‘Budge up and make space for two little ones,’ I say, already stepping over outstretched legs, heading for a spare chair. When I sit, I realise Heather is still standing at the edge of the crowd clutching her drink.
‘Babe.’ I hold out my hand as though upset she hasn’t followed, then pat my knee as though the idea has only just occurred to me, when in fact that’s why I’m here. I figure her being pissed off at me is better than being frozen with fear. ‘Come on. The cat’s out of the bag now. It’s no good pretending anymore that we’re not a thing.’
‘You guys are a thing?’ one of the women sitting to my left pipes up. She doesn’t appear to have followed the invitation unless she plumbed for the disco era in her attempt at retro. I’m pretty sure they call the type of dress she’s wearing a bodycon. It’s a total misnomer, by the way, because there’s nothing that dress could con. Everything is out on display.
‘Did you not just see them playing tonsil tennis?’ the bloke sitting next to her says.
‘Yeah, but they might just be hooking up.’ She brings the straw in her drink to her lips, shooting me a less than subtle wink.
Before I have a chance to let it be known my heart belongs elsewhere, Heather begins to climb over knees and outstretched legs, somehow catching her heel on the calf of the girl with the wink—who complains loudly—before she lands almost sprawled against me.
‘Aw, did you miss me?’ I purr.
‘Obviously, or I’d be sprawled across someone else.’
‘Funny. You’re so cute it kills me,’ I say, pecking a kiss to her nose.
‘Don’t make promises you have no intention of letting me keep,’ she murmurs as she turns, forcing me to squeeze her hip in warning. Which just makes me as hard as a pole again.
But it might not be her cute factor that eventually kills me as she seats herself across my thighs a little more respectably. Proper and acceptable for her, torturous for me as she begins to wiggle as she straightens her dress to safeguard the flashing of thigh. And it’s that sliver of thigh that her boss is fixated on.
‘Babe, look, there’s Haydn.’ At the sound of his name, his head whips up, his expression murderous.
‘Yes, Archer. So I see.’
‘Archer?’ the woman disco diva squeaks, our introduction scuppered. ‘I thought your name was Archie.’
‘That’s my middle name.’ I readjust Heather’s lovely arse a little farther away from my crotch when she frowns down at me, then wiggles back.
‘Archer Archie?’ the woman repeats, taking me seriously.Seriously?
‘Yep. Tell her, babe.’ I find myself nuzzling Heather’s neck, and I’m not a nuzzler, but if there was space in her dress for me, I’d be in it.
‘Pay no attention. He’s teasing you.’ Though I now know this sentence, this short collection of words, has taken some courage to birth into the world, those whisky and cigarette tones of hers hide any sign of insecurity. She has the kind of voice that would make her a Pied Piper of men and the enemy of women, judging by the look Double D is giving her. Double D, the disco diva. And yes, also Double D because of her tits.
‘What is his middle name, then?’ Hers is the kind of delivery that says Double D is a bit of a bitch; the queen of the clique. Take away her makeup and a few years and you can see her hanging around the park after school, still in her school uniform, the skirt rolled short, her gob like a washing machine as she chews a wad of gum. The kind that’s all defiance and bad attitude. I don’t know, maybe I’m judging her unfairly. Maybe she’s just a nice girl, and Mai Tai’s just make her mean. But what I do know is, I wouldn’t screw her with Haydn’s dick, no matter how hard she’s interested.
‘Middle names? We haven’t quite gotten that far yet, have we?’ As Heather slides her fingers through my hair and I find that I almost purr.
‘Oh. I get it. You’re not serious.’ Subtle she is not, though she manages not to clap her hands.
I wrap my arm around Heather’s tiny waist so she doesn’t fall from my knee as I lean forward.
‘Feel this here.’ I hold out my arm in front of Double D. ‘You know what they call this?’
‘I used to work Harrods, so I know what that is,’ she answers smugly, laying her hand on my sleeve. ‘It’s Givenchy.’
It’s actually Armani, but that’s not where I’m going with this.
‘This is prime boyfriend material,’ I reply, pulling my arm away and wrapping my arms around Heather’s waist. ‘And it’s all for this girl. We’ll get to middle names someday, right?’
‘If you’re a good boy.’ The way she’s looking at me makes me want to be areallygood boy. Or a bad boy. Hell, I’ll be exactly the kind of boy she wants me to be. ‘And you stop distracting me.’
‘Then you need to stop being so gorgeous. Joking—never stop being you.’
‘Aw, that’s so sweet,’ someone coos.Someone not Double D.
‘And I mean, it’s not as though I don’t know your family, right? Little Lavender and Primrose. Leif and Dan . . .’ Possibly.
