there too. Will be cool to see you.”
“Really?”
“Faizel also plays in the band. It’s nice that you and Mark are getting close.”
I looked over to see where Mark was, and when I was sure he was out of earshot, I cupped my hand around the mouthpiece and whispered, “Mark just asked if I wanted to come, that’s all,” I said. “We’re not that close.”
“Where are you?” she asked as if she already psychically knew the answer.
“At Mark’s. I got kicked out of the hotel with Harun. Mark said I could stay here for a little while.”
“Cool,” she said. But she said it in a strange tone that I wasn’t very fond of. “See you guys soon.” She hung up before I could say anything else.
CHAPTER 31
There was a knock on the door, and I opened it. It was weird being inside Mark’s bedroom. It looked like a guy’s bedroom, in that it was very minimally decorated, no scatter cushions—in my experience lack of scatter cushions usually indicates a male presence. The room was small, but the bed was bloody huge. It took up most of the space and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was for all the ladies in town, and how many ladies in town had been in this bed? I eased the door open and peered out. The smell hit me immediately. It was Mark and it was amazing.
“You smell really good,” I said, before I’d even had time to think about the words and what they might mean and whether they were appropriate to say.
He smiled. “Thanks. Another thing I collect.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Cologne. Perfume.”
I opened the door even more. “You collect perfume?” I was amused now. It seemed like such an unusual thing for him to do. Although, there was something cute about the idea.
“Wanna see?” he asked.
“Sure.” I followed him into the bathroom, and he opened one of the cupboards on the wall. It was large and when he did, I gasped. I’d never seen so many bottles of smelly stuff in my life. There must have been at least thirty or forty bottles in there. And OMG, the bottles were amazing. They were like works of art themselves.
“I’ve collected one from every country I’ve been to,” he said, pride in his voice.
“You’ve been to that many countries?” I asked, shocked.
He nodded. “I traveled a lot before I came here.” His words sounded dismissive now, or laced with something that he was trying to hide. I don’t know. That was the feeling I got, anyway, as he seemed to toss those words out, as if he was deliberately trying not to draw attention to their meaning.
“Which one are you wearing tonight?” I asked.
He picked a bottle up. It was exquisite. It resembled a crystal inkwell with an amber liquid inside.
“What is it?’ I asked. The bottle didn’t look familiar at all; not the usual DKNY, or Armani or Cool Waters by Davidoff or the things you see in the shops. In fact, none of his bottles looked familiar.
“It’s from Barcelona. By Ramon Monegal.”
“Never heard of him,” I said, rolling the beautiful bottle around in my hands.
“Well, I don’t collect Aramis and Old Spice,” he said with a smirk in his voice.
I smiled at him. “You collect the niche stuff that no one has heard of then? This is the artisanal gin version of perfume,” I said in a slightly mocking but playful way.
“You could say that.” He took the perfume from my hand and opened it. “Ramon Monegal is a master perfumer from Spain. One of the greatest, if you ask me.”
“It smells really nice,” I said.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t smell nice.” He stretched out the word “nice” and placed a lot of emphasis on it. “It smells complex and rich. It has citrusy top notes. It has some peppery middle notes and then finally fades to warm base notes of sandalwood and cedarwood.”
I blinked. “Wow. You really know a lot about this stuff.”
He shrugged, maybe a little embarrassed. “My mum had a perfume shop. That’s how she met my dad. He had a music and video shop in the same mall. I used to work there during summer holidays, so she taught me some things about perfume.”
“I’m impressed,” I said. And I genuinely was. I’d never met a person who knew fragrance like this, let alone a guy. I looked at him again. Floppy-haired, glasses-wearing, intellectual-looking, with a seemingly endless knowledge about gin and scents, and a collector of quirky