“I hate you both,” I say through gritted teeth, though my words have lost all fight.
“Aw, don’t be like that, babe,” Lando says, and boops me on the nose.
Why is everyone touching my face?
Mum actually squeals and covers her mouth, then she checks her watch again. “Oh, honey, I’d better go, but we really need to catch up sometime as a three. Text me later, yeah?” She kisses me on the cheek and jogs off in the opposite direction.
“Kill me now,” I whisper to Lando, but I’m extremely grateful that it’s just him and me again.
“We should slip out now while everyone’s busy with the awards announcements,” he says.
“Urgh, yeah, good plan.” I don’t much fancy seeing Mathias Jones win yet another shiny trophy.
Lando weaves his fingers into mine and guides me through the bushes and down a shortcut into the car park.
“I have a surprise for you at my house,” he says to me as we climb into his sporty grey Audi. “Also . . . does your mum think we’re dating?”
“Maybe?” I say, like a question. “Lionel was there, and I just got flustered and . . . I’m sorry, I’ll call her tomorrow and make it right.”
“You don’t have to. I don’t care about that. Your mum seems nice, though. Donna?”
“Yeah.”
“Is your dad as nice?”
“Oh, yeah. They’re eerily similar, Mum and Dad. They find the same random shit hilarious.”
“I love that,” Lando says.
When we get inside the main entrance of Hooke Manor, Lando pauses and stares at me wide-eyed.
There’s a strip of light bleeding out from underneath Warwick’s office door, and muted sounds of a man’s voice float over to us.
“My father is home.”
“Should we say hello?” I say, hoping, praying Lando says no.
“Yeah, probably.”
Dammit.
Lando takes my duffel bag from my hands and flings it towards the foot of the stairs, not bothering to check where it lands. We still have our Team Boss kits on. They’re covered in dirt and grass stains, and Lando even has Dan Chelford’s blood on the back of his shirt, though we changed into our trainers in the car, so at least we’re not scratching up two-hundred-year-old wooden floorboards.
There’s a grand piano in the entrance hall, and Lando’s dad’s office lives on the other side of that, beyond a set of seven-foot-tall, carved mahogany double doors. If the space had been designed to intimidate guests, it’s working. I have to clench my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering.
Lando knocks on the door, but doesn’t wait for an invitation to enter before he pushes it open.
The office itself is as grand as the entryway. High ceilings, with ornate plasterwork and opulent chandeliers, and walls lined with either dark wooden panels or floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A fireplace big enough to camp inside rests against the far side, and the largest desk I’ve ever seen sits in the very centre of a navy and burgundy floral rug. A cluster of leather Chesterfields is arranged in the nearest corner, looking like wildebeests huddled together for safety in the dead of night.
Even though it’s only about seven or seven thirty, it’s dark inside the office. Warwick stands at a large sash window, chatting on his phone. He turns in ourdirection as the door swings inwards and Lando and I squeeze through into his study.
“Hi, Dad,” Lando says as Warwick is mid-sentence, and okay, Lando’s father? Hot.
Like, what the fuck?
I had been picturing him as some grumpy old man with grey hair, and sure, I guess he still is those things. He’s mid-fifties with short salt and pepper hair pushed back off his face, but Jesus, fuck . . . he’s no Statler or Waldorf.
It makes total sense now that this man had fifty per cent input into the guy standing beside me.
