“I really don’t need you to look out for me.”
“I wasn’t looking out for you. I was lookingatyou.”
She flushed the instant she realized what she’d said. I thought of the moment this morning, in the shop. I keep going over and over it. I don’t even know how to write what happened, because it was nothing—we were having a bit of an argument, she turned away from me, ignored me and got on with cleaning. That was it.
But it wasn’t it. Something in thewayshe turned, the way she shrugged off her jumper, the way she moved her body…She’d known I was staring. She’d liked it.
I’d liked it.
If Charlie and I are so determined to ignore each other, then why do we keep catching each other looking?
“I wasn’t interfering, I wasn’t trying to get you kicked out of the pub, I’m just slightly invested, I guess, in you staying sober,” she said.
Even now I’m still not sure I believe her. Red looks up to Charlie. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been able to persuade Red to kick me out.
“If we’re done here, I’d like to get on with my run,” she said. “As someone mentioned, I could do with getting out more.”
The sun had already set. I didn’t love the idea of Charlie jogging after dark, given there are no streetlights here. There’s only one constable on the island, and it’s Jerry from the dairy, who looks like a child’s drawing of a constable—smiley and rosy cheeked. He doesn’t give the impression that he has much experience fighting crime.
This place does feel incredibly safe in the daytime, but there is a lawlessness to the Isle of Ormer, too. It feels like anything is possible here, and that goes both ways. A nasty drunk might see it as a different kind of opportunity.
“Did I say that you don’t get out enough?” I asked. I was pretty sure I hadn’t, or at least, not likethat. “You’re very quick to read everything I say in the worst possible way.”
“Says the man who decided I’d conspired to have him removed from the pub because I happened to be passing by.”
Red poked her head around the door of the pub.
“This looks a little tense!” she said. “Can I make a suggestion?”
She waved a napkin at us both. Charlie reached for it first. There was a map drawn on it in wobbly pen.
“If you want a place to be that isn’t the pub”—Red pointed at the napkin—“try here.”
She handed me my laptop and satchel—I’d left everything at the table. As the door swung shut again behind Red, Charlie and I stood in silence, looking down at the scrawled lines on the napkin.
“Well,” Charlie said, “this is perfect. I was looking for somewhere new to explore.”
She pocketed the napkin and started moving away. Like she was going there rightnow, in the darkness. I thought of that table of drunk tourists in the pub.
“I’ll come,” I said.
“What, now? With me? On my run?”
“You said the other day we should chat. And walk. Would you be up for making it a walk? I’m not really in the right footwear.”
“I thought you said you weren’t here to make friends.”
Yeah, that hadn’t been my finest hour.
“I’m not. I’m not trying to be your friend.”
“Whatareyou trying to do, then?”
I sensed that if I told her I didn’t like her running around the island in the dark on her own, she’d send me straight back to the stables. She clearly felt safe enough to be out and about at night, and it definitely wasn’t my place to query whether she was right. I should be gettingawayfrom this woman. Not staring at her. Not spending time with her. Not thinking about her in the rare moments she wasn’t there.
But…I looked down the dim track ahead of us.
“Red says this place is a good alternative to the pub,” I said. “And I shouldn’t go back in there.”
