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

‘Though by all means, tell him no. He doesn’t hear it very often. Might be good for him.’

After another moment’s pause, I roll my eyes slightly. ‘Oh, go on, I’ll humour him.’

I leave Luke at the table and head over towards Marcus. He trots off before I’ve caught him up, leading me down the lawn to the scrubby area near the villa’s boundary. He stops so suddenly I nearly pile into him, and have to put a hand on his shoulder to steady myself.

‘Shh,’ he says, beckoning me to stand next to him. ‘Look.’

I follow his gaze down to the shaded grass. It takes a moment for me to see what he sees: a snake. I breathe in sharply as I meet its slitted gaze. I’ve not seen a single snake all summer, but this one’s enormous. Coiled, all muscle. Its scales are almost-black and pale yellow.

I crouch down. I don’t know why; it just feels like the right thing to do. Marcus kneels beside me, and for a while we just stay like that. Watching it watch us.

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Pure power,’ Marcus says.

‘Is it poisonous? Or venomous, or whatever?’ I ask in a whisper.

‘No idea.’

That should probably scare me, but it doesn’t. The snake isn’t moving, just waiting.

‘He loves you, you know,’ Marcus says.

For a weird second I think he means the snake.

‘Dylan’s easily hurt,’ Marcus goes on. His voice is level. ‘By the people he loves.’

‘I’m not going to hurt him,’ I say.

‘Course you are,’ Marcus says, tone still light, eyes still on the snake. ‘You’re too complicated for someone like Dylan. Far too interesting.’ He turns his head to look at me then. ‘This summer’s when you wake up, isn’t it, and you’re only just getting started. You’re just beginning to play around, and he’s nearly ready to give up and settle down and say, This is who I am, I’m done.’

There’s something indecent about his gaze. It feels hot. I keep my eyes on the snake, but I know my cheeks are starting to blush pink. I should have stayed up with Luke on the terrace. Nice Luke, who said I’d be good for Dylan.

‘I’m not playing around,’ I say. ‘I don’t know where you got that idea from.’

His gaze burns. ‘Maybe you should be.’

This conversation feels like it’s sliding away from me.

‘You act like you know me. You don’t know anything about me.’ I try to keep my voice as steady as his.

‘I told you, I’m an excellent judge of character. I like the look of the dark, messy parts of you, the fun parts. But Dylan wants a good girl.’

I frown, heart thudding. That’s so inappropriate. I don’t want to be here. As I move to stand, the snake recoils and slithers away from us.

‘I’m not Grace,’ I say shortly, brushing down my knees. ‘You don’t get a part of me just because I’m Dylan’s.’

He stands and I almost step back when I see his expression. His eyes are dark and angry. It’s disorientating how quickly he’s changed, or maybe he looked like that before, but I couldn’t hear it in his voice.

‘Well, you might be all Dylan’s,’ he says as I turn to walk away from him. ‘But he’s not all yours.’

Dylan

Getting this lot off on a hike is akin to herding cats, but if I let them all lounge around the pool as they’re requesting then I will have an under-exercised and petulant Cherry to deal with, which on balance will likely be worse.

Marcus is in a foul mood, which isn’t helping matters, and Addie is . . . I don’t know quite where Addie is. Never with me, that’s where. At least Marcus has lost interest in her now, predictably – no woman has ever retained his genuine attention for more than a day or two, and it seems the danger time has passed, thank God.

‘Come on, Dyl!’ Cherry wheedles, bouncing on the spot. ‘You said wait until it cools down, and it’s cooler now, so can we just go?’

‘Marta! Connie!’ I yell. ‘Trainers on!’

‘All right, Dad,’ says Marta, pouting; Connie laughs as I scowl at the pair of them.

‘Where’s Addie?’ I ask. ‘Marcus, are you wearing those shoes?’

‘Evidently,’ Marcus says, shoving past me on his way to the kitchen.

‘Grace, are you ready?’

‘Not at all,’ she says, lying back on a sun lounger.

‘Could you try?’ I snap.

Grace’s charm is a lot less charming now that I’m not interested in sleeping with her, I must say. She lowers her sunglasses and gives me a look that says she knows precisely what I’m thinking. I redden; she smiles slowly.

‘Isn’t it a good thing that I’m not the sensitive type?’ she says. ‘I’ll be ready before Marta and you know it, darling. Go take your frustration out elsewhere, please, you’re in my light – or better yet, go and find the beautiful woman we’ve all rudely ripped from your arms. That’s really what’s got you so grumpy, isn’t it? That we’ve ruined your romantic tryst by arriving en masse, as if we’re all in a terribly comical scene from The Marriage of Figaro?’

Damn Grace – I always forget how perceptive she is behind the glamour and indolence and allusions. She gives me another beautiful smile and pushes her sunglasses up her nose again as I stomp off the terrace and down the steps to the courtyard.

There’s a new car parked rather haphazardly behind Grace’s rental car; I step a little further, and there’s Addie, in the shade of a plane tree, speaking to a woman who I immediately realise must be Deb. She has black, wavy hair and light brown skin, and she’s standing on the edges of her feet, tipping them in and out as she talks, her T-shirt sliding off her shoulder. There’s an air of careless confidence to her even from here, as if she is in possession of the genuine no-fucks-given attitude the rest of us are feigning when we pose for Instagram.

I catch sight of Addie’s