‘Driving for an hour and a half in the middle of the night after a long shift is how you fall asleep at the wheel and die.’
‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have done it. I just had a bad night and wanted to get out of the city.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing, I just—let’s talk in the morning.’
‘Well, Zach’s in there asleep, and the trundle bed is still in the cupboard in Glenn and Anthony’s room. I don’t want to wake them up.’
‘I’ll share with Zach then. You know how he sleeps. He won’t even notice I’m in the bed until morning.’
‘Sweetie, come here.’
‘Mum—’
‘I just want a quick hug.’
‘Mum, come on.’
‘You can’t hug your mother now?’ The universal mum-guilt tone.
‘Fine. Careful with that bat.’
There’s a beat of silence.
‘Your T-shirt smells like beer. And chips.’
‘Yeah, I work in a pub.’
‘Goodnight, honey. I love you.’
‘Night, Mum. Love you too.’
I’m so busy eavesdropping that what is about to happen occurs to me in a rush. I pull the sheet back over my head.
The bedroom door opens and then closes. I am waiting to make sure Mariella has gone back to her room before I speak, but I hear the sound of Alex taking off his jeans, and my mind turns into a white-noise buzz, it’s so panicked.
‘Wait,’ I say. My voice comes out in a huffy breath. The sheet is still covering my head.
‘Shit? Who is that?’ Alex must have one leg half in, half out of his jeans because I hear a hop as he jolts in surprise, and then a soft thud as he falls onto the floor.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask.
‘Natalie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry. Shit. Mum said Zach was in here.’
‘He was. We swapped, don’t tell her, so he and Lucy could share.’
‘Oh.’
I pull back the sheet and squint into the dark. He’s standing up, yanking his jeans back on.
‘Bloody Zach,’ he says.
‘It’s New Year’s Eve. They wanted a night together.’
‘So what do we do? I guess I’ll sleep on the floor,’ he says, but sits down on the bed. Then he flops onto his back, putting his hands over his face, like we’re facing the greatest predicament two people could ever endure.
‘I’m so fucking tired and I’ve had the worst fucking night ever and I can’t stop fucking swearing, sorry. I don’t even like swearing,’ Alex says. There’s a brokenness in his voice that makes my heart hurt.
‘Get in,’ I say, because it seems like the kindest thing to say right now, and I want to offer him some small kindness. About a millisecond after I have uttered the words, I want to die. I just told Alex to get in bed with me. I resist the urge to pull the sheet back over my head. Maybe I will self-combust and disappear into thin air before he answers. I can only hope.
He lies still for a second, and then he sits up and crawls up the bed until his head is on the pillow next to mine.
‘Thank you,’ he says, his voice a little shaky.
It’s ridiculous he’s thanking me, because this is his family’s house, not mine. I want to say ‘and take your jeans off ’ because the thought of him sleeping in jeans on a warm night makes my skin itch, but telling him that sounds even more suggestive than telling him to get in the bed, and also I’m not sure I want him to take his jeans off.
I can’t sleep in a bed with a pantless Alex. I might legitimately have a heart attack.
Thinking about his jeans makes me realise I’m wearing my distorted-face Prince Harry T-shirt and oversized pyjama shorts with hot dogs on them that I bought from the men’s section at Kmart. So, my pyjamas are not sexy. They are the opposite of sexy.
Alex shuffles around, and then leans over to the side of the bed and grabs two pillows off the floor (Mariella loves pillows, every bed has at least three more than are needed) and puts them under the sheet between us.
‘What are you doing?’ I say.
‘Creating a pillow barrier. I can’t sleep in jeans.’
Oh god, oh god, oh god. He is going to be pantless. He will be Without Pants.
I’m in a fan fiction of my own life. Except I want to be safely reading it on the screen, not lying here in hot-dog-patterned shorts, sweating and self-consciously braless.
‘Are you going naked?’ I ask, my voice a weird squeaky version of what it normally sounds like.
‘No! I’m wearing my jocks. Is that okay? If it’s not okay, I can keep the jeans on.’
‘No, no, it’s fine, take them off,’ I say, dropping my voice a little to try and sound like a worldly woman who is unconcerned about the amount of clothes being worn in the bed beside her. (I always imagine worldly women as having sexy, raspy it-might-be-a-cold-or-it-might-be-too-many-cigarettes kinds of voices.)
I listen to Alex wriggle out of his jeans and drop them to the floor. That’s it. The jeans are officially off. Deep breaths, Natalie. This is really happening.
‘When are you and Zach switching back?’ he asks, through a yawn. How can he be so relaxed? This is the most high-stakes moment of my life, and I say that as someone who considered her final English exam a matter of life or death.
‘At six-thirty. I’ve set my alarm,’ I say.
‘Are you really okay to share until then?’ he asks.
‘Yes. Alex, it’s your house.’
The only thing more terrifying than sharing the bed with pantless Alex is losing the chance to share the bed with pantless Alex.
‘Exactly. It’s my house. Which means you’re the guest who has to sleep with a random guy who bursts into your room in the middle of the night.’
‘You’re hardly a random guy.’ If he knew how much space he had occupied in my brain in the past four days, I would die of shame.
‘I know. But it feels weird. Anyway, the pillow barrier is here to create the illusion that we’re in separate beds.’
He has a lot of faith in this pillow barrier.
‘I feel very reassured. In fact, it feels like we’re in separate rooms. Separate houses even,’ I say.
‘That’s the power of a good pillow barrier,’ he says, and his voice has a smile in it.
We are both lying on our sides, facing each other. It’s dark enough that I can only see an outline of his features, more a sense of his face than his actual face.
‘So why was your night so horrible?’ I say, feeling braver than usual because it’s 2am on New Year’s Eve and I’ve had a small amount of pink champagne.
He’s quiet for a long time. ‘I got fired,’ he says finally.
‘Oh my god.’ I was not expecting that answer. ‘Why?’
‘Because my boss is an arsehole.’
‘Wow.’ I don’t know what to say. I feel terrible, because I know how much that job meant to him. Zach told me what a big deal it was when Alex chose to do an apprenticeship instead of going to university and how much their parents disapproved.
‘Yeah,’ Alex says.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say.
‘It’s not your fault.’