Page 45 of Lie For Me

She was on her third attempt at an elegant yet relaxed and effortless-looking hairdo and had about twenty-three pins stuck in her head when the bathroom door opened just a crack. Jack had crooned his way through a number of country songs for which he had to make up half the words and a strangled-sounding version of Sting’s ‘Englishman in New York,’ but had now fallen silent.

‘Lucy?’

‘I’m decent,’ she called. ‘You can come in.’

‘No, can you pass me a towel, please?’

Lucy glanced at the hand sticking out of the crack in the door, pruney fingers wiggling in the escaping steam, waiting for a towel.

‘You didn’t take a towel in with you?’

‘Clearly not,’ came the voice from behind the door.

‘Oh dear. This is a turn-up for the books, isn’t it?’

Lucy sat back in her chair.

‘Lucy,’ Jack said, through the crack in the door. ‘Don’t be an arse. Just give me a towel.’

‘Ah, now. I think you’re forgetting something.’

Jack sighed. ‘What’s that?’

‘The magic word.’

Behind the door, Lucy heard muttering that sounded like, ‘For fuck’s sake.’

Then, ‘Fine! Give me a towel please, before I come out there with just this tiny bathmat and you see things you can never unsee.’

In a sugar-coated angelic voice, Lucy said, ‘Of course, no problem at all. Here’s the towel you so sweetly asked for.’

Jack snatched the towel from her, and the hand and towel disappeared back into the bathroom, along with a lot of muttering and cursing. A few minutes later, strains of John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’ drifted from the bathroom, and Lucy assumed Jack had calmed down about the towel.

She was applying mascara when the bathroom door was flung open, and Jack strode out, the damp towel slung low around his waist. Lucy took in his tanned torso, the smattering of dark hairs on his chest, and the dark, damp hairs that clung to his forehead. She hadn’t really seen this much of Jack before. Their friendship generally played out over brunches, pubs, muddy walks and phone calls for mutual therapy. She swallowed and quickly looked back at the mirror. Her hand wobbled, and she poked herself in the eye with the wand and smeared mascara below her eyelid. Her eye started streaming, and mascara was bleeding from top and bottom lashes.

‘Shit.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh nothing, just got mascara all over my face.’

Lucy’s hands flailed about the dressing table, trying to find a tissue.

Jack came over.

‘Let me see.’

He stood in front of her, in nothing but his towel and tipped her head up towards him. Lucy tried to pull away.

‘Don’t be a baby,’ he said, her chin in his fingers.

Lucy was only looking out of one eye. The other eye was squinted shut and weeping. Jack was leaning over her, still damp from his shower. He smelt of soap and hotel shampoo, toothpaste and some sort of spicy aftershave. Lucy could feel the heat from his body, and his stomach, with a scattering of dark hairs disappearing beneath the towel, was inches from her face. She tried not to breathe. Jack had a tissue and was gently wiping at her eye.

‘It’s okay, really.’ Lucy swallowed and jerked her head back. ‘Really, I can do it. You get ready,’ she said, a little more harshly than she meant.

She pushed his hands away and snatched the tissue from him.

‘Thank you, though.’

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