‘Christ,’ Lucy laughed. ‘There’s enough naked selfies of me floating around cyberspace to break the Internet.’
Jade agreed and gave one of her raucous laughs that everyone loved her for.
‘Well, if you don’t do that then you sext, right?’ Shawna interrupted.
‘Sext?’
‘Yeah, send each other filthy text messages or talk dirty down the phone to each other? Tell him what you want to do to him when you see him?’
Jade shook her head.
‘What about sexy time on Skype? Or Facetime?’
‘Kevin doesn’t have either.’ Jade had suggested Skyping a couple of times, but he didn’t have a laptop or a smartphone. If she thought her finances were bad, it was nothing compared to Kevin and his little backwater town. It was one of the many things they had in common.
‘Did you say he lived in Australia or 1950?’ Shawna continued. ‘It’s not like you to let a man fob you off.’
‘I don’t need to see him moving around and gurning like a bloody idiot to know how I feel about him.’
Shawna and Lucy’s eyes met and simultaneously nodded.
‘It’s definitely love then,’ said Shawna. ‘Nothing gets past our Miss Jade Sewell, but if he’s as awesome as you say he is, you need to stop wasting time here and get out there and see him.’
‘Or you’ll end up like us,’ giggled Lucy, although Jade could sense something in her tone that resembled a warning. ‘Seriously, Jade, pet, we’ve got slim pickings to choose from here. Every day, another fit lad gets snapped up by his Match. Me and Shawna are like vultures left picking at the bones of what’s been left behind and, believe us, it isn’t canny. It really isn’t. If I had a chance to be with my Match, I’d be on the next plane out of here, not sitting on the floor eating lunch round the back of a service entrance of a hotel.’
‘Yeah, stop making excuses,’ Shawna added.
‘Girls like us don’t do that sort of thing,’ Jade said, taken aback by Lucy’s directness. ‘I can’t leave everything behind and go, just like that. And like I said, a flight to Australia costs an arm and a leg.’
‘How much do you have left on your credit card?’
‘Well, I just finished paying one off …’
‘What’s your card limit?’
‘A couple of grand, I think.’
‘Then whack your holiday on the plastic. What have you got to lose? You need to grow some balls, bonny lass.’
‘Don’t make me get my balls out and slap you round the face with them. It’s just not me to chase a lad round the world.’
Shawna and Lucy glared at her, both of them with their tattooed eyebrows raised as far as the Botox would allow. ‘It’s not chasing him, hunny. He’s already yours.’
‘I can’t,’ repeated Jade, then paused. ‘Can I?’
Chapter 9
NICK
‘I think we should do it,’ Sally muttered, as she lay on her back staring at the exposed beams holding up the bedroom ceiling, illuminated by the street lamp outside.
‘It usually takes you longer than that, but I’m not complaining,’ Nick replied, and he removed his head from between her legs and surfaced from beneath the duvet. His hand moved towards the bedside cabinet where she kept their toys.
‘Not “it” as in sex,’ Sally said, ‘I think we should do the Match Your DNA test.’
Nick manoeuvred himself back to his side of the bed. ‘Way to kill the moment, babe.’
‘Sorry.’
