Page 103 of Swept Away

I catch the beer with one quick hand, like a cowboy in a bar. I think about how Lexi would tease me for that, what she’d say about me drinking lager when we all know I’m a gin and tonic guy. I mean, who am I trying to impress? Brady? I slide the beer back down the counter to him, ending up whacking it into an unwashed bowl. Brady has to scramble to save it from falling over the edge.

“I nearly died,” I say, going to the fridge for tonic water. There isn’t any. “That changes you.”

“All right, Jason Statham,” Brady says, watching me over his beer. “You sure it’s not just that you didn’t get the girl for the first time in your life, and it’s made you pouty?”

I stare at him. He smiles, head tilted, face warmer than his words make him sound. I know what he’s doing: trying to snap me out of this, the way he does when I’m mopey or overthinking.

But this…is a little more than that.

“She just won’t even speak to me,” I say.

My voice rasps. I’ve been drinking too much, staying up too late. Everything feels so irrelevant. I’ve not gone back to work yet—journalists keep camping out at the restaurant, and Davide thinks it won’t be good for me to be back in the kitchen environment yet. What he means is, the restaurant will be full of gawkers, and that’ll be crap for everyone.

We’re all just waiting for the world to lose interest in me. It won’t be long, especially with Lexi staying completely off the radar, too. There are only so many “Are the lost houseboaters in love?” articles that can run when the two of us won’t give them any new photos.

“What did you do? That’s the question,” Brady asks, leaning against the countertop. “Or, because it’s you, let me rephrase. Who did you sleep with that you shouldn’t have?”

“Piss off, Brady,” I say. Suddenly I can’t bear to be around him. I know he’s trying to help, but it’s like he’s got the wrong script, like he’s shooting lines meant for someone else.

“All right, Zeke, whatever you need,” Brady says softly, and I close my eyes for a moment, then reach for the beer I chucked his way.

“Sorry,” I say.

“That’s all right. You’re probably a bit, you know, PTSD and shit.”

I don’t say anything. I am—I’m constantly on edge, as if at anymoment someone’s going to jump out at me with a knife, which is weird, because I don’t remember feeling that way on the houseboat. But that’s not why I snapped at Brady.

“Is this what real life is?” I say suddenly. “Sitting around and drinking beer, talking shit?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Brady says. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know. I think I just…remembered it being better.”

Mum couldn’t believe I went back to London. She only let me go when I said I’d be back in two days, and I felt a bit bad, because I’m not back up north for my family.

“You again,” is how Marissa greets me when I enter The Anchor on Friday night.

It’s quiet. The journalists and trauma-tourists have all left now, probably chasing some other poor person living their personal nightmare.

Marissa pours me a gin and tonic without asking and sets it down in front of me as I settle in at my favorite bar stool.

“Just so you know,” she says, “you’ve become an old regular. That isverysad at your near-prepubescent age.”

“How is she?” I ask, sipping my drink. I’m still hungover from drinking beers with the boys yesterday, pretending to enjoy myself.

“Healing,” Marissa says after a moment.

I nod. That’s good. I want that for her.

“Zeke?” says a man beside me.

I feel Marissa stiffen, and I flick my gaze her way before I look at the man who’s pulling up a bar stool next to me. He’s got sensible glasses and short hair, kind of city smart, but there’re holes in his ears where piercings used to be, so I’m guessing he had a different vibe once.

“Nicholas,” he says, holding out his hand for me to shake.

“Journalist?” I ask, not shaking it.

“Sort of. Researcher.” At my raised eyebrows, he adds, “I work forMorning Cuppa.”

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