You Can't Hurry Love

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Okay. Don't panic. Do not panic. It's not like you've been waiting agonisingly to confront him for over an hour and now he's finally appeared. It's fine. Just open your eyes, greet him like any other sane person would do and then demand to know why he cut you out of his life the last few days.

Simple. There's nothing to worry about.

Although . . . Lincoln did seem pretty furious about finding me with Danny. Almost as angry as he was with the whole Hyde Park debacle and I can just picture the withering glare he's most definitely giving me on the other side of these lids. Not that it should bother him though. He's the one who's ignored me all week. I'm perfectly entitled to bring a boy home if I wanted to.

Still, I'm not sure I can handle that level of animosity in the frenzied state I'm currently in. It might just be the thing that finally finishes me off. It'll send me loopy. I'll be one of those people who wanders the streets in their pyjamas in the middle of the day, talking nonsense to themselves and parents will have to grab their children's hands to stop them from pointing at me and laughing.

I'll be like that woman who hung around in the park last summer. The one who carried her cat around in one of those space-pod, backpack thingies. She would push a trolley full of stolen traffic cones around all day and no one could stop her because if you got too close, she used to launch one at you.

(Maybe I could get one too and we could become friends . . .)

You know what? I am most definitely overthinking this and the longer I remain in this inert deadlock, the longer Lincoln is going to question my sanity for real. And that's even before the cat-backpack shenanigans.

Okay Dottie, just breathe.

Maybe I could get away with pretending like I didn't even know that he was out here. I'll just open my eyes nonchalantly and act all surprised when I fake-spot him. I'll tell him he caught me going out for my evening stroll. (Even if that does make me sound like an eighty-year-old woman). At least that way it wouldn't be obvious I'd been spying on him. He might shout a bit, call me a hussy for going on a date with Danny. Who cares? It's not the first time Lincoln has taken a swipe at me and I'm pretty sure I won't cry this time. And if I do, so what? If a guy can't deal with a girl shedding a tear or two, then that's on him.

No wait. I have an even better idea.

I'll just pretend that I was sleepwalking. That'll explain why I've been standing here like a zombie for the last few minutes and maybe if I make my way over to the stairwell, Lincoln might think I'm about to fall down it and jump in to rescue me (he likes doing that) and then he'll have to be nice to me. No one can be angry at a girl whose life they'd just saved. They'd have to be insane.

Right, I can do this. All I have to do is get my bearings somehow, without opening my eyes, and then I can put the plan into motion.

I step forward slowly, rocking gently from side to side as I feel around on the ground and when my Mary Janes finally scrape against the corner of Roland's welcome mat outside his flat, I know to move ever so slightly to the right to be in perfect line for reaching the stairs.

I creep on, making sure to yawn exaggeratedly as I inch my way slowly down the corridor and a nervous-excitement bubbles away in my stomach at the thought that in just a few seconds, Lincoln will be racing after me to snatch me from danger and I'll be safe in his arms once again.