The One and Only Read online

  ‘Yo se.’Alejandro opened the door. ‘I know.’

  ‘Jesus. Oh God, Luke.’ Eve scrambled into her jumper, then raced across the room and picked up her bag.

  ‘Eve,’ I said. ‘Hurry up.’

  ‘I need this,’ she said, clutching the bag.

  ‘Let’s go.’Alejandro whispered.

  Holding my shoes in one hand and our jackets in the other, I followed him out onto the corridor. Eve crept beside me.

  The unmistakable sound of Jonno’s voice roared up from the lobby downstairs. ‘I don’t care how early it is. She’s my bloody daughter. I know they’re here – the man at the car-hire place told me he recommended you. For God’s sake, I can see the sodding hire car outside.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Eve whimpered.

  I grabbed her wrist and pulled her down the corridor towards Alejandro and the fire escape. I glanced at her as Alejandro pushed open the fire door. Jesus. Her whole body was shaking.

  I had time to feel a stab of pure hatred for Jonno before the door scraped loudly open and we were running down the iron steps outside.

  How dare he terrorise her like this?

  It was freezing outside and still completely dark. My breath misted in the air. The steps and the dark, tarmac ground were icy cold under my bare feet.

  We were at the side of the building. The hire car was in the car park at the front. To reach it we just had to run round an ivy-clad brick wall. Eve pulled her arm out of my grip as we raced along. I looked over my shoulder. She was standing still, rummaging for something in her bag. She took out her pencil case, then hoisted her bag back on her shoulder.

  ‘Eve,’ I ran back, grabbing her arm again. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  Alejandro had reached the wall. He peered round it, then beckoned us forwards.

  I ran, heart racing, dragging Eve behind me. She was now fumbling in her pencil case. I could hear her pulling things out and them dropping on the ground. I glanced round as we reached the wall. A trail of paintbrushes and pencils led from Eve back to the fire escape. What the hell was she doing?

  Eve removed something small and silvery from the case.

  ‘They can see the hire car from the reception,’Alejandro whispered. ‘We have to run.’

  I looked across to the car park. All the cars were parked neatly apart from a large blue Mercedes which had been left at an angle in front of the hotel’s main entrance.

  It was obviously the car Jonno had just arrived in.

  Alejandro’s hired white Ford Mondeo was only three parking spaces away from it. I gulped, turning back to Eve.

  ‘Ready?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Now.’

  We raced across the car park. As we passed the Mercedes I felt Eve wrench her arm away from me again. I turned round. She was bending down, jabbing the silvery thing from her bag at the car tyre.

  ‘What the . . . ?’

  I bent down, trying to pull her away. Then I realised what she was doing.

  The silvery object was some sort of art knife. She’d used one like it all the time when she was working on her GCSE coursework last year. She was jabbing it against the tyre, but her hands were shaking so much it kept glancing off the rubber.

  ‘It won’t go in,’ she said, desperately.

  I put my hand on hers. ‘Give it to me.’

  She released the knife into my hand. I drew back and stabbed it with all my strength into the tyre.

  I could hear Alejandro opening the door of our hire car a few metres away.

  ‘Go and get in the car,’ I whispered.

  ‘EVE!’

  Jonno’s yell echoed towards us from inside the hotel.

  Eve turned and vanished.

  I stabbed at the tyre again, making the hole bigger.

  Yes.

  Air hissed out.

  I sprang to my feet and ran to the hired car. Alejandro was revving the engine. Reversing out of the parking space.

  ‘EVE!’

  Jonno sounded so close. I couldn’t help but look round. He was there, right by the entrance to the hotel. His broad frame looked bigger than I remembered as he rushed towards me, his face twisted with fury.

  I yanked open the back door of the moving car and hurled myself into the back seat. I slammed the door shut as Alejandro screeched away down the gravel drive.

  Eve was curled up in a ball on the seat beside me, her hands over her ears.

  I turned round just in time to see Jonno thumping the bonnet of the blue Mercedes.

  ‘Is he coming?’Alejandro asked nervously as we pulled onto the road.

  ‘No,’ I gasped. ‘But I bet he makes the hotel let him use their car or . . .’

  ‘. . . or calls the police,’Alejandro said, grimly. ‘Hijo de puta.’ He slammed his hands onto the steering wheel and pressed his foot down on the accelerator. The car zoomed even faster down the narrow country road. I checked the dashboard. We were driving at seventy miles an hour and the speedometer was rising.

  Jesus. ‘We have to dump the car,’ I said. ‘Alejandro. Where can we leave it that won’t get you into trouble?’

  I glanced anxiously out of the rear window again. There was still no sign of Jonno.

  ‘There’s another car-hire place in Taunton,’ Alejandro said as we swung onto the virtually empty motorway. ‘I used it before, with my dad. We can leave this car. Get a new one. Get to George’s house as fast as we can.’

  He slowed down slightly from the ninety miles an hour we’d been travelling at. His shoulders relaxed.

  I glanced at Eve. She was still curled up in a little ball. I reached across and put my arm round her, scooping her up against my side. She was shaking uncontrollably, her hands over her face.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Hey. Great idea with the knife. It worked too.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m so sorry you two are in the middle of this.’

  ‘Shhh.’ I hugged her harder. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘No.’Alejandro twisted round, grinning. ‘No your fault your father is a total MANIAC.’

  Even Eve managed a weak laugh at that. I rubbed her arm and squeezed her to me, gradually feeling the shaking subside.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I kept saying. ‘It’s gonna be all right.’

  But in my heart I couldn’t see how it could possibly be all right. Where was Eve going to go? What was she going to do? She could hardly stay with Alejandro’s friend for ever. And what was she going to do for money?

  I didn’t even want to think about what was going to happen when . . . if . . . Jonno finally caught up with us. With me.

  The sky was starting to lighten as we reached Taunton. Alejandro found a place to leave the Ford Mondeo. Then we walked over to a different car hire company and hired a green Volvo. Alejandro bribed the desk clerk not to tell anyone we’d been there.

  We set off again for Cornwall, stopping only for a few minutes at a motorway café. I bought some toast and coffee for us all and Alejandro and I leaned against the car, eating, while Eve went inside to use the bathroom.

  ‘This is no a good situation,’ Alejandro said to me in a low voice. ‘I was thinking the police would be after us. But now I realise they won’t. Eva is sixteen, nearly seventeen. Her life is no in danger. She has called her mother and said she is OK. The police will no bother with her.’

  ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘That means we’ve only got Jonno to worry about.’

  Alejandro made a face. ‘Exactly. Maybe if the other authorities are involved, Jonno will be made to see he is stupid. Doing a bad thing for Eva. But this way . . .’ He sighed. ‘Eva will no go home to her mother now. She is alone.’

  ‘No she isn’t,’ I said. ‘I’m with her.’

  ‘For how long?’ Alejandro glanced sideways at me. ‘I know you like her. But you are only sixteen. You are at school. You have a life. A family. There is your mother and the little baby. Can you give all that up? All that security? Just for Eva
?’

  I stared at him. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’d do anything for her.’

  Alejandro shook his head. ‘Is that you talking or your head full of sex?’

  We watched Eve walking towards us.

  ‘Just please be careful,’ Alejandro said. ‘For her. For yourself.’

  He strolled away, into the service station, as Eve came up.

  ‘D’you want some toast and coffee?’ I said, offering her a polystyrene cup.

  Eve shook her head. She leaned against me.

  ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ I said, kissing the top of her head.

  ‘No.’ She paused. ‘I’m only scared.’

  I put my coffee cup down on the roof of the car and held her.

  ‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ I said. ‘I’m here. And I’m not leaving. We’re together. We’ll make it work.’

  I stared into her beautiful, almond-shaped eyes.

  I’d said it now. I’d said I’d stay with her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she breathed. ‘Oh Luke, I’m so scared I feel sick.’

  She hugged me tighter. Oh God. I was getting turned on by the feel of her body pressed against mine. In fact, I badly wanted to get right back to where we were last night.

  A little groan escaped out of my mouth.

  She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised.

  I grinned. ‘They say that making love is a cure for fear,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ Eve glanced over at Alejandro, emerging from the service station. ‘But, we can’t . . .’

  ‘I know,’ I said, quickly, trying not to look as totally sexed-up as I felt. ‘I can wait.’

  A bit. Please? Only a bit longer.

  Alejandro came back and we got into the car again. Eve seemed slightly happier than she had earlier. She even ate some toast.

  But I felt more troubled than before. What Alejandro had said kept running through my mind. Was I really prepared for everything that staying with Eve might bring?

  I mean, on the one hand, of course I was. I loved Eve. I would do anything for her. And she had no one else. I wasn’t even worried about the practical things – things that maybe should have bothered me far more. Money, for instance. And how we were going to find jobs. And somewhere to live. At the time I was sure we could do all that.

  But Alejandro had been right. It was a massive thing to say I’d give up everything for her.

  For a start there was school. Well, OK. I didn’t care about that.

  Then there were my friends. But, I reasoned, Eve and I could make new friends wherever we went. Just like we could buy whatever stuff we needed, once we had some work.

  And then there was Mum. I chewed on my lip, feeling guilty. She was having such a bad time, coping with Sam. And Chloe had only just gone. Still. That wasn’t my fault. And, OK, so Matt was an idiot. But Mum had friends. Well, she had Trisha, who was a brilliant friend. Mum would be all right, wouldn’t she? It wasn’t as if I wouldn’t let her know I was OK. At that thought I dug into my pocket and checked I’d turned my phone off last night. Mum was likely to call me soon, to try and find out when I was coming home. Or else Ryan would call, wanting to know what was happening. I wondered if Jonno had spoken to either of them; what they might have said.

  God. How long would it be before Jonno tried to call me? Maybe he already had. Maybe he was trying right now.

  I didn’t want to speak to any of them.

  I glanced down at Eve. She was huddled up beside me again – all fragile with her gorgeous lips and her tight jumper and her amazing legs and . . . Jesus.

  Alejandro had been right about that too. My head was full of sex. It was impossible to see anything clearly other than how much I wanted Eve. I couldn’t disentangle the love from the sex thing – or, if I was honest, either of those feelings from how much of an ego boost it was to know that it was me she’d chosen to run away with.

  Eve fell asleep again, her head lolling against my shoulder. I turned away, trying not to think about it all, staring out of the window as the frosted browns of the Devon fields turned into wilder, rockier Cornwall.

  9

  Cornwall

  We arrived at George’s place at about nine that morning. He lived in his parents’ house – a massive, jumbled pile of worn stone and dark turrets – on a cliff top in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘No one will find you here,’ Alejandro had said. ‘And George’s parents are away all winter.’

  I stared out at the bleak landscape that led away from the house. Beyond the edge of the cliff, the sea raged. Dark waves, tipped with white foam, crashed against the rocks below.

  ‘Is he here on his own?’ I said.

  Alejandro ran his hands self-consciously through his hair. ‘I doubt it. But he knows we are coming. Though no this early.’

  As Alejandro rang on the doorbell, I remembered. It was New Year’s Day. Most people didn’t get up early after New Year’s Eve. Last year I hadn’t got up until twelve. But everything was different then. I hadn’t met Eve. And Dad was still alive. Just. He was in the hospice. We’d gone and visited him that afternoon. He’d been too weak to speak. Suddenly I missed him desperately. Dad would have known what to do about Jonno. He would have understood the position I was in. Better than Mum, I suspected.

  But he wasn’t here.

  No one was answering the door. The wind whipped round the side of the house, salty and freezing – straight off the sea. Eve hugged her jacket round her shoulders and leaned against me.

  Alejandro rang the doorbell a second time.

  After a few minutes the door creaked open. A bleary-eyed guy, about the same age as Alejandro – eighteen or so with dark, shoulder-length hair – shielded his face from the gloomy morning light.

  ‘Bloody hell, Al,’ the boy croaked in an extremely posh voice. ‘’s frigging middle of the night. We only went to bed about five minutes ago.’

  Alejandro rolled his eyes. ‘We have had a crap night, George. And a crap drive. But sorry for disturbing your beauty sleep.’ He marched inside.

  George stepped back unsteadily, as Eve and I followed Alejandro into a dark, wood-panelled hall. It was like some kind of castle – all wood floors and walls, with ancient oil paintings dotted along the corridor.

  Eve’s eyes fixed on the artwork as George led us down the corridor towards a large, surprisingly modern, steel kitchen. All the surfaces were covered. Pizza slices lay slumped over takeaway boxes, while bags of crisps and half-eaten sausage rolls were dotted among the army of empty cans, bottles and glasses. George leaned on the counter, picked up an open bottle of white wine by the sink and took a swig.

  ‘Ugh.’ He turned round. ‘Warm and sweet. Disgusting. Still, we didn’t care at four this morning.’

  He grinned and his face lit up. His eyes were a startling green, almost the same colour as his grubby T-shirt, and he had dark stubble all over his chin. Something about him reminded me of Ryan.

  He glanced at Eve.

  ‘So these are your refugees, Al?’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘At least they’re raising the hottie quotient.’

  I moved closer to Eve, slipping my arm round her shoulders.

  But George didn’t notice. He was staring at Alejandro. ‘So are you,’ he said. ‘In fact you’re looking really fit.’

  I froze with embarrassment as George reached over and kissed Alejandro on the lips.

  Oh my God.

  Why hadn’t it occurred to me Alejandro’s friend might be gay too?

  I looked away, knowing my face was bright red.

  I heard George laugh. ‘I know what you’re going to ask. He’s not here – so no competition for the drums. But Cal’s here. And Jess, of course.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘And Clara and Em and Frank and James and God knows who else. Most of them’ll be gone later. Then we can jam. Yeah?’

  ‘Sure.’Alejandro smiled. ‘But I have to return to Madrid in a few days. I already missed one gig. I can’t miss another. Listen, George. This is Eva. And this Luke.’


  I looked up at George, hoping my face was no longer so red.

  He smiled at me, his brows slightly raised – as if he were searching for the answer to a question.

  I suddenly realised what the question probably was and tightened my grip on Eve’s shoulder. ‘Hi.’ I held up my hand, palm up in a ‘stop sign’ gesture, to make it quite clear kissing me was in no way an option.

  ‘Hi,’ George said. He seemed to wake up properly. ‘You guys want something to eat or drink. Or d’you need to crash?’

  I gazed hopefully at Eve.

  ‘I’d love a cup of tea,’ she said.

  Of course.

  Making it with your boyfriend. Or tea.

  No contest.

  ‘No problemo.’ George slouched over to the kettle and switched it on.

  We sat in the kitchen for an hour or so. Alejandro and George did most of the talking – reminiscing and chatting about various people. The drummer in George’s band – abroad at the moment – was an old mutual friend of theirs. He’d introduced Alejandro to George at some concert a couple of years ago. But whereas Alejandro was already doing loads of professional work, George’s band were still trying to get decent gigs.

  ‘Your father will help though, no?’Alejandro said.

  He’d already told me George’s dad was a record producer and had loads of contacts in the music business.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ George shrugged. ‘But it’s not a free pass. Mum and Dad want me to go to uni first.’ He grimaced in my direction. ‘This is supposed to be my gap year. They think I’m working until spring, but I jacked in my job as soon as they left for Australia.’ He grinned. ‘We just hang out here. Cal and I play all the time. ’S great. I mean I’d rather be in London but the flat there’s tiny and it isn’t soundproofed so . . .’

  I asked a few questions as they talked – genuinely interested in the music they were into – and also keen to remind them I was there in case they suddenly forgot and started holding hands or something.

  But Eve withdrew more and more, shrinking silently away from the group, lost in her own thoughts.

  George glanced at her several times. She didn’t seem to notice. In fact, she only ever looked up from the table to sip at her mug of tea. George asked her a couple of questions. Eve just gave short, shy answers and withdrew again.