“He’s a bigger manwhore than you ever were.” She sat back and seemed to swallow a burp. “I don’t think I can eat anymore.”
“That’s probably a good thing, seeing as you’ve just devoured everything they’ve prepped for the next two days.”
“You’re not meant to say things like that to your pregnant sister.”
Her eyes were on my noodles. I moved them closer to me. I knew Payton and I knew she wasn’t beyond making a grab for them from across the table.
“You’re not meant to eat like a caveman after a hunt! Anyway, about Shay.”
She eyed me this time, instead of my noodles.
“What about Shay? Maven told me he was looking for his own place.” She sipped her water a little more politely this time.
I shrugged. “He isn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Shay’s doing one of four things: he’s at work; he’s at the gym; he’s in a bar partying or he’s with a woman. Or two.”
“You sound like this wasn’t exactly the same thing you’d been doing up until you had this huge personality change which no one can get their heads around. Don’t be Judgy McJudgy Face.”
I looked to the ceiling and asked whoever was on duty to grant Owen a sainthood. His very being meant that we didn’t have to put up with Payton for most of the time.
“I’m not.” I really wasn’t. I’d lived Shay’s current lifestyle and found it very satisfying. Until it wasn’t.
“Do you have a single friend we can set him up with?” I’d been thinking about this. If Shay was to start seeing someone, his nights out might cease ending with either me carrying him home or having a parade of randomers walking into the kitchen looking for sustenance to support a second – or fourth, as Shay would argue – round.
Payton’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting that I sacrifice one of my friendships to the god of one-night stands?”
I twisted my mouth to one side and thought. She had a point. I’d tended to be a serial dater, apart from one patch when one-night stands – often not even a night – were my candy.
“It might occupy him for longer than a night.”
She shook her head. “Shay doesn’t do longer than a night. And I’m not feeding him anyone I know. I can’t take that responsibility. I was in a restaurant a few days ago; when I went to the bathroom there was a woman sobbing in there and he was the cause. Apparently she thought she’d met her Prince Charming – the best lay she’d ever had – and he never called back.”
“How did you know it was him?”
“Because the idiot gave her his name. She’d already stalked him across social media from what she was saying.”
I wanted to suggest that maybe someone had pretended to be Shay, but I knew that would be bullshit.
“I think he’s slept with half of London and he’s only been here six months.” My noodles weren’t tasting that good anymore.
Payton raised one single eyebrow, a freaky thing that only she and our mother could do. Ava and I had missed out on that gene.
“I think half is an exaggeration. He’s at work most of the time and before you say it, I’m not thinking about what he does on his breaks. But,” she leaned over the table and took my noodles. “I’m interested as to why you think Shay’s lifestyle’s an issue. Especially given that this was you for many months.”
I looked at the door and then through the window. Anywhere but Payton’s eyes.
“I like to know who’ll be in my kitchen in the morning before I go to bed.”
She snorted. “I would’ve thought you’d have been loving having someone to go to bars with. After Callum got with Wren you were all lost soul-like, even though he was hardly ever in the country anyway. We all figured that having Shay would be good.” She paused. “For you.”
“So I didn’t move back in with anyone?”
Payton shrugged and picked up her half eaten gyoza. “Yeah. We’d have all had you back in our spare rooms, you know that, but…”
“It was time I grew up.”
