‘Orla…’
‘What?’
‘We had sex.’
‘I know,’ Orla said. ‘I was there.’ Yet her cheeks were now glowing as if they could light a path from here to Saint-Chambéry in the dark.
‘Me too,’ he answered, suddenly arriving from behind her and whispering into her ear.
She stood up. ‘I have to go. Because if I don’t then Erin will?—’
‘Know you were not in a barn that is not there?’
‘Well, yes.’
She didn’t know what else to say. It felt awkward. They had crossed a line and she didn’t know what happened next. She hadn’t thought, she had acted, emotionally and perhaps there was also a level of irresponsibility about it. She was here to work. Her very impressionable sister was with her. She usually ran away from connection. In a few days she would be leaving again…
‘Can we talk about this later?’ she asked.
‘Really?’ he replied. ‘Because I get the sense that you do not want to talk about this at all.’
‘No… well… I do but…’ She was running out of words and for a reporter that was the very worst thing that could happen.
‘It’s OK, Orla,’ Jacques said, springing from the bed and snatching up his underwear. ‘You do not need to say anything else.’
‘No, wait, I?—’
But her words were met by the firm closure of the en-suite door.
45
GERARD’S BAR, SAINT-CHAMBÉRY
‘Whoa, OK, you’ve drunk that way too quickly and you said the peppermint one was the strongest.’
Jacques was already eyeing up the butterscotch vodka and the Christmas pudding flavoured one. Coming back into the village hadn’t been the plan for the evening but he couldn’t stay in the house watching Orla actively avoid him after what they had shared together. He picked up the next glass.
‘OK, you wanna tell me what’s going on here?’ Tommy asked. ‘Because as much as I love sitting in Gerard’s bar with you, it’s kinda turned into a grotto with all these decorations. And you lining up shots like you wanna make the décor of your insides the same as the holiday season shouldn’t be a plan.’
‘Why not?’ Jacques asked him.
‘Why not what?’
‘Why should I not plan to make my insides “happy holidays”?’
‘Because you’re the good brother and I know you’re half a bottle down of the Saint-Chambéry good stuff which is why you let me ride us here on your motorbike.’
He nodded. ‘Santé!’ He held the shot glass in the air and drank it down in one.
‘OK, enough,’ Tommy said, picking up the other glasses of liquor and moving them further away.
‘Gerard!’ Jacques called. ‘More shots.’
‘Non, Gerard!Arrêt!’ Tommy countered.
‘You used French,’ Jacques said.
‘Yeah, I mean, I remember a little, I guess. But, please, Jacques, don’t change the subject. What’s going on with you and Orla?’
