An excerpt from The Adventures of William FittsI woke up the following morning, first to a throbbing...

An excerpt from The Adventures of William Fitts

I woke up the following morning, first to a throbbing in my foot, then to a pounding on the door. Slowly sitting up, I rubbed my foot and grunted a response.
“Will, wake up!” Lizzy called through the door. “We’re leaving in half an hour.”
Leaving? Where the hell were we going?
I glanced at the clock. Half-past five. On a Saturday.
“What?” I yelled back, unable to think of anything more coherent to say.
Lizzy took this as an invitation to come in, an empty overnight bag in hand, and start packing away some of the clothes that were draped untidily on my chair.
“We’re going to Derbyshire,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Now, come on, we don’t have much time if we want to get there by ten.”
“Why do we want to get there by ten? Scratch that, why the hell are we going to Derbyshire?!”
She looked up from where she was hunting through my underwear drawer. “Me and Darcy’s romantic getaway, remember? Pre-Valentine’s Day, because we’re both busy that weekend.”
I was getting more confused by the second. “So why am I coming with you?”
She zipped up the bag, and threw a clean set of clothes at me. “We’ve got a surprise for you. We’ll explain in the car. Are your meds in the cupboard in the kitchen?”
I nodded, knowing full well that I wasn’t going to get any further information from her, and threw on my clothes as soon as she’d shut the door behind her. None of this made the slightest bit of sense, but I’d learnt to just roll with it.
It was a good thing I hadn’t had any plans that weekend, I mused as I stumbled out into the living room. Must be one of the few downsides of having an electronic shared calendar: your friends knew when you were free and available to be kidnapped in the early hours and driven to remote parts of the British countryside. Either way, it hadn’t occurred to me until that very moment how dire the consequences would be once Darcy’s tendency for early morning holidays collided with Lizzy’s spontaneity.
Darcy and Lizzy were both waiting when I emerged, Darcy throwing my coat at me and checking that she had her keys.
“Why are we leaving so early?” I moaned as we left, deliberately kicking the ground to annoy Darcy. I succeeded; her reply was short and curt.
“To beat the traffic.”
“At five o’clock?!”
Lizzy looked at me sympathetically as Darcy marched out, handing me a travel cushion.
“Sleep in the car,” she said as we left. “It’s what I always do. Unless Darcy’s choosing the music, of course, no one can sleep to that crap.”