Run Away by Laura Salters Page B

state to begin with.” She winked at him.
    “All right then, missus, I’ll buy you breakfast. Full English?”
    “Please.” Russia smiled, pecking him on the lips with a delicate, entirely romantic kiss. They both froze, realizing that their public display of affection meant they could no longer deny that things between them were going a little beyond a drunken hookup. They’d been nearly inseparable in the three weeks since they first met. Kayla and Bling exchanged a smirk, but decided not to humiliate the happy ­couple with the dramatic scene the moment warranted. Kayla couldn’t help but wonder when Dave, the eternally loose-­lipped chatterbox, would bother telling Russia about his ALS.
    Bling turned to face her. “So, uh, Sam tried to kiss you?” She couldn’t meet Kayla’s eye, instead making miniature mountains of salt on the table they were huddled around. The café’s booths were dirty, the smell of grease clung to the air, the laminated, handwritten menus were peeling, and the owner was a lecherous old man with a hunchback. But when you need bacon, you need bacon.
    “Yeah,” Kayla admitted, unsure why she felt guilty for telling Bling. Maybe because she’d seen her friend’s eyes linger on Sam for a moment longer than usual, or because Bling often made excuses to initiate skin-­to-­skin contact. Nobody was quicker to take up Sam’s request for sunscreen to be rubbed into his back than her. “It was a weird moment. We were both pretty drunk. But it was nothing.”
    “Oh my God, do you think he likes you?” A girly giggle an octave too high and a failed attempt at a casual tone. Subtle, Bling was not.
    “Nah, we’re just friends.” Kayla found herself wondering what Sam had told Dave in answer to that inevitable question. Or whether boys even discussed that kind of thing beyond the obligatory, “She’s hot.”
    “Really?” Bling tucked a lock of hair behind her ears and sipped the watery apple juice in front of her. As a strict vegan, it was the only thing she could really order. “Do you like him as more than a friend? You guys do spend a lot of time together.”
    Before she could reply, Sam entered the café, scanning the room for some familiar faces. Kayla’s stomach fluttered. She wondered how he’d act today, uncertain which of them was actually in the wrong. Was he the kind of stubbornly proud man her father was, who’d pretend that nothing had happened and treat her with even more aloofness than he had before?
    “Hi guys! Would anyone like a coffee? Kayla? Let me guess . . . triple shot espresso with cream?”
    Kayla smiled to herself.
    T HE BUS JOURNEY to Kanchanaburi took almost three hours. Instead of sitting next to Sam as she’d have liked to, Kayla decided to make him sweat a little longer and chose Bling as her travel partner. It took all of the willpower in her arsenal not to make eye contact with him throughout the whole journey, even though she knew already that she forgave him for being overly forward.
    Whether she forgave herself for rejecting him was an entirely different matter.
    Their new accommodation was the height of luxury in comparison with the last, though still squalor to anyone in possession of nostrils or, well, retinas. Kayla felt a little grateful that she’d been too hung over to insert her contact lenses that morning. When it came to hostel decor, ignorance really was bliss, though there was no disguising the intrinsic scent of mildew. It gave her a strange little thrill to imagine her snobby parents’ faces if they could see where she was staying.
    Oliver had shown them to their room. After last night in the park, Kayla had started to notice the way he looked at her—­like he was hungry. Sam was right. It was gross. Over the past few weeks, he’d taken quite the liking to her, staring intensely and making derogatory comments whenever she was in the vicinity. It was almost as if he believed that referencing the “slutty blond chick” he’d