Just One Taste by Lizzy Dent

Author:Lizzy Dent [Dent, Lizzy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

19

THE NEXT MORNING, I emerge at the front of the house to find two bikes and Leo leaning against the stone wall checking his phone. He stands up straight as soon as he sees me, sliding his phone away.

“Are we . . . cycling to your aunt’s house?” I ask, glancing up at the main road at the end of the drive. “Because I’m neither under twelve nor over forty.”

“Yes,” he says, mounting the larger bike and waiting for me to join. “It’s only about a twenty-minute ride. Downhill most of the way.”

“I hope we’re getting a lift back in that case . . . ,” I say, mounting the other and kicking back the stand.

Leo nods toward the drive, and I let him take the lead. The main road, which is a single-lane potholed nightmare, follows many tight corners, winding its way down into the valley. Several times I hastily pull over as a car comes flying around the corner toward us.

“There are electric bikes now,” I shout to Leo, who is less steady on a bike than I am. “And by the way, isn’t Italy the home of the fucking Vespa? Can you imagine my dad cycling back up this way?!”

“He usually hired a Vespa, to be fair,” he shouts back, laughing.

At that exact moment, I hit a stone, and although I’m going as slowly downhill as balance will allow, I tumble inelegantly sideways and into a hedge.

“Shit!” I yelp as the bike clatters to the ground and I fall with a thud.

Leo looks back over his shoulder to see if I’m okay and also falls. In sympathy, I think.

“Shit!” he shouts.

“Fuck!” I shout.

A cacophony of profanity pierces the tranquility of the valley.

“I’ve hurt myself,” I whimper.

“I’m coming,” he says, propping his bike up against a railing and rushing back up the hill to tug me out of the hedge. I’m covered in tiny scratches, and wherever there is bare skin I feel a stinging.

I turn to the hedge, and lo and behold, it’s a bush of nettles. Nettles.

Leo pulls a leaf from my hair, and then also clocks the nettles. “Ow, that’s not good.”

“Nettles,” I moan, then I brace myself as the hot burning and itching start to present. “I’ll need ten minutes of standing here silently screaming.”

“Is there a dock leaf?” he says, glancing at but not touching the foliage by the roadside.

“Owwwww,” I say, looking at the little dots that have appeared down my arms and legs.

“I don’t have anything,” he says. “I don’t know how to help.”

“Time and bravery,” I say.

“What?”

“My mum always said time and bravery are all you need to get over beestings or nettle stings. She also said that about ex-husbands.” I half laugh and grimace. Leo looks as though he wants to hold my hand or hug me, but I step back, quite sure it would make things worse.

“Your face is fine,” Leo says, grimacing.

“Great. The modeling career can continue unabated.” I moan, glancing down at the scrape on my knee, which is a little bloody.

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