‘Between you and me,’ Lily murmured, ‘I’m having trouble walking straight.’
Her fingers brushed mine, once, twice, deliberately. In that moment, I was the happiest I had ever been in my entire life.
‘Lucky I’m driving, then,’ I murmured back, working hard to keep the smile off my face, ‘and not making you hike up the hill.’
‘Very.’ She slid into the passenger side. The full skirt of her dress spilled across my lap, and beneath it, her hand settled proprietorially on my thigh. ‘Especially because I seem to have forgotten to put on any underwear.’
If life followed the logic of narrative, my head would have spun around three hundred and sixty degrees and then exploded.
I could still taste her on my lips as I sat in my chair in the studio. I’d pulled the golf cart over halfway up the hill, yanked my earpiece out, put her knees over my shoulders and flipped her skirt over her head.
‘All right, Lily Fireball,’ I said, as Indigo finished adjusting the lights. ‘You told Dylan that his heart wasn’t the other half of yours. Talk to me about how you came to that decision.’
Lily was perfectly composed again, as if she hadn’t been crying my name fifteen minutes earlier and nearly ripping my hair out. She crossed her ankles, hooked them around the crossbar of the stool, lifted her chin and looked me right in the eye.
‘I decided to cut him loose,’ she purred, ‘because there is no way a man like him could ever satisfy me.’
I hadn’t had to work this hard to keep my face expressionless in years.
When we were finished, I took her back to my trailer, sneaking her into the crew village when no one was watching. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked her, as she rifled through my first aid kit, finding a strip of condoms and throwing them at me. ‘If you can’t walk straight…’
Lily shoved me down on my lumpy trailer bed. ‘Stop trying to look after me, Murray.’
She knelt over me, straddling me, hands braced on either side of my head. ‘Everyone’s spent the last year trying to look after me, and I hate it. I don’t want that from you. I don’t want you to second guess me, or worry about me, or handle me with care.’
An image of her the night of the funeral, sobbing into my shoulder, flashed across my eyes. I blinked.
She kissed me, long and lingering. ‘Just shut up and do what you promised,’ she whispered. ‘Take this dress off me. With your teeth.’
That proved to be a more difficult task than I had anticipated. It had two hidden zips and a set of hook and eye closures. Solving that problem drove any other thoughts entirely out of my mind.
We had a light shooting schedule that day, and I’d delegated the bulk of it to Suzette and Carrie, but even still, I eventually had to get back to work. ‘What’s on the agenda for tonight?’ Lily asked me, holding her hair up as I refastened the dress for her. ‘I assume it’s not a nutritious dinner and a good night’s sleep.’
I gave her a look, but my heart wasn’t really in it. ‘Another night in the war room. The Episode Nine dates don’t start until tomorrow, but I need to get the Episode Eight rough cut ready to send to Fucking Greg.’
She handed me her compact to hold so she could fix her lipstick. ‘Have you looked at any of the footage from last night?’
‘Not yet. Thankfully, though, someone—’ I snapped the compact shut and handed it back to her, leaning in to press my lips to her temple ‘—made my job very easy. I know it’ll be good.’
‘Not that footage.’
Lily’s tone was light, her body language casual as she sat down on my bed to do up her shoes, but something gave me pause.
‘What footage?’
She looked up. I raised my eyebrows.
She exhaled. ‘You didn’t tell me you had mounted cameras in the Convent.’
‘You knew I was filming down there. How do you think I got all the friend shit with Dylan and Cece?’
‘I had it in my head you were sending a camera and a soundie down there whenever you wanted to film. Then you inconsiderately fucked my brains out, so when I finally went into the Convent last night, it took me a while to realise I was on camera.’
I wanted to fold my arms across the pit of disquiet in my belly. ‘What am I going to see?’
‘You’re not going to like it.’
‘Then tell me now, so I can prepare myself.’
