What Might Have Been Read Online Free PDF Page B

a question.’ The girl grinned. ‘Sarah didn’t tell me she was entertaining this evening.’
    ‘She didn’t tell me she had a flatmate.’
    ‘Ah. And you’re naked in the kitchen because . . .?’
    Holding the tea towel like a matador whose cape had shrunk in the wash, Evan indicated the fridge with his elbow. ‘I was after something to drink.’
    ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place.’ The girl reached over and retrieved a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator door, then found a glass on the draining board and looked around for something to wipe it with, though when her eyes alighted on Evan’s groin area she evidently changed her mind. ‘I’m Grace, by the way.’
    ‘You’ll excuse me if I don’t shake your hand?’
    ‘Of course.’ Grace smiled. ‘So, you work with Sarah?’
    ‘Me? No. I’m a musician. My name’s Evan.’
    ‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’ She sounded a little surprised, though Evan realised that could of course simply be a reaction to her seeing him like this. ‘Juice do you?’
    ‘Sure.’
    Grace filled the glass. ‘Please. Sit,’ she said, placing it on the table in front of him and nodding towards the nearest chair, but Evan shook his head.
    ‘Better not,’ he said. ‘The towel doesn’t quite go, you know, right round.’
    ‘Suit yourself.’
    He stared at the glass, and Grace frowned.
    ‘Bits a problem?’
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘The orange juice.’ She pointed to the wording on the side of the carton. ‘It’s got “bits” in. And not everyone likes . . .’
    ‘No. That’s fine. It’s just . . .’ Evan glanced down at the tea towel. ‘Only one pair of hands.’
    ‘Ah.’ Grace snapped the lid back onto her tub of ice cream. ‘In that case I’ll leave you to it,’ she said, slotting it back into the freezer compartment. ‘It was nice to meet you, Evan.’
    ‘And you, Grace.’
    She made her way out of the kitchen, and Evan stood and listened until he heard what he assumed must be her bedroom door shutting, then downed the glass of juice in one and hurried back along the hallway. As he closed Sarah’s bedroom door behind him, he saw she was watching him from the bed.
    ‘Dare I ask?’
    ‘I just met your flatmate.’
    ‘And she asked you to help with the dishes?’
    ‘No.’ He slipped back under the duvet. ‘But I was naked. And this was the only cover to hand,’ he said, waving the tea towel in the air.
    ‘Which she’ll never want to use again, probably.’ Sarah smiled as she snuggled up against him. ‘Sorry. I thought she was on nights this week.’
    ‘Nights?’
    ‘She’s a doctor. Here at Guy’s Hospital. Psychiatric department, in fact.’
    ‘Really? She doesn’t look . . .’
    ‘Not all blondes are dizzy, Evan.’
    ‘I was going to say “old enough”.’
    ‘She’s thirty-three.’
    Evan lay there for a moment, and realised he knew more about Sarah’s flatmate after that short briefing than he did about Sarah herself. ‘So,’ he said, as casually as he could. ‘Tell me about yourself .’
    ‘Jeez. What kind of a question is that?’
    Sarah had propped herself up on one elbow, and as she adjusted the duvet, Evan tried not to stare at her exposed breast. ‘Well, I just thought, now that we’d, you know . . .’
    ‘Fucked?’ said Sarah mischievously, and Evan’s eyes widened, but he supposed she was right. After all, you could hardly call what they’d just done ‘making love’, and ‘had sex’ hardly did it justice.
    ‘Yeah. I was hoping we could share something else. Apart from bodily fluids.’
    She curled a leg suggestively around his thighs. ‘What did you want to know?’
    ‘Well, your surname would be a start.’
    ‘It’s Bishop.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Just Bishop,’ she said, plumping up the pillow beneath her head and lying down next to him. ‘I know most of you English all have these posh double-barrelled names, but we Yanks like to keep things simple.’
    ‘No, I meant and what do you do, how old