“Then go get him.”
Mum made it sound sosimple. Sell Buckford and move to London? Build a life there together? Could I really do it? And could I really be the one to end five hundred years of history?
I sat up. “I need to think.”
“And shower, darling. Before you do anything. Please shower.”
Chapter 53
Petey
By midnight, Miss Timmy’s was absolutely heaving. From the stage, Sandy Crotch, the venue’s resident drag queen, was delighting the crowd of drunken homosexuals with a medley of Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli tunes. Ludo had bolted for the edge of the stage the second Sandy started belting out Judy’s “Get Happy,” and the rest of us were working our way through our seventh bottle of champagne.
“To be clear, because I’m well confused,” Jumaane said, “have you actually broken up with Baron Fuckboy?”
I shook my head. Then nodded. Then shook my head again.
“That’s really cleared that up.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “But… maybe? We fought?—”
“And then instead of staying to talk it through like an adult, you did a runner?”
When he said it like that, I felt like an idiot. “Yeah, but… you should have seen his face. He reallyhatedme.”
Stav swirled his red wine around in his glass.
“But what did he actually say to you?”
“He said he was disappointed in me.”
“On account of you violating the privacy of several hundred people by secretly filming them?”
“Well, don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?” Stav sipped his wine.
“Like a lawyer.”
“I am a lawyer.”
“Yes, but it’s not like I really did anything wrong.”
“Unless you count Article Eight of the Human Rights Act 1998,” Stav said. “And the multiple potential GDPR violations, the possible defamation suits and intellectual property issues, and if you wanked to any of the footage, the voyeurism charges under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.”
I looked at him, appalled. “I’msoglad you’re here.”
Sandy’s medley switched to Liza Minnelli’s “Losing My Mind.”
“Well, what did he say when you spoke to him afterwards?” Sunny asked.
I slumped back against the banquette, my head lolling from side to side.
“You have spoken to him, right?”
I couldn’t make eye contact with him.
The boys all groaned.
