“I love you, mate,” Jumaane said, “but you’re a bloody bellend.”
Dav topped up my champagne. “Is there areasonyou haven’t called?”
“He doesn’t have a mobile phone.”
The boys groaned again.
“But he doeshavea phone,” Sunny said. “And an email. And probably a pigeon loft. I mean, it seems like the kind of gaff that has one.”
“Oh, sod off,” I said, draining my glass.
I went to top it up, but Dav plucked the bottle from my hand.
“Do you want to fix things with him?”
“Of course I do,” I said quietly. “But it’s such a mess. I’ve fucked everything up.”
“You can’t avoid him forever,” Nick said. “Sunny and Ludo are literally getting married at your boyfriend’s house in a few weeks’ time.”
My stomach hollowed. I’d forgotten about the wedding.
“Plus,” Jumaane said, “Stav has already planned a full year’s worth of country house weekend getaways.”
Stav nodded. “Done the menus, selected the wines, bought the tweed.”
“They won’t be anywhere near as fun without you,” Jumaane said.
“But to be clear,” Sunny added, “wewillstill go without you.”
I looked around the table at my friends, a lump in my throat. “You’d really come and visit?”
Jumaane rolled his eyes. “You can’t get rid of us by moving to a party house in the sticks.”
“That’s the opposite of how you get rid of us,” Sunny said.
“Although it is how you get rid of me,” Nick added. “Unless this five-hundred-year-old house has a lift?”
On the stage, Sandy Crotch switched to Judy Garland’s “The Man That Got Away.” This medley was starting to feel personal. I had to get out of here. I needed to stop talking about William, thinking about him. He hadn’t called. He was clearly still furious with me. I’d ruined everything.
“I want to go dancing,” I announced to the table.
Stav shook his head. “I don’t think they’ll let you into Hades in the state you’re in.”
Was he an idiot? “Why would we go to that crèche? We’ll go to Vauxhall, like we always do.”
Sunny frowned. “You want to go to a sex club?”
“The sex isn’t compulsory, Sunshine,” I said. “You can go there to dance, you know.”
Stav knocked back his red wine. “I’m no Sigmund Freud, but that seems like super self-destructive behaviour.”
We bickered about where to go next until Sandy reached theCabaretpart of her medley. She was singing “Maybe This Time” when Sunny asked for the bill. By the time we dragged Ludo away from the stage, she was closing with “Cabaret” itself, and the gays were screaming their approval.
“Where are we headed?” Ludo asked as we stepped out into the fresh air of Old Compton Street.
“Vauxhall,” I replied. “And I don’t want to leave until Sunday.”
Chapter 54
