I look at him with a wry smile as I roll my eyes and silently mouth the wordwankerat him.
He ignores me and continues speaking. “And a baby on the way.”
“How lovely,” she gushes. “And you, Declan?”
My level of discomfort is through the fucking roof with that question. I need to shut this down and get out of here, quickly.
“Gosh, no! You know me, Audrey. I’ll leave all of that to Mason.”
Mason frowns at me, clearly disapproving of my dishonest response, but he still has my back. “Audrey, it’s been lovely to see you, but we have to get going or we’ll be late.”
“Of course.” She leans in and Mase lowers his cheek for her to kiss before she turns her attention back to me. “I’m glad you’re well, Declan, and please, don’t be a stranger.” Her voice carries an emotional wobble now, as she pulls me in for a hug I didn’t know I needed, but I did.
The burn in my jaw and stinging in my eyes confirms just how much I needed that hug.
“Take care, Audrey,” Mase tells her, already leading me to the exit while texting on his phone. “I’ll tell the girls to meet us outside.”
Anita
“What the fuck?” I have literally just walked out of the ladies and am greeted by Mase and Dec standing with an older lady who is kissing Dec. Not a snog kiss, but a very warm and familiar looking kiss on his cheek.
“Man whore,” Liv says, seeing what I am seeing. She’s joking. Her laugh confirms that, but for some reason, I’m not amused. Something about the interaction I am witnessing seems too friendly…intimate almost, not that I think she and Dec have been intimate.
Liv is staring at me, clearly confused by my reaction and behaviour.
“I was joking,” she says.
“I know.”
“He adores you and you may have achieved the impossible and tamed the man whore.”
With a shake of my head, refusing to fully accept that Dec is entirely tamed, I decide to diffuse the atmosphere I’m creating. “You might want to stop calling him that or in a few years you’ll have to endure him being called Uncle Man Whore by your daughter.”
“Ssh,” she hisses. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, so you need to lose the word daughter, niece, she and her from your vocabulary.”
I laugh at her now. “Why is it a secret again?”
“Not sure, but we decided we wanted to know but for it to be something nobody else knows…and it has been for the last couple of weeks.”
I don’t pretend to understand hers and Mase’s logic in this, but then, I don’t need to. Looking back over to the boys, I see they’re leaving, just as Liv receives a message.
“They’re waiting outside for us.”
I am even more suspicious about who this woman is. Who she is to Dec but walk aside Liv until we reach the boys outside. Mase and Dec turn together and almost in synchronicity they each put an arm around us.
“You okay?” Dec asks, leaning in to kiss the top of my head. “With how things went with your parents?” he adds.
“Kind of. It could have gone better, but it could have been worse I suppose.”
That is the truth of it really. I knew my dad wouldn’t be thrilled about me and Dec but hopefully, over time, he will see what I see. Suddenly, I feel less sure of things when I think back to the woman he and Mase were with in the restaurant, prompting me to broach the subject of her.
“Who was your friend?” I look between Dec and his brother as we walk towards the car park together.
“Friend?” Dec sounds nervous.
I look at Mase more closely and he looks shifty.
Liv laughs. “Unless you two are in the habit of locking lips with older ladies who take care of themselves.”
