Alex sat back down, sinking into the cushions like a rock.
‘Are you okay?’ she whispered, and he nodded, though she could see a vein pulsing in his neck.
‘I’m going to speak to the manager,’ still barking, Richie charged away, ‘this is unacceptable!’
‘Wow,’ said Ellie slowly, looking around the suddenly glum faces of the cast and crew. She had to break the tension. ‘Security really is lax here, isn’t it? They just let in any old riff-raff!’ Alex was still raging by the flex of the muscle in his jaw, so she touched his arm gently until he finally looked at her. ‘How about a drinking game? Take a sip every time security lets in a random person? Too soon? How about when someone says five stars, or quotes from a review. And…’ She paused to think, glad that the previous tension in Alex seemed to be slowly melting away. ‘Down your drink if Richie gives me the stink-eye!’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Alex, following her pointed gaze to Richie, who even while he was yelling at a frazzled-lookingmanageress took a moment to cast one last dirty look in Ellie’s direction.
‘Oh,’ Alex said, with an apologetic look, and Ellie clinked her flute with his.
‘Bottoms up. Fannie’s your aunt!’
Alex appeared confused for a moment, before throwing back his head with a deliciously wicked laugh. ‘If you say so!’ He downed the flute in one go and reached for the bottle to fill them again.
‘Five stars from theGuardian!’ shouted the blonde.
‘Five stars from theStage!’ cheered Isaac.
Oh God, what had she done? The hangover tomorrow was going to be brutal.
Chapter Four
‘Who’s the stray sleeping in the lounge?’ Mark walked into the kitchen and sat down at the breakfast table with a thud.
Ellie winced as her mum’s head snapped up from her entertainment rag like a bloodhound catching a scent. Her nanna shifted closer to Mark and whispered with barely contained excitement, ‘It’s not Hannah?’
‘She’d have missed her flight if it was,’ her brother said.
Her mum and nanna exchanged shocked looks, and then stared at Ellie expectantly.
It was too early for this.
The soft light from the kitchen balcony was far too bright. Her head was pounding and her mouth was as dry as the Sahara. She could hear a siren in the distance. Hackney was already abuzz with activity. Hangovers were definitely worse after you turned thirty.
She’d hoped to get away with Alex staying over – her family never sat in the lounge on a Saturday morning, as it was their busiest day and they were always up and out early, either to open the shop or to run their errands.
‘A friend,’ she mumbled, not daring to look at them as she prepared tea and toast in her pink dressing gown and fluffy bunny slippers. She’d wanted to grab a tea and slink back to shower and dress before checking on Alex.
‘He looks familiar,’ said Mark.
‘He?’ gasped her astonished mum, and Nanna clutched the waxed tablecloth.
Ellie’s teeth clenched. ‘You won’t know him. Is he up?’ She’d half expected him to have been gone already.
‘Sleeping like a baby. A big one.’
The mugs clattered together in the cupboard as she tried to prise her favourite one from the pile. She winced at the horrible sound they made. Every day was like playing Jenga with the crockery, especially now all her stuff was mixed up with her family’s.
‘Is he one of Hannah’s friends?’ asked Mark, still puzzling over the conundrum of his sister managing to bring a man home with her.
‘No,’ she snapped.Why the sudden interest?Mark usually didn’t give a toss about her personal life. ‘As I said, you won’t know him.’
‘Then how do you know him?’
‘I met him last night.’
Her family stared at her in shock.
