Page 20 of Tangled With the Wrong Guy
He reached round and gently flipped out her ponytail. The elastic band had slid down it again, and she pulled it off. Her dark, wavy hair, untended by any hairdresser for a year now, tumbled loose round her shoulders and she fluffed it out.
‘What you said before,’ Joel said softly, watching her. ‘That was bollocks.’
‘What did I say before?’
‘That you need a makeover.’ He smiled, and his eyes shone in the moonlight. ‘As an impartial observer, just for the record, you’re beautiful. Hey – where’s my beret?’
‘In the backpack,’ she said, glowing at his words.
But …an impartial observer. Just for the record. Those phrases put the compliment in its place, which was somewhere beyond that boundary. That line that mustn’t be crossed. It wasstill a treasure, though, to be tucked away and brought out in the future. Often, probably.
She caught a glimpse of herself, alone in her apartment in weeks to come, replaying this night over and over, trying to remember every word, every expression on his face. And picturing that face as the months passed, until one day it would slip from her, and Joel and this night would be like a second-hand memory, fuzzy and unclear. Like Dan had started to be, she realised. It was no longer easy to conjure up his face, to hear his voice, to remember the sensation of his arms around her, the way he kissed. Dan was beginning to dissolve around the edges.
Joel pulled the backpack onto Chloe’s knees and dug around until he found the beret, then sat it on her head. She held it in place as he pulled down the edges.
‘Voilà,’ he said. ‘That should warm you up a bit.’ He ran his eyes over the beret. ‘It looked ridiculous on me, but I gotta say, on you it’s incredibly sexy.’
‘Merci, Monsieur,’ she said, narrowing her eyes and giving him her best French-girl pout. ‘Are you saying that as an impartial observer too?’
‘Wait,’ he said, turning his head, pricking up his ears. ‘What was that?’
‘What was what?’ She was too distracted to pay attention. But then it came again, and they both heard it. A voice … someone calling.
‘’ellooooo? ’ellooooo?’ It was some way away but getting closer.
‘The boys are back!’ said Joel.
‘Well, well,’ said Chloe, even as her heart sank. All she felt was dismay, that their adventure – this curious, magical, brief encounter – was drawing to a close.
Thisromanticbrief encounter, just like the old movie, even though he was either: (1) gay and in denial, (2) gay but tooscared to come out, (3) bisexual and in denial, or (4) straight, and in love with his fiancée, but strangely enamoured with Oscar Wilde.
If Chloe had to take a guess, she’d now go for 2 or 3, but none of the options were working in her favour. And – she mentally slapped herself – she needed to stop crushing on Joel, because her heart was still under repair and shereallydidn’t need a setback.
But then he said, in a low voice, ‘Chloe – I don’t want to be found. Do you want to be found?’
‘Seriously?’
‘If they find me, it’ll be a lot more booze and all the girls. It won’t be pretty. Help me out here.’
Her heart leapt, back in the game and to hell with the risk. ‘I guess we could stick to the plan? Find an exit by ourselves? The moon will light our way.’
‘You beauty,’ he said. ‘Quick – we need to scoot.’
‘’ellooo-ooo? ’ellooo-ooo?’
‘Oscar’s angel will hide us,’ he whispered, and they flitted across the path, two shadows in the moonlight, and crouched behind the playwright’s tomb.
‘Here they come,’ hissed Joel, moments later. ‘Christ, look at the state of them.’
Around the corner came the lads, not as drunk as before but still acting like school kids – nudging each other, tripping up, one making spooky ghost noises. In front of them, leading the way with a torch, was Monsieur Le Security Guard.
‘I know that guard!’ whispered Chloe.
As the search party drew level and the torch beam swept across the graves, Chloe and Joel ducked out of sight and didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Chloe was reminded of the end ofThe Sound of Music, when Maria and the Von Trapps hide from the Nazis in the abbey.
‘The fuck’s that?’ called one of the lads, looking up at Oscar’s Egyptian sculpture.
‘Oscar Wilde, innit,’ replied another. ‘The bloke Joel’s always banging on about. Perhaps he’s here. Joel, I mean.’
