Callum examined my suitcase in the yard at five, pinching the two sides of the zip together.
“Well?” I asked.
He pulled the little metal tab. It came away in his hand.
“I've made a breakthrough.”
I took it off him. “You owe me a suitcase.”
“I was about to say the same thing.”
He folded the case under his arm, leaving one wheel sticking out, and offered me his free hand. I took it. We carried it down the side street to the charity shop by the harbour, with the loose front slapping his leg all the way.
Merewick wasn't big enough for us to look respectable for long. A woman outside the bakery watched us pass. Callum straightened his back and carried the broken case as if it were a briefcase.
“Important meeting,” he told her.
“Better hurry,” she said. “Your shirt's falling out.”
Inside the shop, there were three cases above a rack of children's coats. One had no handle. One was small enough to belong to a doll. The third was red, scuffed and enormous.
Callum lifted it down.
“Oh, look,” he said. “Room for the kettle.”
I opened it on the floor and checked the lining. He crouched beside me and ran the zip right round twice without breaking anything.
“Twenty pounds,” I said, reading the tag.
“Is it too much?”
I shook my head. I had moving money saved, separate from what we'd put aside for the room. I had been careful with it. Buying a case wasn't how I'd wanted to spend any, but arriving in Eastmere with my clothes in carrier bags would be worse.
Callum pressed down on the handle while I pulled it. The wheels squeaked and began to turn.
“That'll wake everyone up when we arrive,” I said.
“Good. They can welcome us.”
I paid. He carried the old case to the bin behind the shop, with the woman's permission, while I wheeled my new one up and down the pavement. It was ridiculously large. I loved it immediately.
“You could get in,” I told him.
“Try taking me on as hand luggage. Save a fare.”
I tipped it towards his knees. He caught it and pulled me against him over the handle.
“Or I could sit beside you,” he said.
His voice had gone quiet. I liked when he did that in the middle of some stupid joke, as though he'd remembered we could kiss instead.
I went up on my toes. He smiled just before my mouth reached his.
We took the case back to Harbour House, then bought chips and walked down to the beach. The tide was out. Wet sand shone between the wooden groynes, and the little kiosk where Callum worked had its shutters down for the evening.
We sat on the promenade steps. I tucked my feet under me, and he put the open chips between us.
“We need plates,” I said.
“We're using one.”
“For the room.”
“Ah.” He studied the paper tray. “Two of these, then.”
“And mugs.”
“You can have the one with the naked fisherman on it.”
“That was in the photograph for the room?”
“Window ledge. You missed it because you were looking at the bed.”
“So were you.”
“I saw both. I've got excellent range.”
I stole the chip in his hand. He looked offended, then put his arm behind me and rested his fingertips on the back of my neck.
It was a light touch, almost idle. I leaned towards it anyway.
On our first walk down here, I had been trying not to limp.
It was my first week at the hotel. I'd bought black shoes that looked sensible and turned out to eat heels. Callum had asked me to help him carry a linen basket downstairs while Ruby finished the guest room we were turning down. I had been glad to leave for a minute. I'd been working beside Ruby all evening, doing everything too slowly.
The basket had been heavy enough to need both of us. As we took it down, he made the lift's grinding noise back at it: a long, sick groan, then a bright little ding in completely the wrong place.
I had laughed so hard we'd had to set the basket down.
He did it now when a lorry changed gear behind us.
“That's not the lift,” I said.
He finished with the ding.
“There. Safe arrival.”
I kissed his jaw. He turned his head to catch another kiss, and the chips slid sideways when I leaned into him.
“Food,” he said against my mouth.
“Sorry.”
“No, don't stop. Just hold it.”
I held the tray. He put his hand properly on my neck, warm under my hair, and kissed me until I stopped hearing the lorry.
When he pulled back, a gull was standing two steps above us.
“You've attracted management,” I said.
Callum shielded the tray. “We're on our break.”
The gull watched us without blinking.
“You can complain,” he told it, “but there's no one here with authority.”
I was still laughing when it lunged. One chip went, and Callum jerked his hand back.
“Thief.”
“That was mine.”
“I'll write to someone.”
We moved down to the next step with the tray between my knees. His arm stayed around me.
That first evening, after we'd carried the linen, I'd gone back upstairs to Ruby and finished the rooms. Later, Callum had waited by the staff door and asked if I wanted to walk down here.
He told me then that he and Ruby had split up. I remembered the relief of hearing it. She'd talked to him easily at work, and he was so much more relaxed with her than he was with anyone else. I'd liked him already. I hadn't wanted to be the stupid new girl who couldn't tell when someone was taken.
On the walk, he'd noticed my heel and stopped outside the late shop for plasters. We sat on these steps while I put one on. He stayed for nearly an hour, although we'd finished talking about my shoes in the first five minutes.
The next morning after that first walk, a guest had reported a watch missing. Oliver Reed. I still remembered Mara saying his whole name in the office, as if getting it right might help her find it. Ruby and I were the cleaners who had been in his room. For a while we couldn't go into guest rooms on our own.
I had wanted to disappear. I was nineteen, brand new, and my job came with the room I slept in. Callum told Mara I'd been with him carrying linen during the turn-down. He made it sound as if I'd stayed with him the whole time, although I hadn't. I'd gone back upstairs.
I should have said so. Instead, I'd been grateful someone believed me without making me prove it first.
Now my last shifts were on the rota, and Mara trusted me to check the rooms before guests arrived. Sunday would be the first time I left a place because I wanted to go.
“Ruby said anything to you?” Callum asked.
I looked up. “Today?”
“Yeah.”
“Mostly about towels.”
He rubbed his thumb along the seam of my jacket.
“I thought she'd gone somewhere else.”
“She did. She's come back.”
“Obviously.” He pulled the tray closer. “Sorry. I just didn't expect to see her.”
“Neither did I.”
“You don't have to work with her much longer.”
I turned to look at him properly. “You don't have to say it like that. She hasn't done anything.”
“I know. I wasn't having a go.”
He took a chip and broke it in half.
“I don't want her getting in your head this week, that's all. When we split, she kept coming round. I'd tell her there was nothing to talk about, and she'd find something. Clothes. A charger. Something she thought I'd said.”
“Maybe she'd left things.”
“For a while, sure.” He dropped the half-chip back in the tray. “Then it wasn't about the things. She'd be lovely one day and the next she'd say I'd ruined her life.”
I pulled one of the soft bits of batter from the paper.
“Does she still want you?”
He looked at me. “I don't want her.”
“That's different.”
“Lena.” He touched my chin with one finger. “I can't answer for her. I know she'd rather we weren't together.”
The gull came back. This time I waved it away before it got close.
“She'll say anything when she's jealous,” he said. “Please don't let her spoil this.”
I looked out at the sea. There was a couple walking along the water, their dog running between them.
“I don't want a row at work.”
“Then don't have one. Just don't give her much to work with.”
He drew me closer, and I rested my head against his shoulder. His jacket smelled of salt and the soap he used to wash it. I'd bought him that soap when he was using washing-up liquid on everything and insisting it was the same.
“Six days,” he said.
“Six days.”
“Then no more staff corridor. No more knocking on your door and having Tess answer it like a prison guard.”
“She likes you.”
“She likes confiscating me.”
I smiled into his jacket.
We stayed until the tray was empty and my fingers were cold. When he got up, he held both hands out to me. I took them, and he hauled me to my feet harder than necessary so I landed against his chest.
He kissed me once more before we went back.