'I made you take aspirin and vitamin C, and a couple of liters of water.'
'Right. Thanks again.' The mention of water made him want to pee. Badly. Joona told him where to find the toilet, just outside and down the corridor.
'Try to be quiet,' she said as he hurried out 'Everyone else is asleep.'
His watch said it was quarter past two.
When he got back she was still sitting at the end of the bed, the reefer down to its last half-centimeter. 'Want some?' she asked.
'No, thanks. Us cyborgs don't, remember?'
'Of course.'
'Look, thanks again for taking care of me. I'd, er, better be going.'
'Really?' She took a deep drag. 'What's waiting for you?'
'Nothing much, I guess. I've still got three weeks' leave due. I just don't want to impose on you any more tonight.'
'If I'd thought you were imposing I wouldn't have brought you here.'
A sharp tingle moved down Lawrence's spine. He walked over to the bed and knelt down. She didn't say anything, just kept gazing at him with wide eyes. He took the last of the joint from her fingers and inhaled the way he'd seen it done on the i's. The smoke was bitter enough to make him cough.
Joona started to laugh. 'I win.'
'Win what?'
'I got to you.'
'Yeah.' He grinned and took another drag before handing it back. 'You got to me. But then you were never going to run off and join the officer college with me, were you?'
She shook her head as if she'd been admonished and pouted. 'No.'
'Can I stay here the rest of the night?'
Joona nodded.
'With you?' he asked softly.
She opened the quilt. She was naked underneath.
When Lawrence woke up in the morning his earlier confusion was replaced by something close to embarrassment Classic case of now what?
He was lying along the edge of the bed, the quilt covering him, with his back pressed up against the wall. The mattress really wasn't wide enough for two. Joona was curled up beside him, looking a whole lot more fragile than she had last night. She was thin, skinny enough for her shoulder blades and collarbones to be prominent, and a lot shorter than he recalled. She must have been wearing heels before. Funny he'd never noticed that.
When he tried to pull the quilt up gently around her shoulders she stirred and woke. Pale blue eyes, he saw, a contrast to her darkish skin.
'Well,' she said.
'Morning.'
'Yes, it is.'
She snuggled up closer, closing her eyes.
Again: now what?
'So, er, what time do you have to get up?'
Joona's eyes stayed shut 'You're always in a rush to go nowhere, aren't you?'
'That's me.'
'I was going to take a break from college. It's getting heavy there for me right now. I hadn't got a plan for getting up.'
'You're at college?'
She sighed and sat up. 'Yes, the Prodi. It's a complete shit-hole. They don't even have enough funds to stop the building from falling apart, and the lecturers are all fifth-raters who couldn't get an appointment cleaning the toilets at a decent university.' She got up out of bed with a sudden energetic motion and padded over to the window, pulling the curtains back with a quick tug.
Lawrence didn't point out she was nude; he would have sounded like his mother. But the window was smeared with dribbles of condensation, only a few vague gray shapes of buildings were visible. Joona shivered and rubbed her arms. The air in the room was cold enough to make her breath show as thin vapor.
'Are you leaving me?' she asked.
'Like you, I don't have any plans.'
'Actually, I was thinking I'd go to Scotland.'
He couldn't figure out if that was an invitation. She certainly wasn't his usual type, not with all this twitchy energy and commitment to her stupid cause. He couldn't imagine her ever walking down the Strip at Cairns, hunting a good time as the sun went down. Come to that, he couldn't even imagine her laughing heartily. He'd never seen her do more than smile wryly every now and then. But then again, she definitely knew her own mind. Just like Roselyn. Unlike Roselyn, she wasn't happy with life. There was a lot of anger bottled up inside that small frame—a stupid form of anger, though he would never tell her that to her face. She was far too wrapped up in her issues to welcome contrary observations. He guessed that might make her kind of lonely.
The room had a singular imprint that was all her own. It wasn't just the air that was cold. Most people, he thought, would instinctively keep their distance.
So why didn't I?
Two lonely people. Maybe that was why they'd kept dancing around each other in the bar. They weren't opposites attracting after all.
'I've never been to Scotland,' he said.
