The Cents lads and their partners and kids are spread out over four tables. I’m sitting at Roasties table—because for some bizarre reason they’re all named after types of potatoes—Pi and Georgia are at Gnocchi,and Eggo and Megan are at Dauphinoise.
I’m sandwiched between Dan’s eight-year-old daughter—I don’t even know her name but she has not stopped talking about Roblox and I think my brain’s melting—and Snatch’s wife Laura, who’s angled her chair towards her husband and has left me counting the moles on her bare back. She has seven. If I took a biro, I could connect them all into the Big Dipper constellation.
I’m facing away from the top table, so I can’t see Mathias and Owen without craning my neck or pivoting my chair, and I can’t help but think that might have been a deliberate choice. Probably so the important people don’t have to stare at my miserable face all evening. Can’t say I blame them in all honesty. I wanted to use this moment to cosy up to Dan about the captaincy, but unfortunately for me, he’s been placed at the top table next to Mathias, and I’m trapped with his wife and kids.
In between Roasties and the top table is another twelve-seater, and that’s wherehe’ssitting. Orlando Oakham-Goodwin.
He’s directly behind me. So close in fact that if we both stood from our chairs at the same time we’d bump into each other. Every now and then, and in between lectures onGrow A Garden—a Roblox game presumably?—I hear his judgemental little huffs and “ews.”
I’m both thankful he’s not in my peripherals, so I don’t keep accidentally glimpsing him, and annoyed that I can’t glare him down and make him uncomfortable.
He’s wearing typical Lando attire—sleek, flared trousers, a see-through . . . blouse-type shirt with a tank top underneath, a retro belt, and heeled boots even though the fucker is already twelve feet tall. All black, of course, because he’s in constant mourning for the last shred of personality he may have once had.
The food is meh. It’s sea bass with slimy green beans, cold mushy broccoli, mini pesto-filled jackets, chips, and dauphinoise. I don’t know why there needs to be three types of potatoes, but there we are. Since I don’t have a sense of smell—which greatly affects my sense of taste—I’m mostly going off texture. It’s fine, but it has that mass-catered mid quality typical of big gatherings.
The company is also mid. For the first fifteen minutes, I learn everything there is to know aboutNinety-Nine Nights in the ForestandDon’t Get Sniffed. Dan’s wife gives me withering looks now and then, but I can’t tell if she’s feeling sympathetic towards me, or is secretly laughing at my discomfort in a “welcome to my world” way.
After dessert—cheesecake, which I donate to my eight-year-old neighbour in a bid to keep her mouth occupied a few minutes longer—it’s time for the speeches. I can’t get away with not watching them, so reluctantly, I turn my chair in a quarter circle. It puts Lando in my direct line of sight, and almost within touching distance.
He feels me staring at him. I know he does. His face is angled ever so slightly towards me, and he just knows I won’t be able to resist tracing the elvish lines of his cheekbones, his brow, his jaw. He’s wearing eyeliner and probably has a full face of contour or highlighter or whatever that magic shit he slaps on is called.
I’m definitely not thinking about the time he covered a Mount Vesuvius of a pimple on my chin before my press day photos. Nor the time he put my awkward ginger mug into full drag for our joint Halloween costumes. Definitely not thinking about his ludicrously soft fingertips skating over my skin. Also not the time he wore faux freckles over his nose and cheeks so we’d match.
He’s not wearing any freckles tonight, though. Nothing but the standard black hole, soul-sucking egomaniac Lando.
The seat next to him is empty. On the table, on a piece of folded cream card, is his father’s name,Warwick,written in fancy looping gold letters. Seated beside the vacant chair is Lando’s stepmother du jour. She’s only a few years older than me, and is wearing a formfitting dress that hugs the food baby she’s currently harbouring. Or . . . could it be . . .
Owen Bosley gets to his feet, and someone else taps some cutlery against a glass. “Thank you all for coming to celebrate this day with my husban—” He’s cut off by raucous cheering. “With my husband and me.” He shares a glance with Mathias, and I have to physically pinch my lips closed with my thumb and forefinger to stop the enmity from being vocalised. “I’m going to start my speech with a little story about the first time I ever met Mathias. Now, you all know what happened. A leg was broken, an old man retired, and this beautiful creature was propelled into stardom. One chapter ended, but another was just about to begin.”
Lando’s jaw twitches and juts a fraction more towards me. It’s as though he wanted to gauge my reaction to Owen’s words but caught himself in the act and stopped before turning to face me.
I’m staring at Lando so much I’ve fallen headfirst into a reverie. I’m getting to my feet, walking over to him. Nobody watches us. Nobody cares. Owen continues with his speech, and Lando’s cast into a pool of darkness, like an anti-spotlight. My fingers reach out to brush the delicate skin at the base of his throat.
“Choke me, Daddy,” he says with his trademark smirk. I want to punch his smug little face, but I also want to fuck it.
Holy shit, I want to fuck it. Choke him with my cock.
Instead, I wrap my hand around his slender neck, slide my fingers until they lock underneath his jaw, and tilt his head back with a thumb under his chin until he’s looking up at me. I push my knee between his thighs and pin his legs open with it.
Lando’s eyes roll upwards and then closed. He whimpers, and I bring my mouth down to his, but not before whispering something cool like,“You’re gonna pay for what you did.”No, that’s cringe.“I’m going to . . . punish you?”Is that cringe?“You’ve been a—”
“To Mathias!” everyone in the room shouts at once, thrusting their flutes of fizz into the air and pulling me violently back to reality.
I scramble to join them and raise my glass. Owen’s speech is over. Mathias now stands to deliver his, and I don’t waste another second before delving once again into my fantasies. Only this time, we’re outside the marquee. It’s dark. Night has fallen. There are some crickets or some shit chirping away. Lando and I argue for a bit, a proper screaming match, but I can’t be arsed to think up what we’d say. Maybe we throw hands. Maybe he tries to leg it, like he always does. I grab his hand and shove him backwards against the wall.
“Take me here,”he says, breathless.“Fuck me against my father’s house.”
Because it’s my brain and I can do whatever I want, I make Lando wear a kilt so I can push the fabric up to his hips. He wraps his legs around my waist—I’m stronger than IRL—and I sink into him. It’s a hate fuck. I still hate him, but he holds my face and watches me the way he did on the boat. The entire time he tells me how incredible it feels, how masterful and accomplished and brilliant I am at fucking him, and how it’s just us two against the world. Rivals united in one blissful moment.
How nothing else matters.
In my fantasy, I don’t come. But Lando does. And it’s exactly the same as it was last time, only neither of us cries.
Fuck.
I yank myself from my thoughts just in time for Mathias’s toast.
“To my husband, and to people you don’t need social batteries for,” he says.
