“You can sleep in my bed, and I’ll take the sofa,” said Annie when they got back up to the flat.
“I’m not taking your bed,” croaked John. “I’ll take the sofa, I’ll be fine. I’m just glad to be warm again.”
“It’s not a big sofa and you’re rather a big man, you’ll be squashed.”
“I’ll be fine.”
It was clear he wasn’t going to be persuaded. Annie went into her bedroom and returned a moment later holding her fluffy dressing gown with the cat-ears hood.
“Take that shirt off and I’ll chuck it away,” she said, thrusting the dressing gown at him.
“I’m not wearing that!” said John.
“I don’t have anything else that will fit you. It’s dry and warm, and I promise not to take photographs of you in it while you’re sleeping.”
John looked unconvinced.
“You’ve got no other clothes,” she reasoned. “I can put your jumper and jeans through the wash now and they’ll be dry by morning. I won’t look,” she said, holding out her hand and making a show of turning her head and screwing her eyes tightly shut.
After a sigh of resignation, she heard the ruffle of clothing and then John pushing his tattered shirt into her hand. She opened her eyes and turned back to look at him. She quashed the laugh that spasmed in her chest at the sight of this tall, dark, handsome man looking gangly and awkward in her pink dressing gown, instead going to the kitchen and stuffing his shirt into the bin and the rest of his clothes into the washer-dryer.
Annie came back into the sitting room with her arms full of fresh linen and thick blankets.
“It’s hard to look any kind of masculine in this,” John said, motioning to the dressing gown. “Whichever way I sit looks distinctly camp.”
He did look comical, the two edges of the gown constantly falling open to reveal his long, hairy legs. Annie gave a wry smile.
“Well, I think you look very becoming,” she said, directing him to get up while she laid a cotton sheet across the sofa cushions and fashioned him a makeshift bed.
“In you get,” she said, when she had finished.
John gave her a look that was halfway between amused and uncomfortable.
“You’re not going to tuck me in, are you?”
Annie flushed. That was exactly what she’d had in mind. “I want to make sure you’re comfortable,” she said. “Don’t be a pain in the arse about it.”
John grinned and climbed under the blankets, pulling them up around his chin. “Your bedside manner leaves a bit to be desired.”
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
Annie was reluctant to leave him. She’d suggested sleeping in the armchair, so she could keep an eye on him, but John had firmly vetoed the idea.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep if I think you’re watching me,” he’d said.
Annie sighed, hanging around near the door.
“Can I get you anything before I turn in?” she asked.
“A glass of water, please,” said John. “My throat feels like sandpaper.”
The paramedic had said a mixture of choking on the seawater and all the shouting would leave him with a sore throat for a few days. Annie dutifully brought him a large glass of water and put it on the coffee table next to him.
“Okay, well, get some sleep. You know where I am if you need me, just holler.”
“Will do.”
“Well. Good night, then.”
“Good night,” John answered.
Annie was at the door when John said: “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Worrying about me. Letting me stay tonight . . .” The words hung as if there was more to say, but nothing else came.
“It’s even more your home than it is mine,” said Annie. She smiled at him, then turned and left.
Chapter 85
Annie couldn’t sleep. She had mentally redecorated Saltwater Nook and put together a three-course bistro menu—mental organizing was usually a great soother—but still sleep evaded her. The evening’s events kept playing on a loop behind her eyes. Fear and relief, fear and relief filled her chest repeatedly. She wondered if Alfred was okay. Maeve had messaged the group at half past midnight to say that Alfred was comfortable and that she was heading home. Though she wanted Alfred back to his old self as soon as possible, she hoped he was incapacitated enough tonight that he wouldn’t make a break for it and disappear off into the back streets of Margate.