The Road Trip: The heart-warming new novel from the author of The Flatshare and The Switch Beth O'Leary (ready to read books .TXT) 📖

second-guess – what was I doing, climbing into his bed like that – but shut myself up before I can really get going on it.

The message is from Deb.

Are you OK? Xx

I’m good. I’m in bed with Dylan xx

I hear her exclamation over the other side of the room and bury my smile in the pillow.

Well what does that mean?!

Haven’t a clue. But . . . 

But smiley face, eh? Did you . . .

We just cuddled.

Disgusting.

Deb hates the word cuddle. I used to agree, until I didn’t have anyone to cuddle me, and then I realised hating the word cuddle was a luxury of actually getting them.

‘Are you messaging Deb?’ Dylan whispers beside me.

There’s a moment. I can feel the decision waiting to be made. Now that he’s awake, should he let me go?

He shifts as if to pull away. I drop my phone and lace my fingers through his again, the way I did before. I can feel him smiling as he settles back into position.

‘I said cuddle. She said disgusting,’ I whisper back.

His laugh is so low it’s almost inaudible, just a rumble against my hair. I feel almost panicked with happiness, and I tighten my grip on his hand so it doesn’t slip away.

‘Are you OK?’ he whispers.

‘I’m good. I’m really good.’

‘I’m glad we talked. That wasn’t exactly how I imagined that conversation would go, but . . .’

‘Less vomiting?’

‘Fewer bystanders.’

I smile.

‘But I’ve wanted to say all of that to you for a really long time,’ he says.

He tightens his arm against me for a moment in a brief hug. Obviously I’ve no idea what any of this means. It’s just cuddling, and when we leave this bed, God knows where we go from here. Dylan and I had all kinds of problems aside from Etienne and Marcus. There’s a hundred reasons why we . . .

‘Stop,’ Dylan whispers. ‘It’s OK. Relax.’

I loosen my shoulders. I hadn’t even noticed I’d stiffened up.

‘Let’s just enjoy the last few minutes in this bed,’ he says. ‘And we can deal with the real world when we get out of it.’

‘Dylan Abbott,’ I whisper. ‘Are you telling me to live in the now?’

Dylan

The morning is a flurry of activity – we plan to set off at seven, but Deb loses track of time Skyping her mum and Riley, and Marcus has locked himself in the bathroom and fallen asleep so none of us can get in to shower until he wakes up, and Addie can’t find her glasses. Behind it all, I can hardly think straight for the joy of catching Addie’s eye across the chaos and watching her smile. A poem begins to grow as we settle in the car and Rodney cheerfully hands around slabs of his flapjack for our impromptu breakfast. The new words come spooling: the quiet blossoming, the rebloom/the hint of a wish of a chance.

Addie, Rodney and I are in the back; Marcus is sitting up front, uncharacteristically quiet, his bruised face turned outwards towards the day that’s just beginning through the window. If I was aware of Addie’s skin against mine yesterday, today it burns me. I can hardly think of anything else, and I’m dangerously happy, so very hopeful, and then she reaches across and takes my hand and I really think I might cry with joy.

‘Isn’t that lovely!’ Rodney says, beaming at our linked hands.

Addie laughs; her fingers lace more tightly through mine.

I mustn’t get ahead of myself. We have so much to talk about. But – the hint of a wish of a chance – it’s so much better than anything I’ve had for the last year and a half, and that great fissure in my chest is like a crack in dry soil, closing up at the first hint of rain.

The drive suddenly seems easy, as if the roads have heard the news – Addie and me, holding hands in the car – and agree that all should now be right in the world. It’s only when we finally take an extreme-desperation break (Deb has banned comfort breaks and will only stop driving for ‘anyone who will otherwise wet themselves’) at a tiny services near Carlisle that I recall the other crisis currently occupying Deb’s Mini.

‘Someone go with Rodney!’ Deb hisses at me and Marcus as we wander over to the service station shop. ‘Don’t leave the man alone!’

Oh, yes. Rodney the stalker. I remember.

‘Not even to piss?’ Marcus says.

‘Especially not to piss! What if he escapes through the bathroom window?’

I’m not sure quite what Marcus and I are going to do about it if he does.

‘Quite hard to have eyes-on when he’s in the bathroom, Major,’ Marcus says. His drawl is a little lacklustre today.

‘What about urinals? Isn’t that what they’re for?’

Marcus and I exchange a puzzled glance.

‘Just go! Go!’ Deb says, shoving us towards the toilets.

‘She’s really not interested in me, is she?’ Marcus says, turning to look at Deb again as she hurries off to rejoin Addie by the snacks.

‘She’d rather have sex with Kevin the trucker than with you. So I think it’s a no. And you’re only chasing her out of habit, anyway.’

Marcus kicks a stone with his toe. ‘Hmm. I preferred it when you always agreed with me. You know. Back before you got all independent-woman and friend-dumped me because your therapist told you to.’

‘No, you don’t. Back then our friendship was . . .’ I trail off.

‘Oh, I know,’ Marcus says, still looking at his feet. And then, after a long moment, he says, ‘Even before Addie. It wasn’t healthy.’

I blink in surprise. ‘Yeah. That’s true.’

He shoots me a look. ‘Don’t sound so surprised. You’re not the only one having therapy.’

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m just glad to hear you say that. And it wasn’t a friend-dumping, by the way, we weren’t ever really . . .’

‘Over?’ he says, quirking an eyebrow.

That gets a reluctant laugh out of me. ‘What can I say? I believe in second chances. Besides, you need someone who reminds you