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

Whether he’s the reason Dylan didn’t come home sooner. I can’t imagine he was in any rush to get Dylan back to me.

‘And . . . you’re here now?’ I ask him.

‘I’m here now. For good. In full knowledge that I should never have left your side.’

‘I’m drinking your cava!’ Deb yells at me. ‘You look busy.’

I laugh and give her a thumbs up, then drag Dylan to the dance floor as Deb knocks back my drink. Me and Dylan dance, pressed so close together every inch of us is touching. The strobes flash. My head’s spinning. I’m giddy with having him back.

‘You know,’ Dylan says, close to my ear so I can hear him over the music, ‘I’m beginning to think my life thus far has been one long string of poorly made decisions and very foolish mistakes, except for the day I knocked on your door.’ He presses his lips to my hair and I hide my smile against his chest. ‘I’m not leaving your side now.’

‘That’s going to be a bit tricky,’ I say, pulling on his hands to get him dancing again. He’s pretty good. I’m not sure why I assumed Dylan would be a bad dancer but this is a nice surprise.

‘Tricky?’

‘Your family live two hours away, don’t they?’

He doesn’t catch it. I repeat the words, my lips against his ear.

‘I’m not moving home,’ he says. He sounds triumphant. ‘I’m moving here.’

‘Here?’ That’s the grand plan he’s spent months coming up with? ‘Here, like, Chichester? What are you going to do for work?’

‘I’ll figure it out,’ he says, and there’s that shadow on his face again. ‘If Chichester will have me.’

The lights paint his hair yellow, green, yellow. The music’s so loud it’s more buzz than noise.

‘What, you’re going to rent a flat here?’

‘Or buy one. Dad’s always on at me to get on the property ladder.’

I gawp at him for so long he laughs a bit uneasily, pulling me closer again.

‘Or not, whatever. I just want to be here. I should have been here all along.’

Someone bashes into me, throwing me hard against his chest. I stay there, wrapping my arms around his waist. I’ve always believed everyone should get a second chance. And he’s sorry, and was it that bad, anyway, him staying away a bit longer than he said he would while he figured stuff out?

And . . . I still love him. So there’s that, too.

I sneak him into my room. The moment we click my bedroom door closed we’re breathless, literally clawing each other’s clothes off. Dylan tears the neckline of my dress and pauses, seeming surprised at himself, which makes me laugh so much I have to cover my mouth with a hand to keep quiet.

His body is the same but different. The tan lines are clearer, the muscles a little firmer maybe, but it’s him, Dylan, home, and the feel of him against me is enough to send me quivering. We kiss hungrily, open-mouthed. I’m desperate. Aching. I’m so frantic I mess up the condom, and Dylan laughs, breathless, stilling my hands with his own.

‘We have time,’ he says, voice hoarse. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

He lays me down on the bed, moving on top of me. His arms bracket me. I lift my chin, demanding a kiss, and he presses his lips to mine, slow, soft. By the time he reaches for a second condom I’ve begged, literally begged him, and when at last he moves inside me we both cry out.

I sort of go through tiredness and out the other side. The alcohol probably helps with that. Dylan’s body clock is a mess anyway with all the travelling. So at eight a.m., after zero hours of sleep, sated and giddy and probably still drunk, I bring him downstairs to make bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast.

My mum arrives a few minutes after we put the rashers under the grill. She pauses in the doorway to the kitchen in her favourite dressing gown. It was purple originally, but it’s a mushy sort of grey now.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what I’m more surprised to see. A young man in my kitchen or my daughter making a fried breakfast at eight o’clock in the morning.’

‘Dylan,’ Dylan says, wiping his hands on the apron he insisted on wearing and stretching one out for Mum to shake. ‘Pleasure to meet you.’

‘Oh! Dylan!’

Mum gives me one of those significant looks that only parents do. As if, as soon as you have a kid, you lose the power of subtlety.

‘Yes, Mum, this is Dylan,’ I say, turning back to buttering bread and trying not to smile.

‘And he’s back now, is he?’

‘Absolutely,’ Dylan says. ‘And not going anywhere. Ever again. Ever.’

My smile widens.

‘Well. I’m pleased to hear that, Dylan,’ Mum says, and I can hear that she’s smiling too. ‘Now, brace yourself. If your father smells bacon he’ll be out of bed like a—’

‘Who’s cooking bacon?’ Dad yells down the stairs. ‘Is it for me?’

NOW

Dylan

Charnock Richard Service Station, highlight of the M6, is resolutely grimy and grey beneath a deep blue sky. We all squeeze ourselves out of the Mini like a bad joke in reverse.

Marcus stretches expansively, fists clenched, and with his hair blowing into his eyes he looks like the scrappy little boy he once was, swamped in a Winchester College blazer, small enough that the older kids thought he’d be easy to pick on, smart enough that he owned them all by the end of autumn term. He had two teachers he didn’t like fired; he somehow got Peter Wu kicked off the cricket team so he could play in his place; he soon had a reputation as a young man who made things happen.

I remember the day when a sixth former had thrown Luke into a wall and called him a dick-sucker. Marcus was a head shorter than Daniel Withers and half as broad, but as he approached the older boy