‘Still,’ he says, crossing his arms. I try not to look at him too much. There are patches of hair on his arms and a fair bit on his chest, it’s curly. Somehow he seems more naked than when we were out swimming, with only the duvet separating us. I realise that I was lying beneath the same duvet just yesterday.

‘Anyway, I remember saying a few things I shouldn’t have,’ he says. ‘I have a tendency to run my mouth when I’m drunk, if you know what I mean.’ 104

‘You needed to get it off your chest,’ I say.

He chuckles.

‘Well, sure,’ he says.

‘I thought it was good,’ I say, sitting on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on the duvet and realising at once that I shouldn’t have, but knowing that I can’t get up now.

‘I just need to know that it stays between us,’ he says, holding his hands up as if he were measuring something.

‘Of course,’ I reply. ‘You can always talk to me.’

‘Quite the opposite, I need to learn to hold my tongue when I’ve had a drink,’ he says.

He looks at me and points, a slight smile crossing his lips. ‘And you need to learn not to come on to people when you’ve had a drink. Deal?’

‘What?’ I say, coming over hot and cold all at once, feeling the sweat spread under my arms, down my spine.

‘You know what I’m talking about,’ Kristoffer says. ‘It won’t happen again, all that, will it?’

I sit there in silence, a pounding in my head, my ears. When I don’t get up to leave, he looks at me and says: ‘I think it’s time I got up.’

‘Oh,’ I reply. ‘Of course, yes.’

I step out of the room and close the door behind me, the nape of my neck damp with sweat.

105

Chapter 15