It’s eight pm before James looks for him. He slept for hours, but he knows he’s spent just as long putting off talking to him; James doesn’t even know where to start.
As he wonders up and down the hotel corridors aimlessly, he wonders why it didn’t occur to him before that Michael might have left for the weekend; having tried Michael’s suite and the most obvious hotel facilities, James is losing hope.
Perhaps I should head home now, he thinks anxiously. The drive is only an hour and Anne-Marie is always up at this time of night. But the feeling in James’ gut won’t settle – he wants to call it guilt, but it’s probably more like the lack of closure – and it’s distressing, if nothing else.
At eight forty-three he gives up and returns to his room. As he reaches the door, he glances down the hall just in time to see Michael’s door closing. James freezes on the spot, hand raised to the lock, as he considers what to do. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, and Michael said it was his call whether they spoke of strange phone call they’d indulged in but ignoring it hasn’t worked thus far and James thinks that if he ever wants to speak comfortably with his wife again, he better get this done.
He forces himself to knock on Michael’s door. The task is daunting, because he really has no idea what’s about to happen. He doesn’t even know what he wants to say.