“You seem to know a lot about my trips to IKEA. But yeah.” Priya shrugged. “This is fun. I love kids. I’m one of nature’s aunts.”
“I wish you were my aunt,” put in the little girl, whose new identity as a ghost shark who lives under your bed and will bite your hand off if it sticks out of the covers in the night was taking definite and disturbing shape. “My aunt’s Bethany, and she’s horrid.”
“Why’s she horrid?” asked Priya.
“She just is.”
Priya winced. “Oh, that’s the worst kind of horrid.”
“For the record,” I said, talking over a child like the classy motherfucker I was, “I’m feeling quite betrayed by this.”
“I’ll paint you next.”
Priya’s lack of time for my bullshit was the basis of our entire relationship, and, in theory, I appreciated it. “You’re supposed to be the person I complain about other people with. And I can’t do that if you’re enjoying yourself.”
The little girl had been glancing between us in a way that was making it somewhat difficult for Priya to fully realise her ghost-shark vision. “Is he your boyfriend?”
“Nope,” said Priya. “We’re both mega gay.”
“Okay,” said the little girl. “Can my ghost shark have blood on its teeth from all the little brothers it’s eaten?”
Priya gestured at her vast array of reds. “Way ahead of you, kiddo.”
“Betrayed,” I repeated.
“I don’t know what to say to you, Luc.” Without even sparing me a look, Priya started outlining the enormous teeth that would probably make an unsuspecting young boy piss himself later. “I got happy. Deal with it.”
Oh fuck, she had, hadn’t she?
“And,” she added belligerently, “in case you’ve forgotten, so did you.”
“But it didn’t make me a better person.”
“It hasn’t made me a better person either. I’ve always been fantastic, and I’ve always liked kids. You just never noticed because you’re profoundly selfish.”
“Hey,” I protested. “That’s…entirely fair.”
“Besides”—Priya was patron saint of kicking you when you were down—“you’re just freaking out because of tomorrow.”
I was not. “I am not.”
“What’s tomorrow?” asked the little girl.
Priya looked very, very serious—like the total dickhead I was pleased to realise she could still be. “Tomorrow, Luc and his boyfriend are doing something huge. Overwhelmingly huge. Life-changingly huge. Nothing will ever be the same again for them after tomorrow.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” I whimpered.
“That’s not what you said when you rang me last week. At three in the morning.”
“That was last week,” I told her. “This is now. Now I have a sense of perspective.” I took a deep breath. “And I’m fine.”
Chapter 2
I was not fine. I was the opposite of fine. I was cold, sweaty, nauseous, and, once again, phoning my friends at three in the morning.
Not Priya, though. This was not aCall me on my bullshitsituation. This was aLovingly pretend my bullshit is valuable fertiliser you need for your gardensituation.
“Hi,” said Bridge sleepily. “What’s wrong?”
