Free Invincible Summer by Alice Adams

onto the bed, with Eva in the middle and Benedict and Lucien either side of her. Benedict rolled over to face the door and started snoring almost immediately. Eva turned face down and stuck a pillow over her head, but after a few minutes she became aware of Lucien wriggling closer.
    ‘Well, hello-o there,’ he whispered, sticking his head under her pillow and flinging an arm across her body. ‘Fancy a quickie?’
    ‘Stop grossing me out, Marchant,’ she hissed. ‘I’m wise to your slutty hit-and-run ways, remember. Now go to sleep, we’ve got an early start tomorrow.’
    Undeterred, he poked a lively erection into her thigh.
    Eva shoved him away. ‘Really, Lucien? In the same bed as Benedict?’
    ‘Oh, don’t be such a prude, I’ve done this sort of thing loads of times. He’s fast asleep, won’t even notice, and anyway, it’ll be a treat for him if he wakes up.’
    ‘No it bloody won’t,’ said Benedict grouchily, rousing himself from sleep and clambering over the top of Eva to the middle of the bed so that he was between them. ‘Keep your pervy paws off her.’ Then a few moments later: ‘And no wanking, you fucking reprobate. I can feel the bed moving, you know.’
      
    Eva was woken by her alarm at six am. She switched it off quickly and lay back against Benedict’s warm bulk beside her. He smelled good. Really good, actually. She’d been seeing a management consultant called Jeremy in London for the last few months, but all he talked about was spreadsheets and he definitely didn’t smell as good as this. She closed her eyes and found her mind drifting towards a scenario in which it was just her and Benedict in the bed together. As if sensing it, he shifted closer to her in his sleep, exhaling softly onto her neck. For a moment in the darkness none of the multitude of reasons not to—Jeremy, their friendship, living in different cities, Eva not wanting to being tied down—seemed to matter. If Lucien hadn’t been in the bed with them…
    What the hell was wrong with her? She shut down her wandering mind and slid out of the bottom of the bed between the two men to retrieve her wash-bag from her rucksack and head for the shower, which for once, she wouldn’t mind being cold.
    After predictably bracing ablutions, Eva returned to the room to kick the others out of bed and make a start on the day.  She opened the door to their room and burst into laughter as she took in the scene illuminated by the light from the hallway. This woke Benedict, who opened his eyes and, seeing Eva, broke into a sleepy smile which rapidly gave way to an expression of dawning horror.
    ‘Hang on. If you’re over there... who’s spooning me?’
    Lucien groggily raised himself up onto the elbow of the arm that was trapped under Benedict, looked down at him and grinned. ‘I’ve woken up with some uggers in my time, mate, but this really takes the biscuit.’
    Grimacing, Benedict rolled out of the bed leaving Lucien to slump back onto the pillows. ‘God, I’m tired. Do we really have to get up at sparrowfart today? Let’s just get a bit more sleep, eh? It’s unnatural, getting up at this hour.’
    ‘No chance.’ Benedict tugged the sheet off him. ‘The pilgrim mass at the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela is at twelve thirty, so we need to set off early to make it. That’s the whole point of the walk.’
    ‘Not for me it’s not, what with my not being a religious nutjob,’ grumbled Lucien. ‘And it’s Catholic, right? Are they going to want me to confess my sins? Because that may take some time.’ He winked at Eva, who turned away in mock-disgust.
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ insisted Benedict. ‘Half the people walking the Camino aren’t religious. But to have a journey you’ve got to have a destination and this is ours. Now come on.’ He lifted the edge of the mattress and rolled Lucien off onto the floor. ‘We’ve come this far, just twelve more miles to go.’
      
    It was an unseasonably chilly