Luca doubled over with laughter, gesturing to the chanting crowd. ‘The people have spoken.’
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Kristina standing behind me, shoulders back, surgically enhanced boobs forward. Her lips looked extra glossy. As though she’d just this second applied a fresh coat of lip gloss.
‘Jenny, they’re calling you,’ she said, fluttering her eyelashes at Luca.
‘Yes, thank you, Kristina, but there’s been some kind of a mix up. Excuse me—’ I barked at the bartender.
‘What’s the matter? Scared?’ The way Luca’s lips pressed together to keep from laughing made my teeth grind. As though he thought he’d already won. Well, we’d see about that. I grabbed Luca’s whiskey tumbler, downing the entire thing and trying not to wince as the neat amber liquid burnt my throat. I took a step towards him, my breathing heavy, my mouth mere inches from his ear. He smelt of old leather and the faint, salty undertone of sweat.
‘You should be the one who’s scared, you’ll be out of a job after this.’ I smirked, Luca’s whiskey propelling me towards the stage with a false sense of confidence. But when someone thrust a microphone into my hands, the heat of a spotlight landing on my face, my legs turned to jelly. I raised a hand against the glare, squinting through the sea of bodies towards the bar where Kristina was trying to show Luca how she could tie a bow in the stem of a cocktail cherry using only her tongue.
My heart was beating so loudly that I was certain the microphone would pick it up, broadcasting my anxiety for the whole room to hear. But then I spotted him. Leaning against one of the pillars, hair flopping all over the place as he grinned encouragingly from behind his glasses. I stared imploringly at Joe, wishing it was him up here instead of me. He was so much better at karaoke than I was. Joe gave a small shrug of his shoulders, as if he were agreeing with me.
Shania Twain’s ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ blasted from the speakers behind me, and I mumbled the opening lyrics into the microphone, my voice lost before it even reached the front row of the crowd, none of whom were paying any attention to who was on the stage. None except Luca, that is, who’d somehow escaped Kristina and fought his way through the throngs of people for a front-row seat to my public humiliation. I winced as the microphone let out a jarring, high-pitched noise and I saw Luca’s shoulders judder with silent laughter. But there’s something about hearing Shania Twain sing that iconic opening line that flips some sort of internal switch in every woman, and I suddenly felt like I could do anything. Climb a mountain. Smash through a brick wall. And most definitely wipe that stupid, smug smile off Luca Patel’s face.
As the beat kicked in, I turned so my back was to the audience, purposefully dropping one shoulder so my cardigan slid provocatively down my right arm before landing in a poolat my feet. A wolf whistle echoed throughout the room and by the time I turned back around, the crowd had swarmed closer, a hundred faces now fully invested in the show. I pulled the microphone free from the stand, strutting across the stage with a newfound confidence. I belted out the next verse, raising a game-on eyebrow at Luca as I whipped off my shot glass necklace and twirled it around in the air. The crowd cheered as I found my mark, Luca recoiling backwards before cocking his head with a grin, a silenttouchéof acknowledgement. I dropped to the floor, straddling the microphone stand like a prize thoroughbred as I paused, waiting for Luca’s eyes, which were currently somewhere around my thighs, to catch up with my face. He ruffled the back of his head, those dark eyes smouldering with something dangerous and electrifying when they sparked with mine. I grinned, the thrill of victory coursing through my veins at the look of utter disbelief on his face.
The crowd went wild as I jumped off the stage, Alyssa and the other hens fangirling like delirious teenagers at a Taylor Swift concert in the corner as I worked my way along the line, microphone lead trailing along behind me. Luca was the only one still seated; everyone else was on their feet, the floor vibrating with a hundred dancing revellers belting out Shania right along with me. I stopped in front of him, circling his chair slowly like a lioness stalking her prey. All the women around me hollered in solidarity, cheering me on as I planted a shoe on the seat of Luca’s chair, forcing his legs apart to avoid being impaled by my stiletto. His gaze lingered briefly on my ankle, lips parting as if he were playing the part of some man in a Jane Austen novel, before dragging his eyes up my bare leg, pausing for a second too long on the scooped neckline of my dress.Mr Darcy, my arse.He shifted in his seat as I continued to move my hips against the side of his chair, his visible discomfort like fuel to my already-raging fire. His chest heaved beneath my fingers as Itraced a slow, lazy pattern across the cotton of his t-shirt, his jaw jutting to one side in a hard lock.
‘I know what you’re doing. You might have won all these other people over—’ he gestured to the jeering crowd, his grip tightening resolutely on the arms of the chair, ‘—but it’s not going to work on me.’
I shrugged one shoulder in a way that said I knew otherwise, noticing his left heel bouncing to the rhythm of the beat. I whipped the microphone cable hard against the sticky floor with a sharp crack, but still Luca didn’t move. As I took half a step back, I watched that dimple appear in his hitched right cheek. The mark of someone who thought they’d won. The corner of my own mouth ticked as I lassoed the excess cable round my head, the roar of the crowd building to a crescendo as I landed the loop over Luca’s head, pulling it taut. For a beat, nothing happened. His jaw shifted to the other side, some silent negotiation passing between us as neither one of us backed down. But then he broke into a grin, holding his hands up in surrender and climbing to his feet. The crowd surged around us until there was nowhere else to go, our bodies forced together, the pressure of his hips against mine. It felt strange to feel another man’s body against my own, but I found myself leaning into it, a lightning bolt of electricity searing through me whereever we were touching. Right thigh. Hip bone. Left pinky finger as it grazed against the tear in his jeans. My boobs when someone jostled behind Luca and he stumbled even closer, my chest pressed hard against his. His hand found my wrist, twirling me around as I launched into the second verse.
‘I’ve gotta hand it to you, Thompson, you never fail to surprise me,’ he yelled in my ear, his breath hot and sticky against the nape of my neck. He threw his head back and laughed, hair in disarray, skin glistening with sweat. My stomach flipped traitorously. I hadn’t seen him smile like thatbefore. Warm and genuine, his eyes melting into two pools of sweet chocolate. There was something intoxicating about it. Something so strong it was hard to look away. To ignore the heat that had started swirling between my thighs. With only one way to go, I stepped back onto the safety of the stage as the final chorus kicked in.
My eyes scanned the dimly lit room, searching the shadows for Joe. But he was nowhere to be seen, the pillar he’d previously been leaning against now occupied by a drunk couple who looked like they were attempting to eat each other’s faces off. Something cold washed over me and the bubble in which Joe and I existed together popped, disappearing into the stale air of the bar, as though it had never even existed. I turned away sharply, but my heel snagged on a tangle of cable and the next thing I knew, I was hurtling face-first off the front of the stage.
11
I now understand why they call it a hangover. It felt like the darkest of clouds was hanging over my head, rain pounding down against my skull with no intention of stopping any time soon. You know you’re in a bad way when you feel like you might need sunglasses to open the fridge.How was it possible to be this thirsty after drinking so many liquids last night?My mouth was drier than the Sahara Desert, but making it to the kitchen required actual physical movement, and after the wave of nausea that hit me when I attempted to roll over, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
I was face-down in a sea of pillows, one side of my face roasting from the sun I could feel streaming in through the gap in the curtains, the way it always did whenever Joe didn’t shut them properly. Something scratchy was tickling the backs of my bare legs and I tugged at it, producing a grey woollen blanket that I’d never seen before. Somehow, I managed to lift my head up long enough to register the four-inch gap in the curtains through squinted eyes, before the room started spinning and I let my head fall fast and heavy into a pillow. I was never drinking again. Like, ever.
The sheets were worn and bobbled beneath my fingertips as they reached out towards Joe’s side of the bed. He always slept on the left. The side closest to the door, so that any hypothetical intruders would have togo through him first, as he put it. Justlike he always walked on the side of the pavement closest to the traffic and twisted his fingers through mine whenever we crossed a road. A sigh escaped my lips as my palm traced the familiar dip in the mattress, the memory foam still moulded to the contours of Joe’s body, refusing to forget. I opened one eye, wincing against the sunlight as I searched for Joe’s smiling face in the frame that lived on the bedside table. But there was no frame. No bedside table at all. Just a taped-shut cardboard box with a leather-bound notebook, a pencil in need of a good sharpen, and a full pint glass of water sat on top. It took all my energy to drag myself into a sitting position, my back flush against the bedframe as I waited for the room to stop spinning. I gulped giant mouthfuls of water, even though my brain told me to sip it, frowning suspiciously at the leather jacket hung from the bedpost. It wasn’t Joe’s, and yet something about it looked familiar. My brain, which currently felt like it was submerged underwater (or one too many shots of tequila), kicked into gear just long enough for me to register that I wasn’t in my tiny box room above the pub. I was in mine and Joe’s old bedroom. In our old flat. No, inLuca’sflat.Shit!
I scrabbled about on the bed, wrapping the scratchy grey blanket around myself like a protective shield.What the hell was I doing here?!Had I gotten confused on the way home, autopilot propelling me down the same streets I’d walked for years? And where was Luca? Oh my god, did we—? No. There’s absolutely no way. I mean, we couldn’t have. Right? My eyes fell reluctantly on the left-hand side of the bed, mildly mollified to see the duvet – which apparently, I’d slept on top of? – still tucked neatly down that side of the mattress. Two pillows stacked on top of one another, their cases smooth compared to those I’d pummelled into oblivion on my side, one of which had half of last night’s make-up smeared across the top. I turned it over, hoping Luca wouldn’t notice.
As I did so, I caught sight of my puzzled expression gawping back at me from a large mirror sat atop three other cardboard boxes. I was still wearing the black dress from last night, although it had ridden up, exposing my flesh-coloured control pants, which I was relieved to find still present and correct. Not that anyone could easily remove those bad boys, even if they wanted to. Myself included. My hair looked like I’d walked through a hurricane and been electrocuted all at once, sticking out at gravity-defying angles from all the hairspray Jacob had used. Coupled with the mascara-rimmed panda eyes and red lipstick smear travelling from my mouth to right cheekbone, it’s safe to say I’d looked better. A quick glance around the room produced no sign of my shoes, but I did spot my phone placed neatly on top of my bag on the floor by the bed. I reached for it, hopeful it might contain some clues as to how I’d ended up in Luca’s bed last night. But no amount of finger jabbing or button clicking would coax the black screen into life. The battery was as dead as I felt right now.
The familiar squeak of the shower turning on had my eyes darting towards the hallway. Steam was swirling underneath the bathroom door, a pile of discarded clothes on the floor outside. I recognised the black t-shirt Luca had been wearing last night. A pair of grey Calvin Kleins on top. The thought of still being here when Luca emerged from the shower was motivation enough to propel me out of bed, hugging my belongings to my chest as I tiptoed into the living room. The tension in my shoulders eased a fraction when I saw the back cushions of the sofa had been removed, a blanket flung back to reveal the dent in the middle where Luca must have slept. My eyes scanned the room, spotting one of my shoes underneath the dining table. I tried not to think too hard about how it got there, dropping to the floor and shimmying commando-style beneath the table to retrieve it.
‘Morning, sunshine.’
I jumped, bashing my head on the underside of the table.
Luca was stood in the doorway. Hair slicked back, steam billowing around him like one of those corny aftershave adverts. He was barefoot. Bare chested. Bare everything really, except for the impossibly small towel secured around his waist. God, it was hot in here. Must be the steam. I resisted the urge to fan my face with my hand.
‘Good morning,’ I said stiffly, rubbing the bump I could already feel forming beneath my bird’s-nest hair.
‘How are we feeling this fine day?’ His voice was doing that annoying singsong thing people do whenever they ask you a question they already know the answer to.
‘Fine. Great, actually,’ I lied, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much I was suffering. Luca chuckled, as though remembering something I was not privy to, the bare skin by his ribs brushing against my forearm as he slipped past. I snapped my arm back as though I’d been burned, biting the inside of my cheek as my elbow collided with the wall. Thankfully Luca didn’t notice; he was too busy pulling a bag of coffee down from the cupboard we used to keep the tinned goods in. My eyes roamed the space. Illegible scribblings on the backs of envelopes stuck to the fridge door. An unfamiliar green bottle of Fairy Liquid beside the sink. Apple, rather than the lemon version we used to buy. This was no longer my home.
‘So – last night,’ I prompted casually, hoping he would fill in the blanks for me.
‘Yeah.’ Luca breathed heavily, lifting his chin in apparent agreement at something I’d just said. Or not said? ‘If you’d have told me yesterday my night was going to end with Jenny Thompson in my bed, I’d have said you were crazy.’ He chuckled, pressing a button on his expensive-looking coffee machine so that it whirred into life.
I stared unblinking at his face, not allowing my eyes to slidedown his bare chest to where the towel was slung around thevof his hip bones, a neat line of dark hair guiding my gaze from his belly button down to the edge of the towel. Not that I wanted to look. It’s just that thing when you know you shouldn’t do something, and your brain automatically does it. Kind of like if I saiddon’t think about red busesand a hundred red double-deckers would pop into your head. Well, wet, half-naked Luca was my big red bus.
