even look in Leon’s direction, even as his gaze bores into my skull. ‘You saw those messages, what she says about me. It’s not like I’ve got anything left to lose. And Kayleigh …’
She’s got so much to lose.
So much I want totake from her, like she’s done to me over the years.
That thought swells in my chest, but it’s not with the anger I’m used to. It’s something heavy and wet and painful.
I close the box, my treasured French desserts suddenly losing all their appeal. I mutter something about being tired, and huddle down over my suitcase, arms folded under my head, where I can pretend to go to sleep, and they don’t have to see me cry.
Chapter Thirty-five
Leon
I’m not so sure Gemma’sthattired all of a sudden – exhausted, yes, but not sleepy – except Francesca clicks her tongue gently and unbundles her denim jacket, draping it over Gemma’s shoulders like a blanket. She rests a hand on Gemma’s back for a moment, almost like she’s saying,I’m here, or,We’ve got you, and it makes me think again:She’s too good for Marcus.
The thought sends me straight back to our interaction in the women’s loos. Not the part where I told her I thought she was worth more, but the part where I freaked out and locked us both in a cubicle, and the soft graze of her mouth at my ear, the press of her body into mine, the way her pale eyes blew dark when I touched her neck.
The memory has my heart thudding hard in my chest, my stomach tightening.
Not that I was going to – I don’t know, kiss her, or anything. We barely know each other. She’s in love with someone else.
