‘I wouldn’t touch his unfaithful penis with rubber gloves and a hazmat suit.’
‘Are there any hot neighbour dudes in Notting Hill?’ she asks, swirling the last of her coffee in her cup.
‘If there are, I haven’t seen any.’ I’d have to be looking to see. And I haven’t. Purposely.
‘I suppose you’ll just have to look forward to meeting theLust Islandcast up close and personal.’
‘Former cast,’ I correct. ‘And what’s this “me” business? You’re working that night, too. Aren’t you looking forward to meeting them?’
‘Nah.’ Her eyes return to her plate where she presses her forefinger to the edge, collecting breadcrumbs only to sprinkle them on the other side of the plate.
‘But you love that show.’
‘Yeah, but I’ve got uni coming up soon. Lot’s to concentrate on. I haven’t got time to be thinking about boys or men. Not in that sense.’
‘Is everything okay, Heth?’ She’s not normally so reticent.
‘Yeah, fine.’ One of her shoulders lifts, then falls, and she moves her attention to tracing the grain of the wooden tabletop. But she still won’t hold my gaze.
‘That guy you went to see in Acton that night.’ Hot neighbour dude night. The night she doesn’t know about. ‘Have you not seen him again?’ I try not to wince; I’m not sure what the booty call rule book would call these kinds of meetings.Hookups?
She huffs. ‘I didn’t stay.’
‘You didn’t stay where?’
‘That night. I didn’t stay.’
‘Heth, did something happen?’ My heartrate suddenly elevates. ‘It’s been weeks—why haven’t we had this conversation?’ Because I’m a bad human. A bad cousin. Because I’ve been full of my own tales of woe. I find myself repeating, only my voice is much higher than hers as my heartrate elevates. ‘I swear, if something happened, I’ll need those rubber gloves and the hazmat suit. Along with a pair of bolt cutters.
‘No. I just changed my mind, that’s all.’
‘And you never thought to say?’ I knew I shouldn’t have let her go. I should’ve said something to stop her and ignored her protests that she’s old enough to make her own decisions. I don’t think age has the monopoly on being hurt. ‘Heth, he didn’t...’ I find I can’t bring myself to finish the question. I shouldn’t have hung up on her so quickly—I should’ve checked in on her the next day. I just got so caught up packing before the cleaner arrived, and then the weekend came, and it was awful, and then work and then—
‘Nothing happened,’ she says quietly. ‘I just couldn’t go through with it.’
‘But he didn’t . . . He didn’t give you a hard time or anything, did he?’
A range of emotions flitter across her face. ‘No. Well, once it became clear he wasn’t going to be able to give me any kind ofhard, he gave up. Stopped.’
‘Stopped what?’
‘Stopped trying. Stopped caring. Went back to killing shit on his PlayStation.’
‘God, you should’ve called me,’ I say, reaching out and covering her hand with mine.
‘Why? You’d had just as much to drink as I had. You were just much more sensible. Besides, you were probably tucked up in bed, fast asleep. Or passed out on top of it.’ She shoots me a teasing smile.
‘I hadn’t had that much to drink.’ I was drunk on other things. ‘But yeah, I went to bed pretty soon after I got the cat back.’ I press my lips together because I’m not going to tell her I didn’t get into bed alone. But whether due to bad timing or the prospect of being a bad influence, I’m not sure.
‘I can’t believe you crawled in through a dog door.’
‘I didn’t.’ I got stuck. ‘Need to. I just grabbed him.’ Grabbed him. Rolled on top of him. Rode him. Oh, the fun that was had...
Obviously, not with the cat. Though I did have to chase one of the haughty voyeurs out of the bedroom at one point. It was a bit off-putting to be watched, especially by something that was so uninterested, it broke off watching halfway to clean its own bum hole.
I put a hand to my heating cheek as Heather carries on.
‘Well, you were definitely more sensible than me because I ended up spending almost my whole week’s wage on a taxi back home. And I had to give Danny twenty quid not to tell Mum I was home the next day.’
