Girl Abroad

WHEN WE PULL AWAY FROM THE CURB TEN MINUTES LATER, I experience a moment of hesitation, because this could be a long and uncomfortable trip in silence if Jack and I can’t figure out anything to say to each other. Our conversations come in fits and starts lately. I’d never give Lee the satisfaction, but he was right. Tempting the boundaries of the roommate relationship is inevitably going to affect your friendship. Hence house rule number one and only.

I’m racking my brain for neutral subjects that can’t possibly veer into dangerous territory when he breaks the ice first.

“Talked to my brother Charlie yesterday. Noah had a fight with his girlfriend.”

“The girlfriend we don’t like?”

“Bree. Noah’s been crashing at Charlie’s place since the fight.”

I grin. “Your mom must be popping champagne.”

“Charlie took his phone while he was sleeping and blocked Bree’s number,” Jack adds, laughing. “He was going to delete all the photos of her from his Instagram, but Noah caught him.”

“Know what you need to do?”

He glances at me from the corner of his eye as he merges onto the highway. “What?”

“You guys need to get someone else in there ASAP to distract Noah. Make him remember what life was like before her.”

“A new girl. Someone hotter and not batshit crazy.”

“Even better if she’s an old crush. Maybe the one that got away. Nothing turns the head like nostalgia.”

“I’ll pass that along to the team,” Jack says in amusement. “Shannon will love playing matchmaker.”

“How’s the rest of the Campbell clan?” I ask. “Last week, you were saying your brother Oliver’s got that surfing tournament, right?”

“Yeah. He was worried he wouldn’t come up with the entrance fee, and then, uh”—Jack focuses on a car up ahead— “some sponsor hit him up out of nowhere and gave him the rest of the money to enter. They’re going to cover travel and hotel too. Mum was relieved. She always feels like shit when she can’t afford to help out.”

“Aw, that sucks.”

“Yeah.” His voice roughens. “We aren’t exactly swimming in cash. Money was always tight when I was growing up. Even when Dad was alive, there wasn’t much to go around.”

“I imagine it wouldn’t be easy with five kids.”

“No, not easy. But they tried. And Mum’s still doing her best.”

The rest of the drive isn’t at all awkward. We chat about his family and my dad. My classes and his rugby schedule. Being with Jack comes so naturally. We just vibe.

About ninety minutes south of London, he pulls the beat-up old car over on a dirt shoulder in the middle of nowhere to let me get behind the wheel. Out here, it’s nothing but two-lane country roads covered in fallen leaves. Miles of brown hills and stone walls.

Now in the passenger seat, he watches me as I adjust the mirrors. “Remember,” he says. “The red sign with the word stop on it— ”

“Accelerate to eighty-eight miles per hour and ram it.”

Jack tightens his seat belt. “Just try to keep it between the lines and don’t run into anything.”

Truth is I’m a little nervous, so I keep my speed under the limit while I get the hang of feeling like I’m driving in reverse. To distract himself from the creeping terror evident on his face, Jack hums to the radio. Until there’s a slight miscommunication at the four-way stop.

“The one to the right goes first,” he says. But it’s too late. My foot is already pressing the gas. “No, to the right! The right.”

I mash the brakes, sending us both jolting forward. We end up nose-to-nose with another car in the middle of the intersection. The other guy starts laying on his adorable English horn.

“I’m sorry,” I say breathlessly. “I thought we got there first.”

“Oh, Christ. This was a bad idea.” Jack covers his eyes and sinks into the seat until we’ve cleared the intersection.

“Come on. Aren’t you going to tell me this isn’t half as scary as the time you bare-knuckle boxed a kangaroo when you were seven?”

He shoots me a disapproving scowl. “I regret this already.”

If he didn’t then, he certainly does when I nearly kill us attempting to navigate my first roundabout.

“For fuck’s sake, woman.” Jack braces his hands against the dash, slamming his foot into the floorboard like he could take control from the passenger seat. “Are you aiming for the other cars?”

Nervous laughter jumps from my chest when we narrowly escape unscathed. “Whoops.”

“Fucking Americans.” The lives that have flashed before his eyes are stripped from his soul and expelled in one relieved exhale. “You’re bloody fucked in the head.”

“What? I’m not doing it on purpose. They’re the ones driving on the wrong side of the road.”

After a while, he’s clearly resigned himself to his fate, because the near misses barely faze him. He even relaxes enough to tell me a story about the time his brothers left him adrift at sea for nearly an hour because Jack had told their mom about their secret stash of cigarettes.

“How old were you?”

“Twelve, I think,” he answers, as if it’s a normal part of growing up. Abandoned at sea, learning to ride a bike, just the usual.

“And they left you to tread water in the middle of the ocean?” I’m gaping at him.

“No, I had my boogie board. Noah’s friend took their parents’ boat out, and we were all swimming, hanging out. I was floating on my board with a line tied to the stern. Before I know what’s happening, they throw the line and take off. Do a few laps around me, right? Expecting me to beg or cry. I was like, fuck off, I’ll paddle home. So they left me.”

“No offense, but your brothers kind of suck.”

He shrugs, a grin stretching his lips. “Sometimes. I think they’d like you, though. You’d fit in well with that lot.”

I feign a casual tone. “That right?”

“Yeah.” He laughs. “You’re all completely mad.”

We stop off in a small village to grab a bite to eat. At a table by the window, I watch the foot traffic and the old man at the bus bench feeding the crows. A shopkeeper from the convenience store argues with him, shooing the birds away from his door with a newspaper. Undaunted, the old man tosses nuts on the ground from his paper lunch bag.

“What about Josephine?” Jack asks, digging into his roast beef sandwich.

I sigh glumly. “Well, I’d hoped Ben’s suggestion that Robert might have been living in Ireland would give me something more to go on. It’s such an important clue. But I haven’t found any new information. If the Ireland thread is true, then his secret’s stayed safe all this time.”

“Is that it? A dead end?”

“I still have to turn in something for my assignment, so I’ve got no choice but to move on to researching the other Tulleys at this point. Unless Ben comes back with anything new, I think Josephine will stay out of reach.”

The painting is now at the museum in Rye, courtesy of the Abbey Bly collection, but it mocks me in my memory, this ever-present smirking mystery amused at my feeble attempts to unravel its secrets. A total pain in the ass in fact.

“Speaking of Ben Tulley.” Jack’s casual tone is betrayed by the tensing of his jaw. “How was the ball?”

“It was fun. I’m glad I went, but I wouldn’t want to do that every weekend, you know? After the shine of the famous people and nobility wears off, it ends up being just another stuffy party in shoes that hurt your feet.”

“He didn’t…” Jack stops, then changes course. “You don’t get a bad feeling about that guy? Tulley?”

“No, why?”

“People say things.”

“Not everything people say is true.”

He frowns. “There’s pictures of him doing wild shit all over the internet.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Why don’t you just ask what you really want to ask? Am I hooking up with Lord Tulley, right?”

“That’s not what I wanted to ask,” he says stubbornly.

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

He’s staunch in his protests. “It’s not. That family is a bunch of black sheep. I was making sure he didn’t try anything.”

“And if he did?”

Jack narrows his eyes. “Did he?”

I burst out laughing. “Oh my God. Just fucking ask, Jack.”

“None of my business.”

He’s so infuriating sometimes. And in my exasperation, I straighten my shoulders and give him a smug look. “Since you’re dying to know—we did almost kiss, but we got interrupted.”

His jaw ticks.

“What? No lecture?”

“Do you want one?” he asks.

“Not particularly, no. Because I didn’t do anything wrong.” I push the rest of my sandwich away, my appetite gone.

“Tulley is almost a decade older than you. You realize that, right?”

“Yes, Jack. I can count.”

He studies me for a long beat before wiping his hands and tossing the balled-up napkin on his plate. “Ready to get out of here?”

“Sure.” I swipe the car keys from the table as he reaches for them. “But I’m driving.”

He scoffs, practically chasing me out the door. “The hell you are. I’ve too much to live for.”

In the tiny parking lot, I dangle the keys in front of him. “You want these? I’ll give them back if you tell the truth.”

“About what?”

“What do you care if there’s something happening with me and Ben Tulley? Seriously, Jack. Why do you care so much?”