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Hero, Benedick, Beatrice and Pedro were all astonishment when in the middle of their game of cards Balthazar suddenly stood up and walked over to the only other group of people staying in the hostel, who were on the way out of the door.
“Uh, hi,” he said and gave them an awkward wave. “I was wondering, could I ask you a favour?”
There were four of them and one of the girls answer, “Sure, what’s up?”
“This might be weird…” Balthazar was half-embarrassment, half-determination. “I just noticed one of you had a guitar upstairs and I, yeah, I really miss playing mine and just wondered if…”
“You want to borrow it?” the girl asked and, when Balthazar nodded, she smiled widely. “Of course! Go and get it. We’re going out for food so you can look after it for me.”
Balthazar’s face flooded with pleased relief. “That’s great. Thanks so much.”
“No problem.”
Balthazar turned around to give Pedro a happy grin and then almost ran off to get the guitar.
For the rest of the evening, the others continued their card games while Balthazar played. They occasionally threw him requests and he’d find the tab on his phone, balancing it on his knee.
Naturally, Beatrice and Benedick were by far the most competitive game players. Pedro was becoming increasingly distracted by watching Balthazar and eventually he thought it best just to give up. He went to sit on the sofa beside Balthazar.
“Let’s play Canasta,” Benedick suggested.
“Yes,” Beatrice agreed with heavy amounts of sarcasm, “let’s play an obscure game that only you know the rules to. That sounds like an excellent strategy for you.”
“Please can I say something snarky to her?” Benedick begged Hero. “I’ve got just the perfect thing!”
“No, don’t give up now!” Hero laughed while shuffling the pack of cards. “You’ve done so well!”
“One tiny little comment?”
“No! No…” Hero gave Benedick what she thought was a stern look but was actually just adorable.
Benedick and Beatrice both laughed and perhaps their eyes were locked together for a moment, but if so it was only a very short moment and then they were back on the card game.
“Um, do you want to suggest something?” Balthazar asked Pedro.
Pedro was now leaning against the opposite arm rest with this toes tucked under Balthazar’s legs. He was pretending to read his book. “I don’t know,” he said with a coy smile. “Do you know any Adele?”
Balthazar tried exceptionally hard not to blush. “Yeah, yeah, I think I might know one Adele song.” He began to play and Pedro laughed when he recognised it, ‘Someone Like You’.
“This song is so sad!” Hero sighed from the other end of the room.
Pedro said, “That wasn’t the song I was thinking of.”
Balthazar smirked and gave a shrug, continuing playing.
Benedick’s phone rang. “It’s my mum,” he said, standing up and walking out of the room. “Mother! How are you on this fine evening? Ok, morning. This fine morning.”
Hero waited until Benedick had left the room and then checked that Pedro and Balthazar weren’t paying attention. Of course they weren’t. Then she leaned over to Beatrice. “Bea, please don’t be mad but I’ve just got to say something.”
Beatrice looked unnerved by her tone. “What?”
“I never wanted to say anything before because, well, I love you and I didn’t want you to be mad. But I've been thinking that maybe there’s different kinds of ‘nice’ and making people happy isn’t always – Ok, that’s not relevant. I just wanted to tell you in case you hadn’t noticed. Despite what it may seem like, I know that Ben really likes you. He really values your opinion, Bea. He, I don’t know, wants you to like him. And he hates it when you’re mean to him”
Beatrice didn’t know how to react so she just made several astonished facial expressions. “I just – I don’t even know how to begin to tell you how wrong and weird you are. Since when did you become in tune to Benedick’s feelings?”
Hero put her head on one side and wrinkled her nose. She hated disagreeing with Beatrice. She never knew what to say. “I guess we’ve become better friends recently and I don’t like him looking upset.”
“Upset?” Beatrice said too loudly.
“Who’s upset?” Pedro asked, looking the opposite of upset. His whole being was practically glowing.
“Oh, Bea keeps cheating,” Hero offered, holding up her hand of cards, and Pedro accepted this with a nod – accepted a little too quickly for Beatrice’s liking.
Beatrice moved closer to her cousin and said in a more hushed voice, trying to sound as flippant and uncaring as she could, “As if Benedick has ever cared about what I think! And you should be cautious too if you think he’s your friend, by the way. He’s always made it perfectly clear that he picks and chooses his friends as he so desires.”
Hero held up her hands in mock defeat. “I’m not going to argue about it. I just wanted to tell you. And I’ve done that so…”
“We can never talk about it again.”
“That’s fine.”
“Good.”
“Fine!”
It was half an hour later when Beatrice went upstairs to investigate where Benedick had got to and Hero went to the toilet, leaving Balthazar and Pedro alone for what felt like the first time in days.
Pedro grinned across the sofa at Balthazar, who was trying to not notice. “What?” Balthazar eventually said, stopping playing with a smile of his own.
“No, nothing! I just like listening to you play.”
“Well, stop looking at me like that. It’s kind of creepy,” Balthazar laughed.
Pedro sat up straight and said, in his most serious voice, “‘If music be the food of love, play on;’”
“Alright…” Balthazar rolled his eyes, knowing the quote.
“‘Give me excess of it!” Pedro’s rendition was overly dramatic, “that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die.’”
“What? Your, um, appetite for love? You want it to die?” Balthazar commented wryly.
Pedro shifted closer to Balthazar on the sofa. “No, I just don’t want you to stop playing.”
But the guitar had been completely forgotten, merely a frustrating obstacle between the two of them. Pedro put his hand on Balthazar’s where it rested on the cushion and looked up at him for reassurance.
Balthazar’s smile was surprisingly shy.
“Are you ok?” Pedro asked.
“Hero’s coming back,” Balthazar muttered, his eyes having glanced towards the open door.
Pedro looked to see if this was true and then sighed dramatically and flopped back onto the sofa as Hero entered the room. He suddenly wished vehemently that there were less people involved in this road trip.
Beatrice found Benedick sitting in their room on the side of his bunk bed with his head in hands.
“Hey,” Beatrice said, awkwardly, sort of wishing she hadn’t come, “Are you ok? What’s up?”
Benedick looked up at her and then away. It almost, quite possibly, looked as if he might have been about to cry. Why did that feel like such a punch in the gut to Beatrice?
“Hey, what’s going on?” She came into the room and sat on the floor next to him. “Is your mum ok? What did she say?”
“Everyone’s fine,” Benedick replied, not looking at her. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, I’m, I’m sort of worrying here,” Beatrice joked. “I mean, what is it?”
“Nothing, really. I just, my mum’s lost her job is all. And it sucks. And she’s really worried about it and I’m over here just, you know, having a good time and spending money and she doesn’t know what to do. That’s all. Not the end of the world.”
Beatrice put her hand on Benedick’s knee. “That does suck. I’m really sorry, Ben.”
“I’d just always had her in my head as this awesome, hard-working single parent and I realise now that that was so unfair! Like why did I put that on her? I just assumed she would always make ends meet.”
“What? This isn’t your fault.” Beatrice moved to try and get Benedick to look at her. “Your mum has always tried to do what’s best for you. That’s what she wants to do. Everything will be alright.”
“She didn’t even want to tell me until I got back but she was just worrying about it and not sleeping…”
“You just want to go home now, right?”
Benedick nodded. “But she says that would be even more expensive than just waiting for our flights so… I guess that’s true.”
“It is.”
Benedick looked up at her and said, “Could you not tell the others?”
“Sure. You could tell them but, yeah, whatever.”
He smiled appreciatively and the words that Hero had said a few minutes earlier rung in Beatrice’s ears. He really likes you.