Page 121 of The One Plus One
‘It’s time, Jessica Rae Thomas, that someone looked after you.’
Edward Nicholls washed her hair, his legs around her waist, as she lay back against him in the oversized bath. He rinsed it gently, smoothing it and wiping her eyes with a facecloth to stop shampoo getting into them. She went to do it herself, but he shushed her. Nobody had ever washed her hair, outside a hairdresser’s. It made her feel vulnerable and oddly emotional. When he was done, he lay in the steaming, scented water with his arms wrapped around her and kissed the tips of her ears. And then, as if some part of them agreed jointly that this had been quite enough romantic stuff, thank you, she felt him rise under her and swivelled, lowered herself onto him, and they fucked until the water sluiced out of the bath, and she couldn’t work out whether the pain of her foot was greater than her need to feel him inside her.
Some time later, they lay half submerged, legs entwined. And they started to laugh. Because it was a cliché to fuck in a shower but it was sort of ridiculous to do it in a bath, and it was even more ridiculous to be in this much trouble and yet this happy. Jess twisted so that she lay along the length of him, and draped her arms around his neck and pressed her wet chest to his, and she felt with utter certainty that she would never be as close to another human being again. God, I love you, she told him silently. And then so that she didn’t let those words burst, unbidden,from her mouth, she smothered him with kisses. She held his face in her hands and she kissed his jaw and his poor bruised temple, and his lips, and she felt his arms holding her to him and told herself that whatever happened she would always remember how this felt.
He brought his hand down over his face, wiping the moisture from it. He looked suddenly serious. ‘Do you think this is a bubble?’
‘Um, there’s lots of bubbles. It’s a –’
‘No. This. A bubble. We’re on this weird journey, where the normal rules don’t apply. Real life doesn’t apply. This whole trip has been…like time out of real life.’
She noticed that the water was pooling on the bathroom floor.
‘Don’t look at that. Talk to me.’
She dropped her lips to his collarbone, thinking. ‘Well,’ she said, lifting her head again, ‘in a little over five days, we’ve dealt with illness, distraught children, sick relatives, unexpected acts of violence, nearly broken feet, police and car accidents. I’d say that was quite enough real life for anyone.’
‘I like your thinking.’
‘I like your everything.’
‘We seem to spend a lot of time talking rubbish to each other.’
‘Well, I like that too.’
The water had started to cool. She wriggled out of his arms, and stood, reaching for the heated towel rail. She handed him a warm towel, wrapping one around herself.Oh, the utter sensual pleasure of fluffy hotel towels. He stood, rubbing at his hair vigorously with one hand.
She wondered, briefly, whether Ed was so used to fluffy hotel towels that he didn’t even notice. She watched him and felt suddenly bone-weary. She brushed her teeth, switched off the bathroom light, and when she turned back he was already in the enormous hotel bed, holding back the covers to allow her in. He flicked off the bedside lamp and she lay there beside him in the dark, feeling his damp skin against her own, wondering what it would be like to have this every night. To have a man all to herself for ever.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, Jess,’ he said, into the dark, as if he could hear her thoughts. His voice was a warning.
‘You’ll be okay.’
‘Seriously. You can’t do your optimism tricks on this one. Whatever happens, I’m probably going to lose everything.’
‘So? That’s my default position.’
‘But I might have to go away.’
‘You won’t.’
‘I might, Jess.’ His voice was uncomfortably firm.
And she spoke before she knew what she was saying. ‘Then I’ll wait,’ she said.
She felt his head tilt towards her, a question. ‘I’ll wait for you. If you want me to.’
He took three calls on the final leg home, all on hands-free. His lawyer, a man with an accent so grand he shouldhave been announcing the arrival of the Royal Family at dinner, told him he was due at the police station the following Thursday. No, nothing had changed. Yes, said Ed, he understood what was happening. And, yes, he had spoken to his family. The way he said it made her stomach tense. She couldn’t help herself afterwards. She reached over and took his hand. When he squeezed it back he didn’t look at her.
His sister rang to say his dad had had a better night. They had a long conversation about some insurance bonds that his father had been concerned about, some keys that were missing from a filing cabinet, and what Gemma had had for lunch. Nobody talked about dying. She said to say hello and Jess shouted hello back and felt a bit self-conscious and a bit pleased at the same time.
After lunch he took a call from a man called Lewis, and they discussed market values and percentages and the state of the mortgage market. It took Jess a while to realize he was talking about Beachfront.
‘Time to sell,’ he said, when he rang off. ‘Still. Like you said, at least I have assets to dispose of.’
‘What’s it all going to cost you? The prosecution?’
‘Oh. Nobody’s saying. But reading between the lines, I think the answer is “most of it”.’
