Room Service

Chapter Four

To be honest, I don't even know what was going on when I wrote this chapter. I churned this out in two evenings, and with no proper plan of where I'm going next. I'm truly going with the flow.

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            Never before had I been more in need of a day off.

            The past four days had really taken it out of me. At first, it’d been okay, but after yesterday morning the constant chaos had started to grate. The extra few hours in bed I’d been granted this morning were much welcomed, and just the prospect of a work-free day was enough to put me in better spirits than I had been all summer. Today, there’d be no  folding towels, no disgruntled guests complaining about the loud TV from the room next door, and definitely no room service.

            And I was going to enjoy every second of it.

            The sun was high in the sky over Walden, the entire town bathed in a soft glow and accompanying heat. Our house lacked a proper air conditioning system, and I’d soon grown tired of pacing in front of electric fans, parading around in the airiest clothes I could find. Eventually, I had come to the conclusion that there was nothing for it but to grab a towel, bikini and a bottle of sun cream and head to the beach.

            It was how I’d ended up here, lounging on the shingle at the edge of Walden Beach. Tourists were closing in on me in every direction, their continuous rowdy babble almost masking the noise of the sea itself, but it was still the most relaxing spot in town. All I had to do was shove in my earphones, close my eyes and imagine I was lying on a deserted tropical island –  I could almost fool myself into believing I was there, instead of a holidaymaker honey pot on the south coast.

            I must’ve been lying undisturbed for at least an hour, at the end of which my mind was already beginning to fall adrift, bordering on the edge of snoozing. Had I been left alone for five more minutes, I probably would’ve ended up taking an afternoon-long nap. However, just as my iPod was flicking between Taylor Swift tracks, I felt the warmth suddenly disappear from my skin, a dark shape visible even behind my closed eyes.

            Blinking hazily, I lifted my head up to get a better look at the person standing over me.

            It took a few moments for their identity to click into place; it might’ve been my still-adjusting eyes, but there seemed to be something distinctly different about their appearance. “L-Leon!” I stammered, instantly becoming hyper-aware of the fact I was wearing nothing more than a striped bikini, lying in plain sight of him.

            “Sh!” he hissed, quickly glancing over his shoulder to check my exclamation hadn’t attracted too much attention. However, nobody around us appeared particularly bothered, even if they had managed to hear me over the noise of the nearby screaming twins fighting over the best spade. As I scrambled into a sitting position, rifling in my bag for the T-shirt I’d abandoned to cover myself up, I suddenly realised what was different about him.

            His hair had been completely transformed. In the place of his former swooping blonde style, he was now a definitive brunet, hair ruffled and messy atop his head. I’d become so used to his unchanging peppy image that he was barely recognisable with this new look.

            Pulling the T-shirt over my head, I stared up at him. “What have you done with your hair?”

            “Had to get a disguise, didn’t I?” He pulled his sunglasses off completely, faking a model pout. “What do you think?”