“You can have champagne and everything,” Alice confirms. “Bucks Fizz, they call it. You know, like the band? Anyway, are you coming?”
“Er, no, I don’t think so,” I reply, looking down at my pajamas. “I’m just up. I need to have a shower and get dressed.”
“You young ‘uns,” says Julian jovially. “Stay in bed half the day, you would.”
I look at my watch. It’s 8am.
“Well, we’ll save you a seat, anyway,” says Alice, reversing rapidly, and almost running over a young couple who are walking by. “Don’t be too long, or Rita’ll have had all the fizz! Oh, I almost forgot: this was sticking out of your door.”
She hands me a leaflet advertising a bus trip to Mount Teide, the volcano Alex was talking about last night. I smile weakly and give a small wave as she speeds off towards the elevators, Julian trotting obediently behind her.
I close the door and turn the leaflet over in my hands, thoughtfully. The tour leaves from the hotel in just over an hour. If I skip breakfast and don’t bother washing my hair, I could…
No. I can’t.
What if Jamie calls while I’m up there? Do they even have phone reception on volcanoes?What if it erupts? What if the cable car breaks down, and —
“Stop it, Summer,” I tell myself firmly, going into the bathroom and switching on the shower. “You’re supposed to be taking risks, remember? Doing all the things you never did, even though you wanted to? So, do it. Make your younger self proud.”
Even though I’m convinced my younger self only added in the thing about climbing a mountain because she couldn’t think of anything better to write, the thought of being able to cross another item off my list does appeal to me. So I jump into the shower, and, thirty minutes later, I’m dressed, caked in SPF50, and banging on Alex Fox’s hotel room door.
“What. The. Hell?”
Alex opens the door bleary eyed and wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts that he’s obviously slept in. I avert my eyes and push past him before he can even think about trying to stop me.
“Right,” I say breezily, thrusting the leaflet Alice gave me at his chest. “Come on, time to get dressed.”
“What’s going on?” Alex says suspiciously, not bothering to move. “Why are you in my room? Am I having a nightmare? Is that what this is?”
“Nope, you’re awake,” I tell him, still trying to sound cool and casual, even though anyone who knows me would instantly be able to tell it’s just an act.
Fortunately for me, though, Alex Foxdoesn’tknow me. Well, notreallywell. Which means I can adopt any personality I like, and he’ll be none the wiser. This morning’s personality is Cool Girl. Easy, breezy Summer. The person I came here to be. It might have taken her a couple of days, but she’s finally arrived, and now she’s off to climb a mountain.
Well, to take a cable car up a mountain.
She just needs a little bit of moral support, is all.
“This was sticking out of my door this morning,” I say, pointing at the leaflet in Alex’s hands. “Right after we were talking about climbing mountains.”
Alex stares at me blankly.
“So?”
“So it’s asign, isn’t it? From the universe.”
“If you mean it’s a sign that going up the mountain is the most popular day trip on the island, and that there are leaflets for it everywhere, then, yeah, I guess it is,” he says, handing the leaflet in question back to me. “If we’re back to talking about destiny, and fate, and all that nonsense, though, it’s way too early for me. I’m going back to bed.”
“It’s a sign that we should go up the mountain,” I say firmly. “And the bus leaves in half an hour, so we’re going to have to hurry.”
“We?” he says, still not moving. His bruised eye is looking a little less colorful today, but the furrowed brow is in place, as always. “There’s a ‘we’ now?”
He’s really not making it easy for me to be ‘cool’ here, is he?
“Yes! I mean, no! Or only in the sense that we’ll both be there at the same time. But there’ll be a busload of other people,” I reply, opening the bathroom door for him. “So you’ll hardly have to see me. Come on, Alex,” I add, when he still doesn’t budge. “It’ll be fun. Probably.And it’s not like you have a busy schedule you’ll have to rearrange, do you? You’re on holiday!”
He looks at me for an agonizingly long moment, then heaves one of his characteristic sighs.
“Fine,” he says, reaching up to rub his eyes and wincing slightly when his hand makes contact with the bruise. “Anything to get you to stop badgering me. I’ll just be a few minutes. Wait here. Anddon’ttouch anything.”
