Page 2 of Washed Up

He looked down at himself, then grinned at her. ‘Don’t you like it? The semi-naked look is all the rage in London. Apparently.’ He rubbed at his face with one hand. ‘I… I don’t know why I said that. God, I need a coffee.’

Frankie put her hands on her hips. ‘How did you even get in here?’

He shrugged. ‘Door was open. I needed to sleep.’

By now any nerves had been replaced by sheer irritation. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that this place might belong to someone? What if someone else had been staying in the house?’

‘But they weren’t, were they?’ He angled his head to the side. ‘Unless… you weren’t here, were you? I think I would have remembered you.’

‘Certainly not.’

Dylan blinked at her. Once. Twice. Then abruptly began stumbling down the stairs towards her. Faintly alarmed, Frankie backed into the sitting room again and sat down, on the sofa this time, her hands twisting in her lap. Maybe she should run and get her father? Maybe she should get someone? Not her mum, though. Definitely not her mum. Frankie’s mother could not be trusted around men like Dylan.

After a disturbingly long time and more swearing, the man himself wandered into the room, almost banging his head on the low beam that ran across the threshold as he did so. He glanced over at her, then flopped down into the armchair she had recently vacated, and groaned, stretching out his long legs and throwing his head back into the squishy cushions.

‘My head,’ he moaned.

‘What happened to it?’ said Frankie.

‘A bottle of tequila, I think,’ he said with a little chuckle.

‘That explains a lot.’

Dylan raised his head and looked at her properly for the first time. He had deep blue eyes and a look as if he’d seen far too much. For reasons she didn’t want to examine, Frankie was finding it hard to look directly at him.

‘Yes. Yes, I suppose it does,’ he said, and grinned again, so suddenly and deeply this time that Frankie felt a bit hot and bothered.

She clicked her tongue at him in an effort to get things back on track. ‘You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.’

He leaned his head back again and closed his eyes. ‘Relax. No harm done. I’ll be out of your hair in a minute. It’s great hair, by the way.’

Frankie patted her brown curls self-consciously. ‘No need for sarcasm.’

‘No sarcasm here. I mean it. Love curly hair.’ His voice was soft, distant.

‘You’d better not be falling asleep again.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

Frankie sighed, then went to the kitchen and got him a glass of water, which she practically had to press into his hand. His head remained firmly cushioned against the back of the chair, those eyes remained closed, but he grunted a thank-you.

‘Drink this, then get up. We need to get you out of here before the ferry stops running.’

‘Before the what now?’

‘The ferry? To the mainland?’

Dylan’s head flew up at that, eyes snapping open. ‘The what to the where now?’

Frankie sighed and spoke as slowly as she could manage. ‘The… ferry… to… the… mainland.’

He frowned. ‘Which mainland would that be, exactly?’

‘Guernsey, of course.’

‘I’m not on Guernsey now?’

Frankie laughed. This was like something out of a movie. ‘No. You are most definitely not on Guernsey.’