Chapters (54)
‘Who, me?’ she retorts. ‘Unabashed starry-eyed, silly, playful me?’ She raises her eyebrows like he’s just asked her if she likes to poop on the front lawn as her preference or the back. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Not anymore. What’s the thing Einstein said? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity? Well, yes, hi, hello. That was me until I was thirty-two.’
‘How old are you now?’
‘How about you don’t ask a lady her age?’
‘I wasn’t, I was asking you.’
‘Ha, ha.’
They drink.
Duke decides to keep the conversation going. ‘You know I have to ask what happened at thirty-two, don’t you?’
‘Ask all you want.’ Evie grins, finishing her beer. ‘But if you think ex-lovers is good first non-fake-date chat, I can see why you’re still single.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Somebody has to help you out, buddy.’
More staring. More smiling. More loaded, heavy air.
‘Go on,’ Duke challenges her. ‘If this was ten years ago and you were still dating …’
‘I’m not forty-two, you asshat.’
‘You keep calling me that!’
‘You keep being one!’
Staring.
‘What is acceptable date chat for you, Ms Bird?’ he asks then.
She makes a gagging sound. ‘Oh God.’ She laughs. ‘I don’t know! I told you, I’m so bad with people, and … I don’t know. I am aware I can be prickly. It’s just who I am.’
‘I am enthralled by you.’ He says it like the queen, rolling his r’s. It takes the edge off the truth in it.
‘You and Magda, then. That’s it. The two people in the world who think I’m interesting.’
‘Surely not.’
‘And my mother,’ she adds. ‘When she remembers.’
‘Do you wanna talk about that?’
Without missing a beat she replies, ‘Nope.’
They chuckle, and she picks up the empty beer bottle and picks at the label.
‘I’ve just read a novel that features parental dementia,’ Duke says. ‘I can lend it to you? It’s in my stuff at the hotel.’
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’d like that. And thank you for being kind to me,’ she adds, when Duke decides to let the silence play out. It’s nice, sitting here with her, shooting the breeze, nobody with any proper idea where they are. He feels safe, and comfortable. He tries to think of anybody else he could pass twelve to eighteen hours stranded with, and he can’t.