Page 39 of Here One Moment

“Oh, thank fuck.” Dom flops backward on the bed. “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t get it either!” says Eve.

“I’m into breathing,” they both say at the same time, and they spin their heads to look at each other with wide eyes and then they laugh and laugh, until Eve snorts, which always makes them both laugh even more.

They are such nerds. They are totally compatible nerds.

Eve starts to shiver, so they get back under the duvet and sit upright with their backs against the wall.

After a moment Dom says, “Were you thinking about choking before or after the psychic lady?”

“Before,” says Eve. “Definitely before. It was nothing to do with her.”

She opens the bag of chips and offers it to him.

“You’re not worried about what she said?” Dom takes a chip.

“Worried? Of course I’m not,” says Eve. “I do not think you’re going to murder me, Dom.”

She puts a potato chip on her tongue and lets the flavors seep into her taste buds. “Although I hope she’s right about you and you live until you’re ninety-three and die of respiratory whatever.”

“Respiratory tract infection,” says Dom. “But I’ll be in jail, right, for killing you? So I’d rather die young.”

“All psychics are fake,” says Eve. “Remember what happened with my parents?”

“Your dad paid off someone?” Dom frowns, trying to remember the story. They know all of each other’s stories. Or she thinks they do, anyway.

“Yes, he bribed a tarot card reader to tell my mum he was the man of her dreams on their second date!”

Her dad always told it as a funny story, which it is not, because he was definitely not the man of Eve’s mother’s dreams, and when he told her the truth after they got married, Eve’s mum felt “deceived,” and they had a big fight, and then he kept right on deceiving her with not one but two other women, and now Eve’s mum has “trust issues” as well as perimenopause.

“Still, that’s just one corrupt psychic,” points out Dom.

“They’re all scammers,” Eve says with absolute confidence. “Anyway, remember a lot of those passengers thought she was just a bit loony tunes, not a psychic at all.”

Remembering the conversations around the baggage carousel makes her think of Dr. Barbara Bailey telling her to drink lots of water. Eve finds the liter bottle she’s kept on the floor next to the bed, due to the lack of a bedside table, and uses both hands to glug back as much water as she can manage.

As she drinks she glances at Dom. He is looking ahead with a vacant expression, munching on chips. She thinks, Uh-oh.

She drops the water bottle on the bed between her legs and swallows a burp. “Are you worried about what the lady said?”

Dom doesn’t look at her. “I wasn’t worried, but last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up and remembered something—and now I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Eve wipes the back of her hand across her mouth. “You remembered you want to kill me?”

“No.” He’s not laughing at her joke. Not even a little bit. He still doesn’t look at her. “I don’t want to freak you out.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, you remember what happened when we stayed at that Huon Valley caravan park with Liv and Riley, and we were drinking all that red wine and then—do you remember? What I did?”

“What?” Eve can’t think. The caravan was musty. Liv couldn’t stop sneezing. The red wine was disgusting. She and Dom aren’t big drinkers. There was an argument of some sort. Over something stupid. It might have been the moon landing. Had Eve maybe been telling them about Junie’s conspiracy theories? They all had headaches the next day.

Dom looks at her intently. He has the most beautiful brown eyes. She wants a baby boy with that exact color and style of eyes. She might actually have a baby soon. Why not? Babies are so cute, although she’ll train hers not to cry like that one on the plane. Her mother will lose her mind if Eve gets pregnant before she has a “career,” which adds to the appeal.

Dom says, “Remember?”

Suddenly she gets it. “Oh, Dom, no, no, wait, babe, that was funny! That doesn’t mean anything! You don’t need to worry about that!”

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