“You had a nap.”

“Yes.”

“Both of you.”

“Yes.”

“With the headlights on.”

“Er, yes.”

“I might be old, mate, but I wasn’t born yesterday.” The farmer walks off back to his truck, chuckling to himself. “A nap.”

James squints as he thinks. “Do we tell him that what he just said doesn’t actually make any sense?”

“No, you do not.” I flick my hand at him. “You get out and you help him get this car going again so we can get out of here before you say anything even more embarrassing. Understood?”

“Loud and clear.”

The farmer comes back with the jumper leads and he and James busy themselves underneath the bonnet. I slide down in my seat, embarrassed that he knows what we have been up to, and pretend to look at my phone even though he’s quite right and there is no service here. In no time at all James climbs back inside and the two of them start their engines.

“Oh thank God,” I say as James’s car purrs to life. “Can we get out of here now? Please?”

“What’s the rush?”

“I can’t look him in the eye knowing he knows what we were up to,” I say, mortified.

“Relax, he’s a farmer. He’s probably seen it all before.”

“Yes, but I hope to God he didn’t see my all.”

James grins and I smack him lightly on the chest.

“OK, OK,” he laughs. “I’ll just go help him disconnect and say thanks and we’ll be on our way.”

“Thank you.”

We drive the rest of the way home in silence, both seemingly lost in our thoughts. I don’t know about him, but even if I wanted to say something I don’t have the words. These past few days have been like a dream, or like something out of a movie or novel. If he wasn’t sitting in the car beside me I could fool myself into thinking it was.

He pulls into my driveway and turns the car off. “Headlights off,” he says, exaggerating the movement and I muster a smile.

“So.”

“So.”

“Now what?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

He rubs his eyes and I realize he is tired too.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” he admits. “All I know is that your time is…limited. And I don’t want to steal any of that time away from your friends and your family, but I can’t bear the thought of missing even a second of whatever we’ll be lucky enough to have.”

I snort. “Lucky? There’s no luck here. If we were lucky we’d have fifty years to be having this conversation. But we don’t.”

He looks down at his hands. “No. I’m sorry. Wrong choice of word.”

I sigh and reach over to place my fingers on his. “No, I’m sorry. It’s just sometimes I let the bitterness get to me.”

“That’s understandable.”

“But pointless. James, this is a tough conversation to have, and I’m really tired. We both have a lot to process after the weekend. Would you mind if I call you tomorrow?”