“Just one room, sir?” the attendant asked, as alertly as if it were not three in the morning.
Owen hesitated. He knew instinctively that Emily would want her own room, just as he knew she shouldn’t be alone at a time like this. “One room with twin beds,” he said firmly.
Back in the van he told Emily they had a room, and she lifted her dazed gaze for the first time. “Are you staying…?”
“Yes.”
Something flickered across her face and was gone. Owen couldn’t tell if she was pleased or not, but he was decided. He wasn’t going to leave her like this.
Upstairs Owen swiped the key card and then stepped aside for Emily to enter before following her in and closing the door quietly behind him. She turned to him, startled.
“Don’t you have your own room?”
“They only had the one room left.” He felt no guilt about lying; he suspected Emily would want to insist on having her own space, and he had no intention of giving it to her. “There are two beds,” he pointed out, and she just nodded.
The room was small and utilitarian, with a window overlooking a ventilation shaft. Now that they were both inside, Owen could acknowledge it was going to be very close quarters. Even so he didn’t regret his decision.
Emily used the bathroom first, and emerged in a pair of leggings and a T-shirt that emphasised her slender form and reminded Owen that these were very close quarters indeed. As she walked by him, he smelled the light, floral scent of her perfume.
By the time he emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, self-consciously clad in a T-shirt and his boxers, Emily was already tucked up in bed, her knees to her chest, her back to him.
Owen climbed in the other bed and closed his eyes as he tried to relax. He didn’t think he’d ever been in a more surreal situation.
*
Emily didn’t think she’d sleep, not after everything. Even with her eyes shut, images danced across her agonised mind: her mother lying in the sterile-looking hospital bed, restraints on her wrists and ankles, doped up to the gills. Her face had been bloodied, her skinny arms covered in bruises. The nurse had explained as succinctly as possible what had happened—how the police had been called after Naomi, in the grip of a psychotic episode, had attacked someone in the street before trying to kill herself, dragging a broken bottle across her wrists.
Emily had listened, silent and dazed, taking in every detail even though it felt as if they were bouncing off her brain. They’d been here before. Not this room, not even this hospital, but this place, oh yes. Her mother having a psychotic episode, attempting suicide, needing to be restrained, drugged up and deadened. Yes, they’d been here before.
And it was a place Emily hated. Why hadn’t she seen the warning signs? Her mother going off her medication, and then insisting she was back on it… Emily should have known. Of course she should have. She’d chosen to believe her mum, to let it go, because it had been easier. Because she’d been both too scared and too tired to consider the agonising alternative. And now her mother was in intensive care, and she was here, and it felt as if her whole world had fallen apart. Again.
Her brain and body both ached as the images continued to flash through her mind—not just from the hospital but also from her childhood. A kitchen full of broken dishes. Her mother crying silently in the bath. Waking up to the manic movements of her mother deep cleaning their flat at two a.m.
At some point, mid-memory, she must have fallen asleep, deeply and dreamlessly, because the next thing she knew she was waking up to bright sunlight and the sound of the shower running. She was alone in the hotel room. Owen’s bed looked rumpled, the pillow possessing a dent from where his head had been. If she put her hand there, she thought it would still be warm. Not that she would do something so weird, of course.
Emily sat up slowly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She felt tired and hungover even though she hadn’t had much to drink last night. Her head ached and her mouth was dry and as she sat there, listening to Owen humming quite tunefully in the shower, she remembered what an idiotic zombie she’d been last night, too dazed to take anything in, letting him lead her from pillar to post like she was ill or brainless or both. What must he have thought of her? What did he think of her now? Why did she care?
And yet she did care, even if she didn’t have the emotional head or heart space to dwell on it, or the kiss that had been interrupted by the call about her mother.
That kiss…
For a second Emily closed her eyes as she remembered how lovely it had felt to be in Owen’s arms, his mouth moving so surely over hers. It had felt both thrillingly exciting and wonderfully safe, which was a combination that didn’t make sense and threatened to do Emily’s head in. She couldn’t think about that kiss now.
The door to the bathroom opened while she was still sitting there, staring vacantly into space and sporting a serious case of bedhead.
Owen emerged from the steamy bathroom with a towel slung around his shoulders, his dark hair damp and curly. He was dressed in a fresh rugby shirt and a pair of jeans; he must have had spare clothes in the van, not that Emily had paid any attention. He gave her a concerned smile now.
“Did you sleep all right?”
“Erm…” Emily pushed a hand through her hair as she tried to make her brain feel less fuzzy. “Yes. I think so. Surprisingly.” Owen nodded, his sympathetic gaze scanning
