The Accidental Honeymoon. Portia MacIntosh

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СКАЧАТЬ I reply. ‘It will be fine.’

      A jolt of turbulence hits the plane, as though to remind me journeys don’t always run smoothly.

      ‘I need to stop at a store and grab a toothbrush and change of clothes. I only got on the plane to convince you to get off. Are expenses covered on this trip?’ he asks with a cheeky laugh.

      ‘I suppose I can’t expect you to fork out for an outfit for a wedding,’ I reply. ‘And you’ll need clothes while you’re here – that hadn’t crossed my mind. I’ll pay for them out of my half, but you have to let me pick them.’

      ‘You worried I can’t dress myself?’ he laughs.

      ‘No,’ I reply, pausing to think about a polite way to say this. ‘But, if you’re pretending to be John, you’re going to have to… adjust your look.’

      Jack runs a hand through his hair.

      ‘What’s wrong with my look?’

      ‘Well… it’s just… it’s a bit scruffy.’

      ‘Scruffy?’ he echoes, his voice significantly higher than usual. ‘How am I scruffy?’

      I examine Jack’s outfit. He’s wearing grey baggy trackies, resting low on his hips, teamed with a tight-fitting vest top and matching hoodie.

      ‘Well, I mean, look at what you’re wearing. You look like you just got out of bed.’

      ‘I look like I just got out of bed because I just got out of bed,’ he reminds me. ‘I woke up, realised I was married and that my wife was about to literally take off for ever on a plane, so I grabbed the nearest items of clothing and my passport, and headed for the airport.’

      ‘Oh,’ I reply. It’s not even that he doesn’t look good – he looks great. The hardest sell of our little lie is going to be convincing people I could pull someone so far out of my league. The problem is, he doesn’t look like a boring John, he looks like a cool Jack. ‘Your hair and facial hair might be a problem, though.’

      ‘I’m not cutting my hair,’ he says insistently. ‘It’s my hair that helps me pick up chicks.’

      ‘Speaking as a chick, I can tell you it isn’t your hair that helps you pick up chicks,’ I admit. ‘It’s the fact that your biceps are thicker than my waist.’

      Jack wiggles his eyebrows, clearly only taking the compliment from what I just said.

      His light-brown hair is only a couple of inches long on the sides, but it’s way longer on top, and right now he’s got it swept to one side, falling down to cover an eye on one side. He’s constantly sweeping it away – and it’s bizarrely sexy to spectate – but, again, it’s not the right look. Neither is his trendy short, well-groomed beard.

      ‘You don’t look like you’re part of an orchestra,’ I point out. ‘You have to look smart and polished. We don’t need to cut your hair, we just need to slick it back. You do need to shave, though.’

      Jack frowns, but his face softens after a few seconds.

      ‘Who are your mom and dad, the King and Queen of England?’ he asks sarcastically. ‘Are you royalty?’

      I exhale deeply

      ‘You need to be what they’re expecting,’ I reply. ‘Or this doesn’t work. And if it doesn’t work, you don’t get your $10k.’

      ‘You drive a hard bargain, princess,’ he submits. ‘OK, fine. I guess having a shave and using a bit of hair gel is a small price to pay for ten grand.’

      ‘Thank you,’ I tell him sincerely. I know exactly what it feels like to be dressed in clothes you’re not used to. I feel two kinds of uncomfortable – firstly because I’d got out of the habit of flashing flesh, and secondly because this outfit is so very, very tight.

      I adjust myself in my seat a little, trying to get a bit more comfortable. Jack might be finding flying for the first time fun and exciting, but I’m sick of these long-haul flights. My family might drive me crazy, but I do miss them, so if I want to see them, fourteen hours on a plane is the quickest way. I suppose I could move back home, now John isn’t in the picture any more. As I’m creeping up on thirty, it feels like I’m too old to break into the acting scene now, but I feel equally too old (and too embarrassed) to move back home with no fiancé, no money and a useless acting degree. I’d be starting from scratch, from the point most people are at when they hit their twenties. I might feel like the unremarkable middle child now, but to give in to that, everyone would see me as such a loser…

      ‘I can’t believe I’m married,’ he laughs. ‘Never even really had a serious girlfriend.’

      ‘You’ve never had a serious girlfriend?’ I reply in disbelief.

      There’s a telling glint in his eye. Obviously he’s not the dating kind, just the hump ‘em and dump ‘em kind. He’s probably broken the hearts of so many tourists. I suppose working in a hotel full of ladies looking to have a good time makes pulling pretty easy – why would he tie himself down?

      ‘Excuse me,’ a young air hostess says to get our attention. She places two slices of sweet-smelling, delicious-looking red velvet cake down in front of us. ‘These are for you guys. We know you’re newlyweds, so it’s to celebrate that, but also because we appreciate you didn’t go back to the toilets together.’

      She giggles nervously as she flutters her eyelashes at Jack.

      ‘Aw, thanks,’ he tells her before turning to me. ‘Isn’t that sweet?’

      ‘Thank you,’ I tell her, the smell of the cake causing my appetite to come creeping back up on me.

      ‘I could get used to this,’ Jack laughs, tucking into his cake.

      ‘Don’t,’ I reply, a little too quickly. ‘It’s just a week.’

Chapter Nine

      It had occurred to me Jack was taking this whole real marriage/fake relationship for money thing quite well, but I figured it was just because he was a really easy-going (recently unemployed) person. But I’ve been waiting outside the men’s toilets for half an hour now, and I think he might have done a runner.

      I gave him two bags to take into the loos with him, one containing several items of smart-casual clothing and another with toiletries. I bought disposable razors and shaving gel, which made Jack wince when he saw them because, apparently, the proper removal of a beard requires an electric razor – something I couldn’t get in any of the airport shops. That said, I didn’t look too hard, because this is coming out of my share of the money, and I’m technically unemployed, too. He should think himself lucky I didn’t just give him one of the razors I’ve brought to keep on top of my leg-hair growth while I’m here. I didn’t cheap out on the clothes, though, I dashed through the clothes shops and picked appropriate outfits straight off the mannequins, so Jack would be smart and on trend. It’s going to be uncharacteristically warm here – even for June – so I made sure I bought things that would be weather-appropriate as well as ‘I’m definitely a refined gentleman who plays piano in an orchestra’-appropriate.

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