A mosquito taunts me, brushing close to my ear and then away again. I end up sleeping with the white sheets right over my head, hoping to deter the bastard. The next thing I know, there’s light peeling through the closed shutters and I can hear footsteps on the stairs outside the room.
I sit up in bed, looking for my roommate. He isn’t on the floor. In fact, he isn’t in the room.
There’s a light rap on the door. “Sara, you decent?”
“Yeah?” I croak.
He carefully creaks it open and steps in glancing at me with a bright-eyed expression. “Good morning, sunshine. It’s a lovely day outside.”
What? Why should I care? What time is it anyway?
I don’t need to say any of this, I can feel it being wonderfully portrayed by my face.
Gus carefully places a coffee cup on the side table next to me and steps away. “There were some pennies left after the pizza so thought I’d treat you to a coffee.”
“With my money?”
“That I’m going to pay you back with five hundred per cent interest,” he points out.
Which… “You said two hundred yesterday.”
“Did I?”
“Ugh.” Is all I can manage, flopping back down on the bed and pulling the covers over my face. “What time is it anyway?”
“It’s nine.”
I sit up so fast I swallow air, gasping. “WHAT?”
He flinches. “It’s nine?”
“The coach leaves at ten! It’s a twenty-minute walk from here!”
Gus frowns. “So, what you’re saying is we have twenty minutes to drink our coffees and time for a leisurely stroll to the coach?”
I do the math. “That’s forty minutes.”
He nods, checking his phone. “Well, yeah, more specifically, it’s a quarter past nine.”
“Fuuuuck,” I groan, throwing my legs out of the bed and stomping through the room to the door. I slam it behind me before realising I forgot the dress that I need to wear again today, without my clothes which are hung beautifully in the closet in my cabin out at sea. I storm in again, grab it and head out.
Gus laughs under his breath. “Not a morning person, I see..”
*
We make the coach with five minutes to spare. There are tons of backpackers milling around, locals who probably work between the cities and a couple of elderly people waiting at the bus station. Gus gently takes my elbow and squeezes it, pulling me closer. I frown at him over my shoulder.
“It’s really busy,” he says. “I’m going to have to hide my face.”
I wiggle out of his grasp. “Then put your sunglasses on. Put your cap on frontways and, well, if you really cared about being noticed, surely you should’ve shaved your hair off? It’s pretty recognisable.”
“How dare you,” he says, deadpan.
“I’m just saying.”
“I forgive you.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m purely stating sensible facts.Oh!You should wear the t-shirt I bought last night. Nobody would expect you to be wearing your own band merchandise.”
