Chapter 15
CHASTITY
While I meet the girls once a month for brunch, we also get together for a slap-up Sunday lunch. This one is usually a family affair with partners and children and whoever else might be around. I don’t think my friends really know how much I appreciate being involved. But family isn’t always blood, I feel. Unlike my own family, these people accept me for who I am, quirks and all. There’s no favouritism, no sniping, and no underhandedness. Just friendship and acceptance.
‘Where are the menfolk?’ Slipping my jacket from my shoulders, I take my seat at the long table at the back of The Drunken Duck, an old English pub that’s a firm favourite of my friends due to the outdoor play area. It keeps the children amused, especially on days like today. Though it’s chilly, spring seems to have sprung overnight. Or maybe that’s because I’m wearing rose-tinted orgasm glasses today.
I thoroughly recommend!
‘The rugby season is just around the corner,’ Ella says, looking up from the menu. I’ve no idea why she’s looking at it because she always orders the same thing.Roast beef and Yorkshire puddings with lashings of horseradish. Yum.‘Training started up this weekend,’ she adds.
Both Mac and Keir, along with their friend Will, play for the Dissenters, an amateur weekend rugby team, though they seem to take their commitment very seriously.
‘No Sadie today?’ Sadie is Will’s wife, and the pair are new parents to a beautiful baby boy.
‘They’ve gone to Scotland to visit that drafty old castle,’ Ella explains.
Will recently inherited his father’s Scottish lands and titles, making him Lord Travers and a peer of the realm. Not that you’d know it to speak with him. The man is irreverent above everything else.
I keep my disappointment to myself as Paisley slides me a pre-poured glass of fairly decent red. Sadie and Will are a lovely couple, but I was mostly looking forward to my Sunday lunch quota of heavenly newborn baby cuddles. I know my friends wouldn’t guess in a million years that spending time with them sometimes leaves me with an empty feeling for the next day or two. Itiswonderful to see Paisley and Keir so in love, and by extension, their friends, but it does make me all the more aware of what they have, and I don’t.Love. Partnerships. Children.
‘Here’s to the merry rugby widows,’ I say, holding my glass aloft. I’m not wishing ill on their men. The name is one my friends have coined themselves.
I turn and glance out of the French doors to where Ella’s son, Louis, and Sorcha, Paisley’s stepdaughter, are running around the play area, enjoying the unexpected sunshine. Meanwhile, little Juno, Ella’s toddler daughter, sleeps soundly in her stroller in the corner.
‘Isn’t it amazing how nothing keeps Juno awake,’ I ponder aloud.
‘Poor thing had to get used to it. Ours is hardly a quiet house, what with Louis and Mac and the dog running about. Boys are such noisy creatures. It’s just as well my girl can sleep on a washing line.’ Ella turns, smiling serenely at her sleeping child. ‘Still, let’s make the most of the quiet before the little monster awakes and spoils our wine time.’
‘She doesn’t spoil it. She enhances it,’ I say.
Ella snorts delicately. ‘She keeps the calories off my hips at least.’ Juno is at the age where she doesn’t seem to know that her bottom can be used for sitting on. ‘Although you seem to do the lion’s share of chasing her around the playground when we’re here.’
‘I like to pitch in,’ I respond.And I like to snatch my chubby baby cuddle time where I can, I admit silently as I take a sip of my wine.
‘Have you had a nice weekend?’ Paisley asks. I put my glass down on the table as I begin to cough.
‘Went down the wrong way,’ I say, thumbing my chest. ‘S-same as usual, I suppose. And yours?’ She doesn’t know about Flynn, does she? How could she? Unless he told. And if he told, someone’s about to get butt hurt.With my umbrella.
‘You didn’t see anyone... go out for dinner. Maybe sign up to any dating sites... ?’
‘You missed your calling. You should’ve been an archaeologist.’
‘Digging?Moi?’ She touches her chest lightly, faux offended.
‘Hey, what’s a yoni?’ Ella asks no one in particular, making me cough-choke my wine again.
‘Honey,’ Paisley begins, amused. ‘Do you want to ask that a little louder. I think some of the people standing at the bar didn’t hear you.’
‘Oh, God. I take it it’s something unpleasant.’
‘I wouldn’t be without mine.’ Paisley snorts. ‘I think the word is Hindi. For your bits.’ Brows raised, I lower my eyes to my lap. ‘You know?’
‘That was very circumspect coming from you, fast girl.’
‘Watch it, you,’ I respond, pointing a finger in Paisley’s direction. ‘Fast Girl is responsible for your pay check as well as mine.’
‘But where did that come from?’ Paisley asks, turning to Ella. ‘And how the hell do you not know?’
