‘Which way is it?’ Lily asked.
Johanna – the woman whose shortcut had got them into this position – started a complicated route description, and Lily actually started listening, like her route might be in any way worth taking.
‘That’s great,’ Matt said the first time Johanna drew breath. ‘We’ll check the rest on Google Maps. Let’s go.’
‘It’s hard to see properly with this rain,’ he said a minute or two later, ‘but I think it’s about two kilometres along these tracks.’
‘Two kilometres?’ Lily said. ‘Oh myGod. That’s like five minutes in a car but it’s going to take us a good half hour and we’re going to be so ridiculously wet. I can’t actually believe this is happening.’
‘Come on.’ Matt started walking. ‘You not embracing it any more?’
‘I don’t want to bloody embrace it,’ Lily muttered. ‘You embrace water. This is mainly mud.Woah.’ Suddenly, she was slipping down the slope of the track, away from him.
Matt lunged for her and caught her arm.
‘I think we should hold hands,’ he said.
‘Um, okay?’ Lily said after a couple of beats just standing staring at him.
God, he hoped she didn’t think he was wanting to hold hands in a romantic way.
‘BecauseI think my shoes have better grips than yours. But we could hold arms. Arms would be good. Let’s hold arms. If you like. Because my shoes are quite grippy. And yours apparently aren’t so much. But only if you want to. Andoh my GodI sound ridiculous, like I’m implying that if wedowalk arm-in-arm it’s going to be akin to sex. What I meant was, why don’t we hold onto each other because my shoes are grippier than yours?’
Lily sniggered. ‘All I can say is, it’s a good job this isn’t the first time I’ve met you. I’d be running for the hills now.’ She took another couple of steps and slipped again, grabbed hold of his arm and said, ‘Yes please, I’d like to take you up on your awkwardly worded offer.’
He stretched his right hand out and she put her left one into it, and they started walking again, the rain slightly lighter now, but the mud underfoot gobsmackingly squelchy.
And it was odd. He really hadn’t expected ever to hold Lily’s hand again. When they were together, they’d always felt sorighttogether. They still felt right, but also, clearly, wrong, even more so because now, after last night, he’d finally learned that he really hadn’t known her as well as he’d thought he had. At least the tension between them had broken.
He cleared his throat and then realised that he didn’t have much to say right now.
Lily turned to look at him through the rain, raised her eyebrows slightly, and then looked back in front of her when he didn’t speak. It was hard to see her properly due to the rain and the fact that her head was below his, but he was pretty sure she was smiling.
Which was a big step up from anger. If they were even supposed to be feeling angry with each other. It felt like their conversation last night had definitely been a huge argument but he wasn’t sure now where they’d got to at the end of it.
They trudged on through the mud like that for a while as the heavens continued to chuck gallons upon gallons of water over them, holding hands the whole time. Which was fortunate, because Lily’s shoesreallyweren’t made for slippery mud-walks, and she nearly fell another three times.
‘Thank you,’ she said each time.
And, ‘No problem,’ Matt replied each time.
And other than that, they didn’t really speak. The walk was actually quite hard work plus the driving rain in their faces made it difficult to talk, but from his side, the main reason for not speaking was that it all just felt a little – very – awkward.
After what had to be a good twenty minutes’ more walking and another couple of near-spectacular slips, Lily said, ‘Surelywe must be nearly there now. Thathasto have been nearly two kilometres.’
‘I know.’ Matt got his phone out and they peered at it together while huge raindrops splattered the screen. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘I think we missed the turning. Look.’ He let go of Lily’s hand and pointed the track out to her.
Lily took the phone and squinted at it. ‘Noooo. You’re right. I actually want to cry.’ She squinted some more. ‘Is that really the time? Ten to ten?’
‘Yup.’
‘How can that be true, though? I feel like literally days have passed since Tess woke me up this morning. Maybe that’s UK time? In which case we have abigproblem.’
‘Nope. Greek time.’
‘Wow. Well, that’s good. Very good. We still have time to work whatever miracle we’re going to be working. What’s the quickest way to Penelope’s?’
‘I’m thinking straight across that field,’ Matt said. ‘If you’re up for a bit of hedge climbing and even more mud.’
