Page 310 of The Long Way Home

“Anything else?” I croak.

She turns around and faces me, eyes shy. She’s gone pink.

“Shoes,” she barely says. Nods at them in the corner.

I grab them and hand her the box, but she doesn’t take them. Instead she makes a nervous laugh.

“Actually.” Purses her lips. “I can’t bend over in this dress,” she tells me as she lifts forty-five tonnes of tulle up into the air and I’m met with my favourite pair of legs in the world.

I give her a long look, shaking my head as I slowly get down on my knees.

Fuck me. I breathe out.

She lifts up one foot and I slide on this bright yellow strappy shoe that’s covered in butterflies. Do it up at the ankle. Flop my head on her leg, groan a little. “You’re trying to kill me.”

She sniggers a little, drunk on power. Lifts her other foot for me.

I shove on the other shoe as unceremoniously as possible, do it up one too tight just to get even with her and stand up fast as I can, putting some space between us. Turn my back to her, breathe heavy. Remember all the reasons why being just friends is the right thing for now.

In it for the long haul, I tell myself. When we rush things, we fuck them up. She needs to trust me. I want to see that she doesn’t need to be with someone—

Maybe she just needs to be with me though?

I look at her from over my shoulder, squint at her, a bit fucked up that she’s so beautiful.

Annoying, actually. Kind of rude.

Shake my head. “Fuck it.”

And then I rush her. Lift her off the ground, push her backwards, and in a single move (because all the moves I have were learned on her body) I’ve got her on my waist, pressed up against the wall.

It happens so fast. We know each other’s body how you know your way around your bedroom in the dark. I know where to find the light switch, I know what corners to watch out for, I know where to step for the floorboards to creak.

“Knock, knock,” Mum says, walking in once again without any space between her knock-knocking and the door opening.

“Oh my.” Her eyes shoot to the ceiling.

Parks’ hands are literally down my pants.

“Uh — are you both ready?” she asks the air conditioner unit.

“Yeah,” I snort, looking at Parks with a crooked smile. Her face is frozen in a mix of delight and horror.

Mum nods and backs out of the room, never having stared at an appliance so intently in her life. She closes the door and Parks dissolves into a fit of giggles into my neck, holding herself against me tightly.

I lower her back down onto the floor, grinning at her as I do.

Want to tell her I love her but I just push her hair behind her ear instead.

She stares up at me shy, still smiling.

I glance down at myself, do up my fly, then grin at her.

“You ready for the most uncomfortable car trip of your life?”

It’s an excruciating ride to the Ballroom at Claridge’s.

Mum can’t make eye contact with me or Parks, which gets funnier and funnier the less she looks at us. I’m completely beside myself, doubled over in the stretched town car — which I fucking hate by the way, so uncouth. But Mum likes us to arrive at these things together.

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