“If you’re from Leicester,” I said, trying not to slur my words, “why don’t you sound like you come from Leicester?”
Sunny’s arm was around my shoulder. Mine was wrapped around his waist, my thumb hooked into his belt. We were, I confess, rather holding each other up, and weaving all over the road.
“Wossermarrerwiyu?” Sunny said, suddenly. “Got a cob on or summat?”
I stopped and stared at him, leaning backwards slightly, trying to bring his face into focus. Had my glasses come off again? I couldn’t seem to un-fuzzy his visage. He was a blotch of pale skin, luminous in the moonlight but featureless.
“How drunk are you?” I said. “You’re speaking in tongues.”
“Just proving my ‘Lestah’ credentials.”
“Golly. Is that how people speak up there? It’s like another language entirely.”
“Why do you think I worked so hard to get rid of it?” he said.
“But I don’t understand. I thought you were proud of where you come from?”
“I am, mate. But there’s terrible accent bias in this country. People hear a West Country accent and assume you’re a farmer. They hear a Glaswegian accent and assume you’re going to glass them. And if you sound like you come from anywhere north of Milton Keynes, they think you’re thick as shit. It’s a disgrace, actually. It’s part of the ingrained cultural bias and class inequality that robs ordinary people of opportunities.”
Somehow, we were back where we started at Maxime’s. I feared this could get messy. But how to de-escalate things? My brain was too foggy to think. My temple was throbbing where the bruise was coming in.
“I knew if I spoke like me mum, or the lads where I grew up, I’d never get taken seriously in this business,” Sunny continued. “So, I studied the BBC newsreaders and taught myself how to speak properly.”
A gust of wind blew across us, and I shivered. Sunny wrapped his arm more tightly around me. It was an instinct. I liked it. And I liked what it implied.
“You’re very passionate when you’re drunk,” I said. “And you’re very cute when you’re passionate.”
“Studies have proven it time and time again,” Sunny said.
“That you’re very cute when you’re passionate?” Which, on the spectrum of distant and professional to “I think you need a bit more lube,” definitely qualified as flirting. Strategy be damned. I just wanted to kiss him. Sunny was so pretty and so kind, and I just… wanted… tokiss… him.
“You think this is funny?”
“Wait, what?” I’d lost the thread. It was those blush-pink lips. The freckles. The way his nipples were sticking out of his shirt like fingerposts. They were all too distracting. This wasn’t going well. I was mentally scrambling around for a way to smooth things over when I tripped on a rock and stumbled. Sunny scooped me up, keeping me vertical with his surprisingly fast reaction time.
“Twice in one day. You’ve got to pick your feet up, mate.”
I thanked him and apologised. My mind swirled with memories of how kind Sunny had been today. He’d been a brick. The way he’d looked after me, fixed my glasses for me. I was still warm with the rush of being onstage together, having the whole pub singing along with us, dancing, and laughing and enjoying life. Sunny was amazing, and… I’d adored spending time with him like this. It felt right, having our arms around each other like this. I turned to look at Sunny properly, trying to bring him into focus. The moonlight caught the green of his eyes. He was still as unutterably beautiful as I thought him on that first day at PMQs. But he was also still on his soapbox.
“It’s all a stitch-up, mate. The Establishment has got it all stitched up.”
I searched for something to say but came up empty. Nonetheless, I was pretty sure “the Establishment” meant my lot, and I wondered if Sunny could ever get over this silly chip on his shoulder about coming from an estate.
“I’m sorry,” I said. It was all I had. How do you make amends for generations of inequity when, if you’re honest, you’ve never really given it much thought?
* * *
We arrived at the Otter’s Den. Sunny opened the door, and we fell into the house. It smelt like a truck carrying a load of eggs had crashed into the kitchen about three weeks earlier and no one had cleaned up the mess. We staggered our way through the maze of the building to our rooms. Sunny opened my door and helped me into the room, his arms sliding from around my waist as he lowered me onto the bed. I felt the loss of his touch, his retreating warmth. His amber-green eyes seemed to bore into me, and without knowing I had been going to do it, I grabbed his hand to pull him down onto me. Sunny pulled away.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. I was mortified. My heart sank. Embarrassment flooded my body. “We’re colleagues. And we’re drunk.”
“Sorry. I got a bit carried away.”
He nodded at the poster on the wall.
“It’s Jessica Simpson, isn’t it? She gets you going.”
“It’s the General Lee, actually.”
