‘A couple of hours.’ I stifle a yawn and she studies me, brows knitting together.
‘When are you working next?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ I can’t remember the exact time, but as long as I’m there before two I’m pretty sure Sammi won’t murder me. We need to prepare for the special gig we’ve planned, but that’s not until the evening. Just as well, as even with good traffic we won’t be back before midnight, and there’s absolutely no chance I’ll be going straight to sleep after spending a couple of hours in such an enclosed space with Lucy. She smells amazing, like always, and it’s driving me to distraction.
‘We could stay here tonight?’ she suggests tentatively. ‘Then travel back in the morning. I mean, my flat is only a few minutes from here, so it wouldn’t be a big hassle. And it’s not like we’re not already sleeping together.’ I hear the catch of her breath as a furious blush ravages her cheeks. ‘I… I mean, we’re already sleeping in the same house. Not sleepingtogether.’
She’s rambling now, overcorrecting her mistake, and it’s adorable. But she has a point. And if I’m being honest, I can’t say I hate the idea of seeing where she lives. Or sleeping with her, obviously, but I’m not going to just come out and say that.
But then I look at her more closely, and my train of thought skids to a stop. She’s clearly nervous, stumbling over her words and chewing delicately on a thumbnail. The idea that she might not be completely comfortable with it lands in my gut like a punch and I know that I have to double check she’s on board. Plus, there’s the small matter of me being able to enter her home and all that. That one could throw a real spanner in the works.
‘Are you inviting me to stay at your flat?’ I ask carefully, dipping my chin so that she has to meet my eyes. Something flashes across them before she composes herself, turning in her seat so that she’s looking straight at me.
‘Do you need to beinvited?’ she asks, the tone of it infinitely more confident than she sounded before. It makes the knot in my chest ease a little.
‘Humour me,’ I say, with a smile. ‘I want to be sure you’re ok with this. Us sharing a space is not the same as me coming into your space.’
She studies me for a moment, like she’s looking for something in particular. It’s something she’s done a few times now, and every time I feel like I can’t breathe until it’s over. She surely can’t suspect that I’m undead.
Can she?
‘It isn’t,’ she concedes after a second or two, ‘but this is me inviting you anyway. If you’re sure that’s ok.’
I have to laugh at that. ‘I’m very sure it’s ok.’
Her relief escapes as a sigh. Then she settles back in her seat as I start the car, and I let her direct us the seven minutes it takes to get to her flat.
‘You livehere?’ I wonder aloud as we stop at the very familiar security gate, and I punch in the code without her having to tell me what it is.
‘Yep,’ she chirps, before she notices the green flash of the code being accepted. ‘Wait, how did you…?’
There’s a creak of tyres on tarmac as I pull into a parking space and cut the engine. ‘It’s my supernatural powers,’ I say, and her face falls again, but then she notices the grin I’m trying to hide and swats me on the arm. I can barely feel the gentle tap beneath the leather of my jacket.
When I turn, she cocks a brow at me. ‘Real answer, please.’
I relent. ‘My sister lives here. She’s working abroad at the moment, but when she’s home I pop in every few weeks to see her.’
It was more like every weekthisyear, at least before Lizzie went to Brazil, but I don’t correct myself. It feels too raw to talk about the ins and outs of how we share our mum’s care after the panic of this evening.
‘No kidding,’ Lucy says softly beside me, and it brings me back into the moment. ‘What block is she in?’
‘D.’
Lucy puffs out a small breath of disbelief. ‘I’m in A. Just opposite.’ She gestures to the building directly in front of us, which I now notice has a large A bricked into the design. It’s no more than thirty metres from Lizzie’s block.
Huh.
I hop out of the car and head round to open Lucy’s door, but she’s two steps ahead of me, standing there with just the slightest air of awkwardness as she straightens her bag strap on her shoulder. I reach for her hand, as is becoming habit now, and she leads me into the building. The lift doors open almost as soon as she presses the button, and we step in together.
I’m thoroughly unsurprised that the lift in Lucy’s building is just as minuscule as the one in Lizzie’s. The sign inside claims that they can carry eight people, which is just preposterous. I’ve been in with Quinn, Fox, Emmy and Sammi once, and we were plastered to each other so uncomfortably that they refused to ever do it again. Emmy said that being that close to Quinn made her gayer.
Even with just me and Lucy in it’s a bit of a squeeze, but, let’s be real, I’m loving every second of the proximity. I’m almost disappointed when the doors open and we tumble out onto the landing. She leads me down the hall, stopping at a pale blue door.
Apartment A502.
Lucy’s flat has exactly the same layout as my sister’s, but beyond that the difference is so stark that it makes me laugh out loud. We have a certain style in our family, so Lizzie’s decor is a lot like mine: not-quite-black walls, deep maroon soft furnishings, and furniture that could have been lifted from a mid-century church but for the fact that neither of us would ever set foot in one. In contrast, Lucy has joyously coloured prints hanging on sunny yellow walls, a crocheted blanket over the back of her sofa, which must surely contain every single colour of the rainbow, and so many plants that I can almost feel the extra oxygen in the air.
By rights, this should be everything I don’t like, but I can’t stop the rush of affection as I take it in. There’s nothing about it that I should like, except that it’sher. And apparently I like her.