Page 49 of The Unlikely Pair
I swear I see his lips curve slightly upward before they morph into a scowl.
“I don’t see any issue with making one for you. In fact, I find the term dummy an accurate representation of a Labour politician,” Harry replies.
My spirits lift at his words. We might be hiding together behind a waterfall rather than facing each other across the Commons Chamber, but exchanging insults with Harry is still my metaphorical comfort zone.
I look around the nook we’re hiding in.
“These ferns should be good for stuffing the shirts. They’re more attractive than what usually stuffs your shirt, anyway,” I say happily.
And so we get to work.
When I’d picked out my favorite pin-striped blue Oxford shirt yesterday morning, I had no idea it would end its life plunging over a waterfall somewhere in the wilds of Scandinavia. Harry’s white dress shirt is about to suffer the same fate.
We rifle through the survival kit for other supplies. I find a plastic poncho and decide it can be sacrificed. Harry grabs the kit’s empty mesh bag and turns it inside out.
“We can stuff this with foliage to create the shape of the torso,” he suggests.
I gather armfuls of ferns and Harry uses duct tape to tightly bind the ends of the mesh bag. We pack the vegetation inside the poncho and the mesh bag until they are filled to our approximate body sizes.
When we’ve finished, we step back to survey our leafy doppelgängers. They look rather pathetic, just bundles of ferns roughly shaped like humans. But from a distance, they might pass for bodies tumbling over the waterfall. At least long enough to fool our pursuers.
“How are we going to do this?” I ask.
“We need to push them up as high as possible to make it look like we’ve just tumbled over,” Harry says.
I grab the dummy dressed in Harry’s shirt.
“Throwing you over a waterfall has always been a secret fantasy of mine,” I say.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to prevent you from indulging your fantasies,” Harry says coolly.
I can’t help giving him a wink. “I didn’t realize you were open to indulging my fantasies.”
All right, I’m trying to screw with him, make him uncomfortable.
But Harry’s gaze flies to mine, his pupils dilating, and the air is suddenly filled with more than the misting spray and thethundering noise of the waterfall. There’s something charged, almost electric.
Harry’s jaw clenches, and I see the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows.
“Shall we just get on with it?” He pushes past me, his shoulder brushing against mine as he reaches for the dummy dressed in my shirt.
The survival blanket slips, and the sight of him, bare-chested and glistening with moisture from the waterfall’s spray, is enough to make my mouth go dry.
Holy, holy fuck. What the hell is happening here?
There is definitely something between us, something that feels almost tangible.
I gulp. I focus on adjusting the ferns in Harry’s dummy rather than whatever the hell else is happening between us right now.
“Do you think they’re going to fall for it?” My voice comes out weird, almost shaky, as I stand next to Harry.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Harry says coolly. “Are you ready?”
“Yep.”
“One. Two. Three.”
We both heft the dummies out through the screen of water.
