(It’s just that right now it’s hard to remember what they are.)
“So,” she says, trying and failing to sound casual, “any word about your wallet?”
Hugo slips his phone from his back pocket, tearing his gaze from the window to look. His shoulders sag. “Nothing.”
They went back to the station earlier, but nobody had turned in a missing wallet. Afterward Hugo had emailed his parents to borrow money. “The only good thing,” he said grimly, “is that it’s late there. So there’s very little chance of them ringing back till tomorrow.”
Mae thinks again of her own parents and her promise to call them. But she hadn’t been counting on sharing a room with Hugo, and she feels a wave of exhaustion at the thought of lying to them. Again. So instead she sends another text, promising to try them in the morning.
It’s still early, not even nine-thirty, but as soon as she sits down on the bed, Mae realizes she wants nothing more than to put on her pajamas and curl up under the covers. She’s just not exactly sure how to get from here to there. A bellhop has brought up a cot for Hugo, but it’s still sitting near the door, folded in half like an oversized taco. Their backpacks are leaning against each other outside the bathroom.
Hugo walks toward the bed, and Mae sits up straighter. He stops on the other side of it, leaning over the ocean of white sheets between them, and smiles at her in a way that only makes her heart beat faster.
“So,” he says, “what do you reckon we should do now?”
The question hangs in the air for a few seconds while Mae tries to think of an appropriate response.
“ ’Cause I was thinking,” he continues, “that maybe we get into pajamas and put on a film.”
“Yeah?” she says, still unsure about the logistics of all this. But then he walks over to the cot and starts to wheel it into the space between the foot of the bed and the dresser, and Mae—grateful for something tangible to do—hurries over to help him set it up.
When they’re done, they take turns changing in the bathroom, and it’s less weird than Mae thinks it will be, walking back out into the room in her pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that saysThe Future Is Female.Hugo gives her a friendly smile, then heads in to put on his same gray shirt and rubber-ducky pajamas from last night. He shuts the lights off before crawling onto the cot, and from where she’s propped against several pillows in the bed, Mae points the remote at the screen behind him.
“Let’s watch something frightening,” Hugo says as the thunder crashes again. “It feels like that sort of night, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not really a scary-movie kind of person.”
“But you’re a film buff.”
“A film buff who also happens to be a giant chicken.”
“Maybe a comedy, then,” he says. “Just not anything sad. We haven’t known each other long enough for you to see me cry.”
He’s only joking, of course. But still, Mae tries to remember the last time she cried during a movie. Whenever she watches something with Nana or Priyanka or even her parents, she’s the one passing the box of tissues, and she can’t help wondering what that says about her.
She flips through the channels, stopping when it lands on an old film.
“Murder on the Orient Express?” Hugo says, half laughing. “I thought we already established that nobody was murdering anyone on the train this week.”
“That’s fine with me, but Sidney Lumet would probably find your version a little boring.”
“Who’s Sidney Lumet?”
Mae sits up. “Network?Twelve Angry Men?Dog Day Afternoon?”
“Nope, nope, and nope.”
“You haven’t seenanyof them?” she asks, indignant. “What moviesdoyou like? I guess I should’ve probably asked this before I got on a train with you.”
“Definitely seems more important than the serial-killer question,” he agrees. “I’m almost afraid to tell you this, but I’m not a huge movie person. I don’t mind going to the cinema here and there, but I’m never that fussed about what I see. I suppose I prefer to watch TV or read books.” There’s a short silence, and then he says, “Are you going to throw me out now?”
She laughs. “I was thinking about it.”
“For what it’s worth, I’d be delighted to watchyourfilm.”
“Not an option.”
“Why not?”
