She shrugs. ‘It’s boring.’
I shake my head. ‘It’sclassic.’
Her smile comes quicker the second time, and I mentally high-five myself for managing to make her feel better. I grab a packet of vanilla for her and some strawberry and cream fudge for me– don’t judge, it’s the best– and take it to the counter to pay. The man who owns this shop has worked here since the dawn of time, and though we never remember each other’s names, he always recognises me. We chat about the festival and about the bar as he puts the sale through, and when I say my thank-yous and leave, I see Lucy watching me curiously.
She’s still looking at me as we step back out onto the street.
‘What?’ I ask, putting the fudge into the pockets of my jacket, still around Lucy’s shoulders, and she shakes her head.
‘Nothing.’
My brows pinch. ‘That didn’t look like a nothing expression.’
I reach to adjust the collar of the jacket around Lucy’s neck. I’m playing with fire getting my arms out in the sun like this, but I just can’t bring myself to take it back. Not yet. Seeing it draped around her shoulders makes me feel like the hero in some mid-budget American high school film.
‘You’re just not who I was expecting you to be,’ she says, and at those words, my instinct is to freeze. Does she somehow know my secret? She doesn’t seem like the type, but was that a subtle threat?
I huff a cautious laugh. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
When she meets my eyes, it’s like a zap of electricity transfers between us– a surge of something I’ve been feeling for a while finally being reciprocated. In that moment, I know she’s not threatening me at all. She’sflirtingwith me.
Against my better judgement, a chorus of angels sounds in my head.
‘You should,’ she says, the ghost of a smile on her face, and she holds eye contact a beat too long for it to be unintentional. ‘So,’ she continues, while I try to wrestle back control of my faculties, ‘what’s the second thing I need?’
‘You’ll see,’ I reply with a smile, and then I reach for her hand again. I tell myself it’s because she could still be upset about the Jon thing, or because it’s busy in town now and I don’t want us to get separated, but the truth is that I can’t help myself. There’s something a little magical about the way her hand fits into mine– about the way that her fingers tighten around my hand every so often. It makes my chest ache every time.
Oh my God, I’ll stop. I’m just embarrassing myself now.
Even if it is all true.
I lead Lucy back over the bridge and through winding streets crammed with weird and wonderful sights until we reach the foot of the 199 steps. I watch her mouth drop open as she takes them in, her eyes following the cut of the stone up and around the hill, the church only just visible above the yellowing tufts of grass.
‘I think I remember these,’ she says, eyes alight. She turns back to me. ‘We’re going up?’
I nod, watching the flow of the crowd climbing up and down the steps. It’s absolutely rammed today, as I knew it would be, but where we’re going will be quieter. Quiet enough, anyway. When I see a gap, I tug at Lucy’s hand, pulling her into the space, and together we begin to climb.
‘Wladek would want me to tell you that these are the steps that Dracula runs up in the form of a black dog after his ship is wrecked,’ I say. ‘It would be important to him that you know that.’
She nods seriously. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘You ever readDracula?’
‘I have not.’
‘Ever plan to?’
She thinks for a moment. ‘Probably not.’
‘Fair enough.’ I chuckle to myself. ‘I wouldn’t tell Wladek that though. Tell him it’s on your to-be-read list or he’ll infodump every last bit of Dracula trivia that he knows.’
We’re around halfway up when I notice that the faint sting of the skin on my arms has grown into a familiar itch, and when I look down I can see red clusters of hives beginning to form between the inked designs on my skin. Dammit.
I didn’t notice that I’d stopped until I feel the tug of Lucy’s hand in mine. She stops too when she feels resistance, spinning back to look at me with an expression of shock on her face.
‘Bram, oh my God,’ she gasps as her eyes follow mine to the angry red weals on my skin. She reaches out as if to touch one but stops just short. ‘Your arm!’
‘It’s a reaction,’ I tell her, ‘to the UV rays in sunlight. I usually wear sunblock when the sun’s strong, but I don’t have any on my arms because I wasn’t expecting them to be exposed. So they’re just getting a bit angry.’