Slicing some cheese to put onto the untoasted sides of his bread, he looked out of the window. This place was amazing. He felt different here, detached. More fun even. It felt nice to share a place with someone too. Since he’d moved out of his parents’ house, he’d been well aware of the empty feel of his flat. After the calls had stopped, and everyone else was settling in for the night. It felt nice to be in someone else’s space, with someone else for company.
Taking his cheese on toast and cuppa through to the lounge, he sat back on the sheeted sofa and ate in silence, looking around at Rebecca’s things. Or lack of them. The furniture was nice, but there wasn’t any personal feel to the room. Any of them really. It looked like a holiday cottage, all set up for life, but no evidence of living. She had no photos around, nothing that told him anything real about her.
She liked nice bed sheets, and things kept clean. She read books, he’d seen a few laying around. Notes in the margins of some of them, bookmarks and sticky tabs in others. She liked nice perfume, and good shampoo. She hated most humans, and he didn’t know why. He’d always felt awkward around people, but that wasn’t it with her. He’d watched her with customers. She was relaxed, open, and unguarded. Around Hans too. She trusted him, but he suspected that even that hadn’t come easily. She was a puzzle, and he was already here trying to solve another. He thought of the call earlier, the one she’d overheard. He’d never got the chance to tell her about his dad, but she seemed to be in a hurry. Finishing off his food, he placed the plate back on the coffee table, and noticed something underneath. On the floor, one corner just poking out from under the wood, was a black book. He leaned forward, and pulling it out, he noticed the gilded gold edges, and the title of the book. Photo Album. He stared at it for a while, before putting it back underneath the table. Right where he found it. He wanted to know about her, but he didn’t fancy pissing her off any more either. His fingers tingled at the thought of what was inside, what made a woman like her hide herself away here, without seeming to need or want anyone. He couldn’t really understand that. He couldn’t cope without speaking to everyone he wanted to back home. It was killing him being away from his dad, and he’d thought he was going to have to be sedated to even get on the plane to come here. It had felt so terribly wrong to be leaving, especially now. Even if his absence was what his dad wanted. Luke had avoided work trips abroad at all costs before, being a homebody just like his dad, wanting to stay close, and now he felt a little stupid to have only just used his passport.
They were so different, Rebecca and he, and being shoved together had obviously mortified her. Still, he could see glimpses of the real Rebecca coming out, and that’s who he wanted to know more about. He just wasn’t about to go riffling through her underwear drawer. He had caught himself sniffing her perfume bottle this morning, and that was bad enough. He’d half expected Gillian Anderson to come running in and arrest him. God, I’ve watched too much bloody TV for my own good. He just couldn’t resist though, he could smell something around Fir Tree Lodge he couldn’t place. A nice smell. Turned out, it was her. It must be sharing with a girl after living in a man only zone with his dad. Even their cleaner had been a man. He’d hardly grown up with a woman’s touch, despite the adoring women that his dad had attracted over the years. A single dad was like a baby gazelle to the voracious tiger-like mum set in their little village. He was hot property for many years, but his dad never bothered with any of them. He was already madly in love, with the wife he’d lost. So it had just been the two of them, and now, Luke was alone. Alone, in the French Alps, about to make a very horrendous mistake, and quite possibly break his damn neck. A little perfume sniffing was to be expected, he supposed, in the face of all that. Looking at his phone, he wished that he’d taken Rebecca’s number. He could call her, ask her if she was doing okay. If she needed anything maybe. God, I’m pathetic. It was gone four now and the café would be closing soon. He tucked his phone into his sweatpants, and making himself look a little more presentable, he headed downstairs to see Hans, and maybe even buy a piece of Becks’ cake. Rebecca. Damn. He liked the name Becks, it suited her but she seemed to hate it. Rebecca seemed too formal for her. There he was, thinking about her again. Dammit. He needed to get out of here, get some coffee into his addled brain.
The café was busy, people milling around coming in and out, others sat at tables eating, drinking and laughing. There was a real energy in the room, and Luke steeped down into the counter area, closing the door behind him just before Hans barrelled into him, knocking him off his feet and both of them halfway across the opposite counter.
‘Ca-can’t. Brea-the,’ Luke gasped, his torso
