but the Beef and Pudding, the closest pub and one that Kate had recommended, was filling up. Corbin grabbed an upholstered bench with a low table in front of it, waited for a few minutes for a waitress to appear, then remembered than in England you ordered at the bar. He left his jacket on his seat and shouldered his way into the crowded bar area. He ordered a Guinness Extra Cold, and when he asked about food, was directed to a large blackboard, menu items written out in green chalk. He ordered a spaghetti Bolognese and went back to his seat.
He nursed his Guinness and when the food came he ate it as slowly as he could, even though what he wanted to do was to bolt it like a dog. Done eating, he went back to the bar for more beer, deciding to try cask ales he hadn’t tasted before. He sat back down with something called Greene King Abbot Ale, and had finished half of it when a woman in tight jeans and a patterned sweater said hello and asked if he was Kate Priddy’s cousin. “I was next to you at the bar and heard your American accent. I live upstairs from you.”
They had several drinks together and she introduced him to some of the bartenders, plus a few of her friends. Her name was Martha, and every time she went to the bathroom, she came back with reapplied bright red streaks of lipstick across her mouth. He kept drinking the Abbot Ale and she drank white wine, switching to something with vodka at the end of the night. They walked home together through a light, misty rain, and outside of 684 Sheepscar they wound up pressed up against a temporary Dumpster, kissing and groping at one another. She bit the lobe of his ear and told him she liked his accent. He slid fingers down the back of her jeans and touched the thin floss of her underpants, and that, more than anything else, sobered him up. He could feel that combination of fear and disgust spreading across his body. And even though he knew there was little chance that someone was watching them, it was still in the back of his mind. The way it always was.
It took all his will not to push the drunk girl away. Instead, he stopped kissing her.
“I’m exhausted,” he said.
“You must be, poor thing,” she answered. Her mouth was ringed with smudged lipstick, and her eyes were slightly out of focus. Corbin could hear the sound of distant laughter carrying through the rain; other drunk people returning from a night out. A drip of cool rain slid underneath his collar and down his back, and he shivered. Then, for one awful moment, he could taste the spaghetti at the back of his throat, and he thought he was going to be sick. It passed, and he told Martha that he really needed to get some sleep. They entered the house together, and Martha kissed him again on his landing. He kept his lips tightly closed even though he could feel the tip of her tongue flicking past her teeth.
Inside, he chugged some of the tepid water in the kitchen and took four more ibuprofens. He actually wasn’t tired. He’d slept too much that afternoon, and now, even though it was midnight in London, it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet in Boston. Kate would be at his place by now, probably trying to stay awake. He tried to picture her in his apartment in Boston, but couldn’t. It felt wrong, somehow.
After doing a hundred push-ups on the orange area rug in the bedroom, Corbin took a shower, carefully stepping over the high lip of the bathtub, then standing under the stream of almost-hot water. He closed his eyes, letting the low-pressure spray hit the back of his neck, and stood so long that the water eventually lost its warmth. He was shivering by the time he pulled on his cotton pajama bottoms and got under the covers of Kate’s bed. The sheets were soft flannel, tucked tightly under the corners of the bed, and he kicked his feet out from under them. It was the only way he could sleep, even when he was cold. The bed was softer than he liked. He turned off the bedside lamp, but the room, with the curtains open, was relatively light, and his eyes eventually adjusted so much that he could read