When I slapped my hand on the table to punctuate my sentence, I was out of breath, my chest heaving, and two red spots had appeared in Joe’s cheeks. Weboth stared at the powder-puff pink book in the middle of the table, the recessed lights in the restaurant ceiling making the silver foil title shimmer.
Butterflies.
‘Excuse me.’
A panic-stricken waiter stood before us, two full-to-the-brim liqueur glasses in his hands.
‘These are from the manager,’ he said as he placed one in front of me and one in front of Joe, never spilling a drop. ‘It’s an Irish cream liqueur.’
‘Thanks,’ Joe replied with a flash of his winning smile. ‘You can give me both, she doesn’t drink in the day.’
Without a word, I swiped both glasses, downing one and then the other.
‘I’ll have another,’ I said, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth as Joe watched on in silent shock. ‘And so will he.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘They don’t have “Since U Been Gone” but they do have “Before He Cheats”,’ Joe yelled over the tinny karaoke backing track of ‘Tainted Love’. ‘Or we could do Britney, they’ve got all of Britney.’
‘It’s “Love Is a Battleground” next,’ I shouted back, squinting at the blurred screen suspended from the ceiling and jabbing at a sticky remote control. ‘Then it says “My Humps” by The Black Eyed Peas?’
‘My speciality,’ he replied with a shallow bow. ‘Trust me.’
As the first few bars of the Pat Benatar classic filled the tiny, red-walled room, I tried to remember the exact chain of events that led to me being locked in a karaoke booth somewhere in King’s Cross with a man I wouldn’t have spat on if he was on fire two hours earlier. First there was Baileys, a lot of Baileys, which I wouldn’t have thought of as a good summer drink but, it turned out, if you put enough ice in it, Baileys is good any time of year. Joe apologised for being an arsehole andinsisted he didn’t mean what he’d said, which I didn’t really buy, but by the time the third Baileys hit, it didn’t seem to matter as much. Then the restaurant told us they were closing to prep for dinner and Joe suggested we move to a pub near St Pancras but an unexpected singalong to Beyoncé on the way there saw him divert our black cab to his favourite karaoke bar, and now I was standing barefoot on a built-in zebra-print banquette holding a microphone they’d have to prise out of my cold dead hand, there was an almost empty bottle of overpriced prosecco on the table and another one on its way. I was hot, sweaty and ecstatic, and I couldn’t stop staring at Joe Walsh.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked as I clambered down from the sofa and tipped the remains of my drink down my throat. ‘You missed your cue.’
‘Hot,’ I muttered, rolling the glass over my face. ‘It’s hot in here.’
‘It is but you are also dressed like you’re on your way to mass,’ Joe said, refilling my glass. ‘It’s summer, woman. I know that doesn’t always mean much in London but have you not noticed the heat wave?’
I pulled at the high collar of my dress, rivulets of sweat snaking down my chest and seeking refuge inside my bra.
‘You try dressing for a meeting in London, a three-hour train ride and a visit with your parents when you will literally set on fire if the sun touches your skin and see what kind of outfit you come up with.’
‘What meeting?’
The soft edges of my mind moved more slowly than usual, flickering gently instead of clicking away with rapid-fire responses.
‘Lunch,’ I amended. ‘I meant lunch.’
‘Right,’ he replied, pushing his own damp hair away from his face. ‘Lunch. With Malcolm.’
‘That’s right. Busy day. And I still have to get the train to Chesterfield then a taxi to my parents’ house because my sister could come and get me but it’s too much effort so she won’t and Mum and Dad will be busy organising the party and god knows what everyone else will be doing but well, yes, busy day.’
I was rambling, desperately trying to keep the conversation moving without really saying anything. Just because we’d sung a duet of ‘I’ve Got You Babe’ didn’t mean I was about to spill my deepest, darkest secrets to this man. Joe might not be as terrible a human as I initially suspected but I trusted him about as far as I could throw him and, since he was at least a foot taller and many solid muscular pounds heavier than me, that was not very far at all.
‘To be honest, I’m not really looking forward to it,’ I added, in case it wasn’t clear.
The door creaked open and before the server could even step inside, I leapt down from the bench, grabbed the open bottle of prosecco out of the little silver bucket and filled my glass. The door closed quickly. ‘Family, you know. Can be tricky. Tricky tricky tricky.’
‘I hear that.’
He held out his glass and I poured until sparkling wine spilled over the top and trickled down his hand. He brought his fingers to his lips, catching my eye as he licked it off.
‘My parents are divorced,’ Joe said. ‘Mum’s in Scotland, Dad’s down here. Twice the stress, double the visiting, half the fun.’
‘Scotland’s nice though,’ I replied in a high-pitched voice. Joe’s face changed completely when he wasn’t smiling. His bottom lip was the tiniest bit fuller than the top giving him a perma-pout, and the two little lines between his eyebrows, slightly closer to the left than the right, gave the impression he was always deep in thought. I only hoped he wasn’t thinking the same things I was or else I could be in real trouble.
