“No, not yet,” I answered and Cas sniffed.
“Will we actually be invited?”
“Yes, you sensitive fucker, you’ll be invited.”
Damien snorted a laugh and Cas gave me a begrudging smile.
“You’d better hurry up oryou’regoing to be the one getting your head ripped off if you don’t stop dragging your feet.” Kal smirked.
“He’s not the one dragging his feet.” Damien knew me too well.
Kal shook his head, laughing.
“What?” I asked him.
“You’re getting married. It’s just blowing my mind.”
“Well, I’m not twenty three anymore.I’vegrown up.”
“You’re hurting my feelings,” he replied, feigning hurt.
“So focus on the game and stay out of my shit.”
Kal hadn’t changed much in the eighteen years that I’d known him. None of them really had. Not internally anyway. Externally, we were all richer with better business connections but internally, they still just wanted to fuck and party. Like me, they were all haunted by ghosts of their own. I suppose it was easier not to think with a woman in your lap and a drink in your hand.
“Have you told your mother about your engagement yet?” Eli asked. The table went silent.
I paused. “Fuck all of you.”
They burst out laughing and we finished the night without any further mention of Lola, our engagement, or my mother.
One
Something was wrong.
I reached out a hand, searching my single bed for the man who should be kissing me as I woke. I was alone. No Alfie.
I groaned and forced myself to sit up, my eyes still half-sealed with sleep.
I could smell someone cooking. I sniffed the air and…wait…not cooking…something was burning. The smoke alarm went off and I flung myself out of bed. I opened my bedroom door, hopping over the half-packed boxes in the hallway. The smoke got thicker, stinging my eyes. My ears rung from the high shrill of the alarm.
I found Alfie in the kitchen holding a pan of what might once have been sausages but now resembled charcoal.
“What are you doing?” I coughed, opening a window.
I grabbed the sweeping brush and used it to switch off the alarm on the ceiling. I noticed then the mass of breakfast ingredients thrown around the tiny kitchenette.
“You’re making breakfast? I’ve got to be at work in an hour.” I took the pan out of his hands and scraped the contents into the bin. Luckily my frying pan didn’t seem too worse for wear.
“I called in for you, told them to let Imani know you’d be late.”
I stilled, frying pan in hand. “You didn’t think to run that by me first?”
“No.”
Of course. Why on earth would he need to ask me first? I stared at him, waiting for it
to click. He seemed more interested in looking at my body. I flushed, realising I didn’t have a stitch of clothing on.
