‘Millennial wanker,’ I say.
‘Heads,’ says Melissa. She lets out a huff when it lands on tails.
‘So what’s it going to be?’ Tommy asks me.
It has to be something that won’t so much push her from her comfort zone as hurl her. Something cheap, cheerful, spontaneous – and that she’ll hate me for. Because where’s the fun in serving her something she’ll enjoy?
A smile spreads across my face. I’ve got it.
Ten minutes later and we are in the back room of an ill-furnished but hospitable karaoke bar in Northampton town centre. It’s three days after New Year’s Eve, and most people are hibernating at home or launching a dry January to pay for their alcoholic sins. Only a handful of punters are here, listening to a woman perform what has been, until this moment, a passable rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’.
‘I think the climax has eluded her,’ I whisper to Melissa.
‘Story of my life,’ she deadpans.
Two others are waiting to sing before it’s Melissa’s turn. I’ve never seen her down a pint so quickly. Dutch courage.
I’ve chosen karaoke for two reasons. One, I know how much she hates being the centre of attention, and two, she kind of scream-sings, and it’s bloody hilarious. Somehow, she can hit notes Mariah Carey could only dream of, only not necessarily on purpose or in the right order. To rub salt into the wound, I’ve chosen Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, a song with more key changes than a locksmith.
When she at last receives the call, she nervously makes her way to the stage and turns her back on us all. Even after the firstMama, I can hear Freddie Mercury’s moustache bristling as he turns in his grave. Excruciating, and delicious. When she finishes caterwauling some six minutes later, we can finally stop cringe-laughing and applaud. She hurries off stage and I high-five her. That’s why I love this girl. She has bigger balls than me.
But something’s off. She’s not glaring at me with as much loathing as I hoped for. After an uneasy beat, the reason for her suspiciously cheerful demeanour strikes me: she has something worse lined up for me.
This woman knows me inside and out: my loves, my longings, my likes and my loathings. And there’s a list of the last a mile long.
Perhaps these challenges weren’t such a great idea.
‘Come on then,’ I tell her. ‘Put me out of my misery.’
She smiles. ‘Aren’t you just dying to know?’
Chapter 2
Melissa
If looks could kill, Melissa knows she would already be carried away by the rolling waves lapping at the beach ahead of them.
She knows swimming in large bodies of water makes Damon anxious. In fact, he hates it almost as much as mayonnaise, eating meat from the bone and the crackling of static electricity.
After all the years they’ve spent together, there is very little she doesn’t know about him. Though he can swim, and barely tolerates pools, the mere suggestion of paddling about where his toes can’t touch the bottom is enough to bring his skin out in red-and-pinkish blotches.
Which is why Melissa has chosen the sea for his challenge.
Damon has employed an increasingly desperate array of excuses trying to wriggle out of it, but she has no intention of allowing him to do so. A deal is a deal.
She has, however, granted one concession she now sincerely regrets on this slate-grey February day: the only way she could get him this far was to agree to go in with him.
Melissa is the first to reach the shoreline of Brighton Beach. Having dispensed with her dressing gown and trainers a few metresback, she tiptoes across the pebbles in a plain black swimsuit. The first wave licks at her ankles – it’s exceptionally cold.Winter, she reminds herself.What’d you expect?At least, from behind, Damon can’t see her tightly pulled face.
She turns to find him still some distance from the waterline – stationary, arms firmly folded, a belligerent toddler protesting at bath time. Clamped to his skinny chest are two off-white towels they borrowed from the bathroom of their bed and breakfast. He’s wearing brightly coloured orange-and-white shorts he bought at H&M earlier today, because he ‘accidentally’ left his at home. This pair are comically large on him; the leg holes flap in the wind.
‘I look like a sodding traffic cone!’ he says, and she doesn’t disagree.
‘Come on,’ she says, and beckons him towards her. But it’s as if his feet are encased in solid concrete.
‘The sooner we do this,’ she says, ‘the sooner we can go back inside.’
‘I don’t want to!’ he yells. ‘It looks rough out there.’
