“How very Scarlett O’Hara of you.”
“Is she one of your colleagues? I’m sure I’ve seen her on the telly with a flak jacket on.” He laughs at the look I send him. “Relax. I read it when I was a teenager.”
“Aren’t you still that?” I ask just to get a glare. He immediately obliges, and I stare at him. “You’ve readGone with the Wind? EvenIhaven’t read that.”
He smirks. “I forced my way into your room, disabled the smoke alarm, set up a dry ice machine, andthisis what you choose to be astonished about? I like reading, and when our small local library ran out of murder mysteries for me, I found other books.”
I bite my lip, confounded and not knowing why. He has a way of breaking free of any box I put him in. “Really?” I finally say.
He snorts. “Yes. Scarlett was pretty cool. I liked her.”
“I bet you did. You’re kindred souls.”
He snorts. “Anyway, then I got a Kindle and branched out. You should see some of the shit I’ve got on there now.”
“No, thank you. It might send me grey.”
“Grey-er.” I glare at him, and he laughs. “I like reading. Why is that so astonishing?”
“You don’t seem like you do.” I pause because, actually, he reallydoesseem like he reads. His conversation is peppered with literary references if you know how to listen for them. They’re just usually covered by a boatload of snark.
“Well, you know me. I’m an enigma to many.”
“You’re a shit-stirring pisstaker.”
“Thank you. That’s the nicest thing anyone haseversaid to me. You should write the verses on cards.” He grimaces. “I think it’s probably best you don’t, though. They’d be full of doom and gloom.” He pauses and adds in a dramatically doomed voice, “Happy Birthday, Karen. Make the most of it because it could be your last.”
I start to laugh, but stop when he reaches into another bag and pulls out two sets of Bose headphones. “I half-inched Jez’s card details and bought these. Thank you for this stupendous gift, Father,” he proclaims piously, clutching them to his chest. He winks at me. “I’m totally keeping them afterwards. Please don’t judge me.”
“I’m trying not to, but the shorts are making it difficult.”
“Shut up. It’s harder work to cut denim with a steak knife than you’d think.” He turns and wiggles his arse. “How about the back view of them?”
I swallow. The cut is uneven and shows the lower part of one globe of his arse. The skin is golden and fuzzy like a peach. “Yeah,” I say honestly. “That hasdefinitelyimproved my opinion.”
“This must be what winning an Oscar feels like.”
I snort, and he takes that moment to lower the headphones over my ears. He sets up his own and then presses a button on his phone.
Instantly, ‘Insomnia’ by Faithless pounds out. I stare at him and lift the headphones off my ears.
“Is that the right choice of music?” he asks in an earnest manner that immediately makes me want to laugh. “I researched pre-Jurassic music on Spotify.”
“You aresucha little shit,” I say, giving up and starting to laugh. He moves away and extracts some bottles from another bag. I look and then look again. “Oh, my god. Is that a Coral?”
“Well, I want to say yes, but actually no. The company went out of business in the early nineties, apparently.”
“Probably because they packaged their hideously expensive alcoholic drinks to look like they were children’s pop.”
He shrugs. “You might have a point. My grandma once bought me a bottle when I was six and told me to amuse myself in a pub garden. I don’t think an alcoholic coma was the vibe she was going for. When they came back, I was prostrate over the see-saw singing about goblins.”
I laugh, and he winks at me. “I did research, and the barman made up something approaching the original drink. I just drew the label.”
I can’t believe he did all this research and went to this much trouble … for me. The feeling warms a spot in me that’s been cold for a very long time.
After unscrewing the top of the bottles, he hands one to me and taps his own. “Bottoms up,” he says and throws it back. I watch him and then do the same, hissing as the burn fills my chest.
“Wow,” he croaks. “Good stuff, eh? Did you all want to be embalmed while still alive in the nineties?”
