Read Online Better Than Easy by Nick Alexander - Free Book Online Page A

my guilt.
    Tom is still out, so I check my email and as I sit and stare at the screen, a loving feeling comes over me, and I want, urgently, desperately, to forget it all, to find a gesture magnificent enough to wipe out the recent grumpiness: the arguments about why Tom is living here, his internet chatting, my own unclear thoughts about Ricardo and fidelity.
    I want everything back to normal, and I want it that way in time for Tom’s birthday. “That’s what you have to do,” I tell myself. “When things get rough and irritable, when the desire to stray comes on, there are only two choices: walk away and give up, or fight to put the flame back in. And I’mdamned if I’m walking away this time.”
    A flashing advert for weekend breaks on the screen gives me an idea. If Tom needs more fun than he has been getting, then what could be better for his coming birthday than a weekend away? What could be better than for us to forget our stupid arguments and rekindle that loving feeling? Wonderful, wonderful Internet: it takes me less than twenty minutes to find two cheap flights and a dodgy hotel, and by the time Tom walks in the door, the surprise is all fixed.

A Perfect Day
    It’s the day of the trip, and Tom is proving more difficult to wake up than expected. I smile at his sleeping form and shake my head and place the breakfast tray on the blue metal cabinet beside the bed.
    I slither onto the bed beside him and nuzzle his warm neck. “Tom,” I say quietly. “I’ve got a birthday surprise for you, but it involves getting
up!
You
really
have to get up.” As I say this Tom pulls a pillow over his head and groans, so I shout, “NOW!” and pummel the bed either side of him until he bounces.
    It’s not until Tom – still in a daze – has stepped out of the shower into the clothes I have waiting, picked up his ready-packed rucksack, and is being pushed towards the front door, that intrigue starts to penetrate his morning-head. “Where are we going?” he asks. “And why the hell are we going there at seven thirty?”
    I wink at him, run a hand down his back, and give him a gentle push forward. “If we don’t get a move on,” I say, checking my watch, “you’ll never find out.”
    He pauses to look at a package discreetly left by Jenny on the sideboard. “What’s that? A gift?” he asks.
    â€œIt’s from Jenny,” I say, “DVDs – English Classic Cinema. You can open it when we get back.” It’s brutal and a little dismissive of the gift, but there really isn’t time for anything else.
    On the airport shuttle, Tom grins at me for the first time of the day. “I know where we’re going,” he declares, then repeats himself in a child’s sing-song voice,
“I know where we’re going.”
    The bus lurches out of the depot, and I grin back. “Don’t get overexcited,” I say. “It’s
not
San Francisco.”
    Tom shakes his head slowly and beams at me. “I know it isn’t,” he says confidently.
    At Nice airport we check the screens for the departure gate; I will have to give Tom his boarding pass at security, but I’m holding out as long as I can. He scans the screen alongside me, still with a cocky grin that says he has me sussed.
    â€œSo, I would say,” he says, matter-of-factly, “that it’s zone A; somewhere around
…
gate
…
twelve
…
Right?”
    I scan the screen for our flight and then shake my head at him. “Nope,” I say. “Wrong!”
    And then I scan the list to see where Tom thinks we’re going – KLM2163 – 8:55 am – Zone A, Gate 12 – Amsterdam.
    I swallow hard. “Shit Tom, no,” I say. “I told you not to get too excited.” I pull his printed boarding pass from my bag.
    â€œNo?” he says, starting to unfold the sheet.
    I study his