“You wantto drive me to Milton Keynes to pick up a snake of unknown quantity?”
Despite the fact that Isha had answered the question twice over, and the fact that I was already in his car, I had to hear it one more time.
Or maybe I just needed him to look at me when he said it.
Isha kept his gaze on the road. “I already told you, it’s fine.”
“What if it’s an anaconda?”
“Then you wouldn’t be taking it home in anyone’s car, if you took it home at all. They’re huge, right?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve seen the film.”
“Hardly. Tam got a big snake book for his birthday. He’s been reading it to me every night this week. It makes for an interesting FaceTime on the Tube.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t use the tube.”
“I do so.”
I glanced pointedly around his swanky Range Rover. It wasn’t the Lexus I’d accused him of owning, but it was hardly a giant leap.
Isha tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Aren’t we done with the rich jokes yet? It’s not the worst thing in the world I could be.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know…an axe murderer?”
“You wouldn’t have killed me already?”
Finally, Isha spared me a glance. “You weren’t this annoying when I met you.”
I liked that I was annoying him. It made a strange sense of the fact that I’d climbed into his car without a second thought. “Whatever. If it’s any consolation, I don’t know what kind of snake it is either, but I’d imagine it’s a python or a boa.”
“How did it end up at Sainsbury’s?”
“Might’ve escaped, but with the weather so cold, it’s unlikely to have made it that far on its own. It’s probably been dumped.”
Isha whistled. “I didn’t realise people dumped snakes. It must’ve given someone a shock.”
“Not you, though. You can’t still be scared of them after Sunday.”
“I was never scared of them.”
“Liar.”
“Nope. I’m a big fan of avoidance, but I don’t lie.”
Isha swung the car around a roundabout and hit the main road. His shoulders were tense, jaw set. I’d somehow struck a nerve in a man who was impossible to read.
I searched my brain for a benign change of subject. Came up blank. The road whizzed by, trees gradually fading out to the concrete jungle of the most depressing city on earth. Huge retail units dominated the scenery, including the giant pet store I wrote regular scathing blog posts about when Rae saw fit to publish them. Inhuman bastards.
“Hey.” Isha touched my arm. “Where did you go?”
“What?”
“You totally zoned out. Everything okay?”
He was looking at me as if I’d dropped off the earth and come back with horns. Perhaps I had, minus the horns. It wasn’t unheard of for me to have random absence seizures. Then again, it was highly like me to stop listening to the entire world when something annoyed me, so maybe I just wanted the owners of Pets at Home to die. “Sorry. I’m ruminating over whether I’ve brought the right kit to scoop up the snake. I was joking about the anaconda, but if it’s a Burmese or some shit, I might need to improvise.”
