‘Thank you so much. I’ll text my credit card details to you.’ And she’d gone.
Well, wow.
‘So you can take six of us?’ Lily was clarifying forty-five minutes later.
The pilot, a tall German man with an incredible handlebar moustache and bright-yellow leather shoes, said, ‘Yes, absolutely, if you don’t mind lying in the luggage hold.’ His face was completely straight. Lily gave him a lips-together smile. There was something about him that she didn’t like. ‘I’m joking, ofcourse,’ he said. ‘I would never put you with the luggage. You can sit on my lap.’
‘Ha, hilarious,’ she said. ‘So you can take the six of us. In seats. Great.’
He leaned into Lily, so close that the moustache brushed her cheek,grim, and, as she nearly fell over moving away from the bristles and, eurgh, waxed end bit, said, ‘If you come for a drink with me this evening I will only charge you half.’ His breath had a very strong smell. Mainly mint but with a bit of onion and garlic coming through.
‘Again…’ she took another step away from him ‘…hilarious.’
‘And if you do not come for a drink with me, the price will go up, or I will not take you. I have a very nice hotel room.’ Oh, for God’s sake.
Lily took the lid off her water bottle.
Matt strode forward and said, ‘What thehellis wrong with you? Are you sexually harassing my friend?’ just as Lily accidentally, honest, poured the entire contents of her water bottle down the front of the pilot’s trousers.
‘Nice.’ Matt nodded approvingly as they walked away.
‘Now you’ve lost your seats on my plane,’ the pilot shouted after them.
‘And you’ve lost yourdignity,’ Lily yelled back. ‘And stop sexually harassing women.’ Satisfyingly, a lot of people turned to stare.
‘What a shit,’ Matt said.
‘I’m really annoyed that I didn’t have a better comeback. “You’ve lost your dignity.” Not very snappy.’
‘I mean, it wasokay. I can’t think of a better one-liner right now. Nothing that isn’t very sweary, anyway. And the water spillage was genius.’ Matt smiled at her and Lily felt a little glow inside that she should really not be feeling. ‘Come on. Let’s re-join the queue and see if we can get a flight with someone who isn’t a complete sexist arse.’
‘What are we doing?’ Felix had been sitting on a little wall, the absolute picture of boredom, head and shoulder rolling, shoe scuffing, the works. ‘Why are we queuing again?’
‘I lost us our seats on that flight,’ Lily said.
‘Whyyyyy?’ howled Felix.
‘Totally not Lily’s fault. The pilot was a dick.’ Matt looked around them. ‘The queue isn’t moving anywhere fast. Do you still have your playing cards in your bag?’
‘Yes I do.’ Felix opened his man-satchel and nudged Alfredo. ‘See. Thereisa point to this bag.’
‘There really isn’t,’ Alfredo said. ‘How often do you need a pack of cards?’
‘Well, surprisingly often as it turns out,’ Felix said.
‘Men should totally carry bags,’ Lily said. ‘I adore my bag.’ This holiday she’d brought a gold woven leather tote with her and shelovedit. ‘Look at this. Firstly, it’s genuinely gorgeous. In my opinion. And secondly, I haveso muchuseful stuff in here.’
Matt nodded. ‘She does. The number of times something unforeseen happens and Lily’s bag comes up trumps. Small things like pens and plasters and scissors. And big things like a toy gun once—’ he grinned at her ‘—and umbrellas, except for the other day.’ He was still grinning, and there was that glow again. Although who wouldn’t feel a glow that someone remembered stuff about you from eight years ago. It was flattering, obviously.
‘You know what I can produce right now?’ she said. ‘A pen and paper to score our game.’
‘I can also produce a pen and paper.’ Felix took out a very smart fountain pen and leather-bound notebook.
‘I like those alot,’ Lily said. ‘However, look at my spangles.’ She pulled out the glittery pen and sparkly green notebook she’d bought at Heathrow on the way out.
‘Yeah.’ Felix nodded. ‘Those are good. I’m jealous.’
Lily felt Matt’s eyes on her and glanced round at him. He was looking at her with a lopsided smile that gave her goosebumps, and an unreadable expression in his eyes that made her want to sayWhat???Matt had never been unreadable in the past. The unreadable thing was very sexy actually. Kind of more grown up. Enigmatic.
