he knelt on the windowsill and clambered into the bathroom. The door was opened and the unconscious occupant was helped out. Then came the sound of sirens. Blue lights flashed in the night air and Cara exclaimed, ‘Oh, my God, Nice Ed, it’s the police!’
One of the neighbours had seen a person on the ladder and concluded that next door was being broken into.
Already many of the guests had melted away into the night.
The police called an ambulance and by the time the girl was ferried off, almost nobody was left, except Cara and Ed.
‘Now what?’ he asked.
‘Now what, what?’
‘You could come home with me?’
She looked at him. All of a sudden she was sober. ‘Sorry.’ She felt awkward. ‘You’re nice. I like bad boys. I should have outgrown it because I’m thirty now, but it hasn’t happened.’
‘You don’t know the first thing about me,’ he said. ‘I’m actually a headcase. I get my kicks parading around my bedroom in a gimp mask and wrestling jocks.’
She laughed at that. ‘Do you even know what a gimp mask is?’
‘Okay.’ He paused, seeming reluctant to give up. ‘It was great meeting you, Cara.’
‘You could come home with me?’ She didn’t know why. It was just that he was so nice.
In her bedroom she’d said, ‘Nothing is going to happen. Like I said, you’re not my type and I’m too sober.’
‘Sure.’ He shrugged super-casually and said, ‘We can just hang out.’ They both laughed at the cliché. ‘Is it okay if I lie on your bed? On top of the covers? I’ll take my boots off but it doesn’t mean anything sinister.’
‘Okay. I’ll do it too.’
They lay on their backs, several inches of empty space between them.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you were very proactive tonight. Ladders and that. How come?’
‘Maybe because of my job – I work in hospitality. Reservations manager at the Spring Street Hotel. I’m always having to sort out dramas.’ Almost sheepishly, she added, ‘I won an award last year.’
‘For what?’
‘I don’t know if it’s something to be proud of it. For achieving 101 per cent occupancy.’
‘Isn’t that technically impossible?’
‘Everyone thinks you check in at three and check out at twelve. But lots of people check in at, say, midnight, or leave at six a.m. If you keep an eye on who’s coming and going, you can turn the same room over more than once in twenty-four hours.’
‘So the hotel is over-booked?’
‘Management policy in my place. In lots of hotels.’
‘What if people arrive at the right time to check in and there’s literally no room for them?’
‘Promise them an upgrade, send them away with a voucher for a free lunch and ask them to come back in an hour.’
‘And if they’re pissed-off?’
‘They’re right to be. I’m very nice to them. Except,’ she added quickly, ‘I’m not faking it. Just because I’m good at what I do doesn’t mean I’m cool with it.’
‘That must be hard, working in a way you disapprove of. Cognitive dissonance.’
‘Oh, my God, Nice Ed, you don’t know the half of it! Anyway, soon some whizz will write a piece of software to do it all automatically and my moment of glory will come to an end.’
‘So why do you keep doing it?’
‘Holding all that information in my head, shifting things around, finding efficient solutions? I guess I enjoy it. What do you … Have you a job?’
‘Botanist.’
‘A tree-hugger?’
‘A scientist.’
‘Really? Wow.’ He seemed too sincere, too normal, to be a scientist. Mind you, how many scientists did she know? ‘Hey, we should get some sleep.’
An awkward pause followed. They were lying on the bed, fully clothed. What was the protocol here?
‘You’re interfering with my night-time routine,’ she said. ‘I listen to a guided meditation. To build self-esteem.’
‘Work away.’
‘Maybe not tonight.’
Another awkward pause followed, and this one lasted.
Into the silence he said, ‘I’m not skinny.’
‘Exsqueeze me?’ She turned her face to his.
‘Earlier you called me skinny. But I’m just lean. Muscle, plenty of it.’
That made her smile.
‘I had to do a medical for my job. They measured me with a machine. I’m thirty-one per cent muscle. That’s quite a lot.’
A ball of warmth radiated from her stomach. He was so cute.
‘I could take off my shirt and show you?’
Suddenly the air between them had become thick and charged. ‘Okay,’ she managed to say. ‘Okay, go on, then.’
In the morning, she said, ‘You’re still here!’
Oddly, he seemed better-looking now than he had last night, an entire reversal of her usual experience. His messy hair, his smoky-grey eyes, his unexpectedly sexy