chapter fourteen

f o u r t e e n

*

Paisley's in my bed. I expected that, but I didn't expect her to be sprawled out across my entire double bed like she owns the place, the duvet kicked up around her body and tangled in her legs. If it was earlier, I'd poke her, or shove her over to one side, but it's almost eleven o'clock and she's out cold.

The TV never went back on after she went to bed. Casper and I stayed up for nearly two hours, just ... talking. After he left me flustered with his toast, we talked about family when he asked about Paisley, and I ended up rambling about all of my sisters in an attempt to ignore the powerful heat radiating from my cheeks.

From every part of my body, really. The moment his lips touched my forehead, he lit a fire in me that I spent the next two hours trying to douse, digging out a half-empty second bottle from the depths of the fridge when I needed a top-up. Now, four glasses later, I'm woozy and lightheaded and I don't have the energy to force a space for myself in my own bed so, grumbling to myself, I change into my onesie and grab a blanket.

It's the sofa for me, I guess.

At least the sitting room's warm, with the dying embers of the fire, and it's surprisingly nice to be accompanied by the lights of the Christmas tree. The brightness ebbs and flows so gently that I hardly notice it as I move cushions around to make myself comfortable on the sofa. I should've known there was no way Paisley and I would end up sharing a bed, whether she consciously took it or not, and I should have made her take the sofa. It's much more Paisley-sized than Beth-sized.

I know I'm not going to sleep well. I'm too used to my bed, which knows my body and cradles it to sleep. The sofa is hard and foreign, only good for drifting off in the evening before bed calls, and I spend a few minutes shifting until I decide it's probably not going to get much more comfortable than this, and I pull my blanket over my shoulders.

The house is silent. I'm used to a silent house, considering I've lived alone for four years, but it's a different kind of silence now, knowing that there are two people sleeping upstairs, and I find myself listening out for the smallest noises, signs of life. There aren't any. I already know Casper's a quiet sleeper after sharing a wall with him for the past five nights and I know that Paisley sleeps like a corpse, yet I keep expecting to hear a rumbling snore.

There's nothing. I'm tired, but too awake to fall asleep right now so I dig out the remote and switch the TV back on, turning the volume way down low. The internet's back up so I load up Elf. It carries on from where we were interrupted, right as Buddy lets out the most ridiculous burp after downing litres of Coke, and I let out a contented sigh as I sink back onto the sofa.

And then I do hear something. A soft thump, almost imperceptible except for the fact that I'm actively listening out for something. The creak of a door that I know belongs to the bathroom, stiff hinges in need of oiling. The flush of the loo, and then soft footsteps padding down the carpeted stairs. I squint across the room, my eyes adjusting to the screen-lit dark enough to see Casper choosing each footstep carefully, gripping the handrail tightly.

"Ow, fuck," he mutters when he bumps into the wall.

If he wasn't tipsy when he toasted me then the extra two hours of drinking and talking ensured that he was by the time we went our separate ways, and I try not to laugh as I watch him navigating the stairs. There are only sixteen steps but he manages to bump the wall a few times and he forgets to duck beneath the awkward beam that catches his forehead.

As he reaches the end, the Christmas tree lights start to get brighter again and he squints in the dark, peering in my direction.

"Beth?" He carefully picks his way across the floor, catching himself when he trips over the cushions I threw off the sofa. "What're you doing down here? I thought you went to bed."

"Paisley's taking up all the space and I didn't want to disturb her." I sit up just in time for him to sit down. "What're you doing down here?"

"I need water," he says, standing with a groan when he remembers why he's embarked on the trek from upstairs. "You want some?"

"Um, yeah. Thanks."

He makes his way to the kitchen and I hear the clink of china as he finds a couple of mugs from the overstuffed cabinet, managing to extract them without setting off a landslide. The tap runs and he returns, taking great care when he sets both mugs down on the coffee table and drops down next to me again.

"Take my bed. You shouldn't be on the sofa," he says.

Did Paisley do this on purpose?

"No, no, I'm good," I say.

Casper pouts at me, pushing out his bottom lip and raising his eyebrows, and then looks at the paused screen on the TV. "What're you watching?"

"Elf. Just picking up from where we left off, so you might want to go back to bed."

He lets out a dry laugh but makes no effort to move.

"I'm serious. I'm about to unpause it, so if you're going to be Mr Grumpy Grinchbutt, you can go right back to your room."

I realise I sound like a lecturing mother, but it just makes Casper chuckle to himself.

"I can't be bothered to move just yet. I feel like I drank way more than I usually drink on a Wednesday night."

"They call that the Paisley effect."

Another snorting laugh. "No, no, she's sweet. Quite loud, quite intense, but she's a good kid. Your family's so nice, Beth. You're so fucking lucky. I bet the others are incredible. What're their names again?" He frowns to himself with that adorable exaggerated pout. "June? Junie? Indy?"

"Close enough. India and Juneau."

"That's it," he says, as though I've solved a riddle that's been hoodwinking him for weeks. "Nice names," he murmurs. "You all have nice names. But you ... I like your name best. Bethlehem. You gotta be strong to pull it off." His heavy hand finds my knee. "You, my friend – my real friend, not my coffee friend – are hella strong. Strongest woman I know."

"Stronger than the donkey?" I joke.

"Oh, yes." He nods, his expression serious as he finds my eyes. "Way stronger than the donkey. You're Bethlehem. Whole other league." He pats my knee and takes his hand back.

"I thought you didn't like my name," I say. "I thought you thought it was weird. I mean, it is weird."

"It's you," he says. "I like it, Beth."

Is there something else hidden between those words or am I reading too much into his drunken rambling? Is he just talking to fill the silence and distract me enough that I won't put Elf back on?

"I like yours too," I say. "It makes you sound very wise."

His lips twist into a smile that he tries to hold back, shaking his head at me. "So funny. You're hilarious, Jerusalem."

He stumbles over the word but makes it out in one piece and sighs heavily as he sinks back against the sofa, letting his head loll back. "Well? What're you waiting for?" He waves a finger at the TV.

"You want to stay and watch the rest of the film with me?"

He shrugs dramatically. "Might as well. I'm up now. You're down here. Unless you don't want company? I can go."

"No, no, it's nice. Stay," I say, pulling at my blanket to rearrange it so he can have it over his lap too.

"Mmm. Snuggly and warm," he says with a sigh when he pulls his feet up onto the sofa and wraps the blanket around his lap, burying his toes under my thigh. I don't think he realises that's my leg and not a cushion.

"There are blankets in the cupboard in your room, if you want to be snuggly and warm in bed every night."

"No, has to be on the sofa," he says. "There's something special about being in a blanket on the sofa. 'Specially at ... what time is it?"

"Just gone midnight." I glance over at him, at his heavy eyelids and his droopy limbs, and ask, "Are you going to be okay to work tomorrow?"

He shakes his head, ruffling his hair on the cushion. "No work tomorrow. It's Thursday. I don't work on Thursday. Thursday and Saturday, my days off." Yawning, he throws an arm around my shoulders and sounds half asleep when he says, "I'm all yours, Cindy Lou."

*

My rude awakening comes in the form of Paisley throwing a cushion at me as she rushes around getting ready for school, tugging on a fresh pair of tights and yesterday's creased uniform.

"We need to go in seven minutes," she says, dragging a brush through her hair with one hand, folding a piece of toast in half with the other. "Come on. Get your arse out of bed, Beth. I don't like being late."

"I don't like sleeping on the sofa," I grumble, struggling to wake myself up. I did eventually get to sleep, after Casper went back to bed at one in the morning, once Elf came to an end and he told me he'd report back to me with his thoughts once he'd had time to sleep with them for a while, but it was a fitful first few hours. I'm pretty sure it was only after five that I settled into a proper deep sleep, and that's what Paisley's just wrenched me from.

"Five minutes!" she yells from the kitchen when I'm still wrapped in a cocoon on the sofa.

I drag myself to the bathroom, struggling out of my onesie to pee before I zip myself up again, shivering. It's at least minus five out there and I can feel it already, before I step foot outside in my boots and pyjamas.

"One minute! We need to go, Beth!" Paisley calls upstairs. When I trudge down, she gapes at me, aghast. "Beth. You're not even dressed!"

"I don't have to get out of the car," I point out, covering my mouth when I yawn. "I'll drive you to school, drop you at the gate, and drive back to my blanket."

"Oh. Okay. Well, we gotta go or I'm gonna be late, and this may be a shocker, but I haven't been late all year."

"Don't worry. We won't be late."

*

There's a chance we're going to be late. When Paisley told me we had to leave at eight fifteen, she forget to factor in the weather, and the fact that I live further from her school than she does. There's only so fast I can go when the roads are icy and half the town seems to have been taken over by traffic lights.

She groans next to me, jiggling her feet and bouncing her bag on her lap. "I've got a reputation to uphold, Bee," she says. "I want to be head girl next year and that means being reliable and responsible. At this rate I'll end up as just a house captain, or a bloody prefect."

"I doubt the school will knock you off the list for head girl consideration just because you're late once. You can blame me."

"I will."

I'd forgotten how cranky my sister can be in the mornings. It's been a while since I last drove her to school and it seems she's got worse over the last few years.

"I think you prioritise school too much," I say.

"I have a five-year plan, and it involves being head girl," she says, "and it would be nice to maintain my never-late status. Plus, before morning registration is one of very few times I get to hang out with Dipsy at school."

How the hell do we have the same parents? I'm not sure we share any genetic material. I've never had anything more than a tentative six-month plan at any point in my life, and Paisley's only sixteen and yet she knows exactly what uni she wants to go to and what course she wants to take.

"We'll make it on time," I say after a moment of her quietly stress-grumbling next to me. "Do you need picking up this afternoon?"

"Nope. I've got netball practice, and Mum and Dad'll be back."

"I'm so honoured that you came over to intimidate my new housemate, steal my bed, and yell at me all morning," I say. That gets a smile out of her at last, or perhaps it's that she realises there's only a mile or two separating us from her school.

"My pleasure, Bee."

She wanted to be at school at eight thirty and I get her there at eight forty – later than she wanted, but still ten minutes before she needs to be in her classroom for registration – and her mood changes as she leaves me. Now she's all thankful and bouncy when she gives me a one-armed hug across the handbrake and tells me to come over for supper soon, before she disappears into a throng of school children in identical uniforms.

Today of all days, I did not want to have to get up early. Or rather, I guess, last night of all nights, I shouldn't have stayed up drinking with Casper because I need a lot more sleep. The thought of getting home and conking out on the sofa for a couple of hours is so tempting: I'm ready, in my reindeer onesie – complete with floppy antlers on the hood – to snooze before my need for breakfast wakes me again.

A mile from home, I notice a police car behind me and I instantly feel guilty, as though I have some long list of offences that I can't recall; my driving becomes extra cautious as I focus on the road and my speedometer. It's a relief when we hit a stretch of open road and they put their sirens on, and I pull in to let them past.

Except they don't zoom off down the road. The car pulls in behind me. My heart seizes and my hands go clammy when I realise I'm being pulled over. My car's an old banger but I'm pretty sure all my lights are working, and I know I wasn't speeding. I've barely done more than twenty-five since leaving Paisley's school, and the police have only been behind me since a roundabout half a mile ago.

In the thirty seconds it takes for a couple of officers to get out, while I sit here with my window rolled down, I have mentally scanned every possibility I can think of but nothing comes to mind. I know I'm insured because I shopped around six months ago, and I have a direct debit to pay my road tax, and the worst crime I've committed is accidentally stealing a carton of orange juice at a faulty self-checkout last year.

The two officers, both women a good ten years or so older than me, stroll over to the window. My heart is beating hard and I try to remember what the rules are when it comes to being pulled over. It's never happened before, and the only anecdotes I've ever heard have been horror stories from America.

"Hello?" I say when the officers come to a stop and neither has said a word.

"Your number plate is absolutely filthy," one of the officers says. I feel all the tension leave my chest. Oh. That's it? "Are you aware," she continues, "that it's illegal to drive with an obscured number plate?"

"What? It's illegal?" I splutter, momentarily losing my polite composure. "No, I had no idea."

"It is," says the second officer. "Punishable by a fine of up to a thousand pounds."

Oh, fuck. Tension flows back into me and my hands go tight on the wheel. A thousand pounds for a dirty number plate? My mouth is dry and I can't formulate a word for a few long seconds as I stare at the police and they stare at me. Would it kill them to crack a smile?

"What ... what do you want me to do? I live down the road, I can go and clean it," I manage to stammer at last. Damn it. I should've gone to the car wash last week. I've been meaning to for ages, but it's one of those things that always falls to the bottom of my to-do list.

"You need to clean it now," says the slightly taller of the two officers. "Got a wipe in there, or a tissue?" She eyes me up and down and I realise, with a horrible thud of awareness, that I'm wearing my stupid reindeer onesie. My blush deepens, my panic building.

"Have you had a drink today?" the other officer asks, raising her eyebrows at me as she peers into my messy car.

"No! No, not at all," I say, an awkward laugh bubbling out before I can stop it. "Um, I have a tissue, I think." I scrabble in my glove compartment and find a pack of tissues, shaky hands pulling one out.

This is a sight and a half, I think, as I get out of the car in my slightly-too-small reindeer onesie and black boots. One of the officers suppresses a laugh. The other isn't so easily amused.

"It's these country roads," I stammer, making painful conversation as I scrub at my rear number plate with a tissue that tears with the slightest pressure.

"Mmm, need to keep your car clean," says the grumpy one. "The front, too."

Maybe she just gets off on humiliating people who wear their pyjamas to do the school run. I've seen far dirtier cars on these roads, from filthy farmers' four by fours to the old biddies' old bangers that haven't been washed in years.

The last tissue disintegrates as I finish this hack cleaning job, and I try not to think about what I'm wearing when I stand straight and face the officers again. They're really not doing themselves and their reputation any favours by trailing me halfway home just to tell me I have a dirty number plate. Surely there's actual crime going on somewhere?

"Is that everything?" I ask.

"Much better," says the happier officer. "Make sure to keep an eye on that, okay? Drive safe." She nods at me and they both turn back to their van, and I feel my knees turn to jelly as I get back in the car.

I need a moment to gather myself before I turn the engine on again, and it's only once I've pulled out of the layby and the police have gone in the opposite direction that I let out a shaky laugh.

Less than two minutes later, I pull into my driveway and let out a sigh as I let myself into the house. My nose carries me to the kitchen, following the smell of toast, and I find Casper standing over the oven again: he's cooking eggs and bacon.

"I need a drink," I say, throwing my keys onto the table.

"Didn't have enough last night?" he asks, and when he turns around, his eyebrows shoot up and he laughs. "You went out in that?"

"I got pulled over in this."

"Holy shit." His face falls. "Wait, what? Please don't tell me you're over the limit from last night."

"Nope. My number plate was over the limit for how dirty a number plate can be. Did you know that's a thing?"

Casper wrinkles his nose. "That's bullshit. What the fuck?"

"The police made me get out and clean it, so there I am standing on the side of the road in this"—I sweep my hands over myself—"while shitting myself that I'm going to get a thousand pound fine."

"Fuck. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Bit shaken. I got so awkward, they thought I'd been drinking." A long exhalation empties my lungs as I scoop my hair off my face, twisting it into a bun that falls apart the moment I let go, and I roll my shoulders to shake off the past ten minutes.

"That's a bit of a shit start to the day," Casper says. He waves his spatula at me. "Reckon we can turn it around?"

"That depends on what you've got planned."

"Breakfast first," he says, "and then, if you haven't got plans, I've got an idea." He pours hot water into a couple of mugs, stirs both with a teaspoon and shuts the cutlery drawer with his hip.

"Oh yeah? What's the idea?"

"Patience, Donkey. First you need to tell me what you were going to do today."

With a shrug, I say, "Not much. Writing Christmas cards, but I've got a few days before I need to send them."

"So are you on board for a day of Casper surprises? Casprises, if you will?" He grins like a little kid as he serves up breakfast onto a couple of plates and sets two mugs down on two coasters. "I'd like to take the reins today, if you'll let me."

"Sure thing, Rudolph," I say, curiosity building and mingling with appreciation and hunger. "Take the reins. Lead the sleigh."

*

every time i drive my sister to school in my onesie, my mum warns me that it'll be embarrassing if i get pulled over. a couple of days ago i actually did get pulled over (for the exact same thing as beth; that scene is almost verbatim) but luckily i was wearing proper clothes that time! so, psa folks who drive, clean your numberplates!