Page 66 of The Love of My Afterlife
I look down at my feet, the rain already softening the previously dry ground beneath me. I lift up my foot. There’s a squelch.
“Come on, we’ll get soaked.”
I can’t seem to take my eyes off my feet. I’m going to die in three days anyway. What does it matter if I get soaked? If I drown in this rainfall? Literally nothing matters anymore.
Cooper approaches me. “I’m gonna carry you back to the car, okay?”
I shrug half-heartedly, sort of expecting him to swoop me up into a cradle and carry me like I weigh nothing at all. But no. He does not do that. He scoops me up—yes, without any effort—but he throws me over his shoulder like I’m a sack of potatoes which, frankly after this shit show, I might as well be. My head dangles down his back, and when Cooper runs along the country lane, my head starts to bounce against his butt.
“Cooper! Put me back down!” I yell, because this is just too much humiliation even for me. But the rain and the thunder are so resounding that he doesn’t hear me. I wonder briefly if I will get a bruise, because while Cooper’s bottom is a little rounderthan average, it is pure solid muscle. It’s like my head is bopping against a basketball.
I give in, deciding to just dangle, and soon enough we’re back in the car park, where Cooper places me on my feet outside the car. He reaches into his inside pocket for the keys, and then into his other inside pocket. He pulls out the army knife and the architectural plans and a wallet. Then he takes off his tuxedo jacket and dives into his trouser pockets.
“Fuck,” he barks. “My car keys. They must have fallen out when you were looking for my handkerchief. Did you not hear them fall?”
“Of course you’re blaming me,” I shout, rain sweeping my mascara right into my eyeballs. I lift my hands and try to shield my face. “You could have lost them at any time. Just use the army knife thing to unlock the car door. It worked on the gates!”
Cooper glares at me, a wet lock of hair falling into his eye. He swipes it away. “It won’t work on that. This is a special lock. It’s made so that it can’t possibly be picked.”
His jacket is slung over his shoulder and his tuxedo shirt is so wet it has become see-through and plastered onto a torso that looks to be as solid as his bum. I can’t seem to take my eyes away. My mouth feels dry. I feel the rain on my lips and catch some with my tongue. Cooper stares at me for a moment, panting, the rain dripping from his eyelashes.
“The pub,” he says suddenly, pointing at the warm yellow lights of The Bee and Bonnet. Without asking, he scoops me up again, flinging me over his shoulder and running towards the pub, my head once again bouncing against his thoroughly soaked bum. For fuck’s sake.
Cooper flings open the pub door and plops me onto my feet inside.
“Fucking hell,” I cry out dramatically. Only we’re now out of the rain and this pub is very, very quiet. There’s the gentle sound of a radio playing Adele, and only three other customers—a slightly damp grey-haired couple and their grey-haired pug—in the whole place.
The bartender looks down at the puddle we’re making on the stone floor and sighs. He disappears into the back, returning with a slightly damp towel that looks like it might have already been used on the grey-haired couple and their dog. Cooper grabs it and rubs his hair and face before handing it to me. I do the same and then place the towel on the floor to simultaneously wipe my bare feet and soak up our rain puddle. I hand it back to the bartender, who hangs it back on the hook, ready for the next wet customers I assume.
“Do you have rooms available?” Cooper asks the bartender.
“Rooms?” I pull a face. “I can’t stay here. Just call the AA or something. They’ll fix your car. Or let’s get a cab. I really do just want to go home.”
Cooper huffs. “I wouldn’t feel great about asking anyone to drive out to us in these terrible conditions. Would you?” He looks at me like I’ve just suggested he shit in a Jiffy bag and post it to his mum.
He’s right, though. It’s apocalyptic out there. I definitely don’t want anyone driving in that. I shake my head.
“Look,” Cooper says, his eyes softening a smidge. “We’ll wait it out and I’ll call my friend in the morning. He has a spare set of keys to the car.”
What other choice do we have?
I look up at the bartender. “What he said. We need a couple of rooms.”
“That won’t be a problem,” The barman says, indicating the empty pub. “Now what do you two want to drink?”
“Alcohol,” Cooper says bluntly.
“And plenty of it,” I add, burying my wet head in my hands.
As pubs go, it’s not the worst one to be stuck in—it’s cosy, the chairs are soft, and the alcohol in Duckett’s Edge is half as expensive as it is in London. Cooper and I have settled ourselves into a corner by a crammed gallery wall filled with oil paintings of women, each one in a different artistic style—an abstract nude, an Impressionist woman in a wild garden, a full-on portrait in a classical Renaissance sort of style. Cooper is drinking whisky neat because of course he is, and I am having vodka martinis, sans olives. The drinks have been made with a very old, very sweet, possibly out-of-date vermouth because—as the barman said—this is not Chiltern bloody Firehouse.
I reach into my bag for some bobby pins and braid my wet hair right back up into its usual style until it’s safe and secure.
A young, extremely pretty woman in denim shorts walks by our table. I wait for Cooper to meet her gaze with that flirty look he’s always dishing out, but he doesn’t. He just plays with a beer mat, brows furrowed.
“Are you okay?” I ask. “Only a very hot woman just walked past and you didn’t notice.”
“I’m not some sort of Casanova, you know.”
