The Road Trip by Beth O'Leary (grave mercy .txt) 📕

‘Oh, good,’ he calls down. ‘Someone to serenade. Ever so embarrassing to be serenading without an object.’

‘An object!’

‘Purely a figure of grammar,’ he says hastily, and I laugh. ‘Subject-verb-object and all that.’

‘Is it one of your poems?’ I ask. He never shows me his own work, though he’s always happy reading me bits of sixteenth-century stuff. It doesn’t make sense to me. Where Dylan hears something incredibly profound, I just hear something you could say in way fewer words.

‘It was, but only because I’d got distracted. I’m reading Philip Sidney,’ Dylan says, waving a battered paperback down at me. ‘Sir Philip Sidney, actually. Courtier, diplomat, poet.’

‘Old guy?’ I guess.

He smiles. ‘Yeah. Died 1586.’

‘Very old guy.’

Dylan’s battered brown Havaianas dangle from his feet over the edge of the balustrade.

‘Read me something,’ I call. I want to get it, the poetry thing. It’s just so foreign to me.

‘My true love hath my heart,’ he begins, ‘and I have his.’

‘His?’

‘It’s a woman speaking, not Philip himself,’ Dylan says. ‘He’s not saying he’s in love with a man. He was almost certainly a homophobic bigot, what with being a rich chap in the sixteenth century. Come up here, would you? I want to hold you.’

I grin despite myself. ‘Philip!’ I say, making my way towards the steps up to the terrace. ‘First-name terms, are you?’

‘Phil. Phil-man. Philster,’ Dylan says, poker-faced.

I’m giggling now. ‘Go on. Your true love’s got your heart, you’ve got his?’ I climb up beside him on the balustrade and he wraps an arm around my waist, tucking me in close. I snag his beer and take a swig.

‘My true love hath my heart and I have his. By just exchange one to the other given. I hold his dear and mine he cannot miss. There never was a better bargain driven.’

I kind of get that, actually. I think. Love as a bargain. Like, giving up your heart is scary, but doable if the other person does it at the exact same moment, like two soldiers lowering their weapons.

The rest of the poem is a muddle of words in the wrong order – For as from me on him his hurt did light and that sort of stuff. When he finishes reading I swap him his beer for the book.

‘Yeah?’ Dylan says. He looks so excited as I take the book. It’s adorable, but it kind of scares me too, because of all the times he’s read me something and I’ve not got it.

‘If I like this one,’ I say, ‘will you show me one of yours?’

He pulls a face. ‘Oh, God, it’d be like showing you my teenage journal. Or . . .’

‘Your internet search history?’

Dylan grins. ‘Why, what’s in yours?’

‘Is that what you need?’ I ask, arching one eyebrow. ‘Tit for tat?’

‘You’re calling my poetry tat, are you?’ Dylan says, then feigns thoughtfulness. ‘Though, tit would be a . . .’

‘Shut up. You know what I meant. You need me to tell you something embarrassing too?’

‘It’d help, certainly.’ Dylan sips his beer, and I can tell he’s trying not to grin.

I hesitate for a moment and then swing my legs around, leaving the book on the ledge. The morning away from the villa has made me feel in control again. There’s no harm in giving him a little more of myself, is there?

‘Come on.’

I lead him back to the flat, through to the cupboard where me and Deb are storing our suitcases. Dylan leans on the door frame and watches as I pull out my suitcase and unzip it.

He laughs when he sees what’s inside and my cheeks instantly flush. I’m already clumsily re-zipping the case by the time his arms close around me from behind.

‘No, no, don’t. I love this. Please tell me you build model trains for fun.’

I squirm in his arms. Why did I do this?

‘I love it, Addie,’ he says, more gently. ‘I wasn’t laughing at you. It was – it was a delighted laugh. A surprised one.’

He presses a kiss to my cheek. After a long, painful moment I lift out the Flying Scotsman. It’s tucked at the base of the suitcase where it won’t get squashed. There’s a wheel missing but otherwise it survived the journey to France pretty well.

‘It’s my dad’s thing,’ I say. Dylan tries to turn me in his arms but I stay put. It’s easier this way, not looking at him. ‘He’s always loved it. We used to do it together, with Deb, when I was a kid. She went through this phase where she was train mad, and that’s how it started, and then Dad just never stopped. I usually do a project with him whenever I go home. This is the one we did before I came to France.’

‘It must take ages,’ Dylan says. ‘May I?’

I let him take it and step away. I glance up from under my eyelashes. He’s not laughing now. He’s examining the model train like it’s totally fascinating.

It’s like he’s just dropped the last coin into the slots machine. It all comes rushing down and I’m falling in love with him, I am, I can’t stop myself.

‘It’s amazing,’ he says, inspecting the joins. ‘Is it hard?’

I shake my head. I’m feeling so much I’m sure he must be able to see it all radiating off me.

‘It just takes patience,’ I manage.

‘Ah, I’d be dreadful at it.’

I laugh. ‘Yeah, you’d be crap.’

He kisses me on the cheek again. They’re still burning hot.

‘So? Where’s my tat?’ I say, moving away. It’s that or burrow into his chest. The emotions are getting too big.

‘Really?’ He grimaces, rubbing one hand up and down his arm. ‘Do I have to?’

‘I showed you my train!’

‘Your train is adorable. My poems are . . . pompous self-indulgence.’

‘I bet they’re brilliant.’

He shakes his head. ‘Nope. Drivel. Really, Addie, they’re tripe.’

‘Come on. I know you’ve got your notebook in your pocket.’

‘That? I’m just pleased to see you.’

I lunge for him. He runs, darting through into the kitchen, down to the courtyard, through to