As soon as the rich, velvety liquid passed my lips, the pounding in my head dulled slightly. Enough for me to remember the blanket I’d woken beneath, the glass of water placed by the side of the bed, the Luca-shaped imprint on the sofa cushion where he must have slept last night. My face softened slightly as I watched him make himself a coffee in a pint glass. I don’t know what shocked me more. The fact he only owned one mug, or that he’d willingly given it to me.
‘Honestly, the lengths you went to to get in my bed, when all you had to do was ask,’ he teased, banging the used coffee grounds with excessive force into the drawer below.
And he was back again, the thoughtful, caring guy pushedaside as quickly as he’d appeared by the full-of-himself, condescending asshole who was intent on ruining my life. I opened my mouth to let him know I would rather stick pins in my eyes than voluntarily get into bed with him, but the sound of a key jiggling in the lock stopped me. We both froze, two deer caught in headlights, and I watched in horror as Luca’s girlfriend let herself into the flat. She was wearing a smart black pantsuit, her cropped cigarette trousers perfectly pressed, the collar of her shirt stiff against her neck. Her phone seemed to be surgically attached to one ear, her head pressed against her right shoulder to keep it in place as she started rifling through various cardboard boxes, oblivious to the two of us stood like statues in the kitchen.
‘I’m telling you, he’s not a credible witness. If I can just get him on the stand then he’ll tear his own alibi to pieces without me even having to say a word.’ Her heels clip-clopped against the wooden floorboards as she breezed around the living room, picking things up and putting them back down again with a sigh. One glance at Luca told me all I needed to know. His expression had shifted from smug and self-righteous to one of clear apprehension, the muscle in his jaw tensing as his gaze flitted back and forth between the two of us, while he no doubt tried to come up with a plausible explanation as to why he was wearing nothing but a towel in front of the woman who had slept in his bed last night. Judging by his panicked expression, he was coming up blank.
‘Where the bloody hell is that file? No, Tony, I have not lost it. I’ve just momentarily misplaced it through no fault of my own,’ she told whoever was on the other end of the line. ‘It’s here somewhere, I was looking over it the other night. I was sat right here on the sofa—’ she plopped herself down in the divot where Luca had been sleeping, cocking her head quizzically at the discarded cushions littering the floor, ‘—we’d opened a bottleof Rioja, my case files were on the coffee table, someone was at the door – oh yes, the pizza guy – I put the deposition down, andaha!’ She did a little victory jump as she bent down and wiggled an A4 cardboard file out from underneath the sofa.
Crash!
Praying for the ground to swallow me whole, I screwed my eyes shut, but not before I saw two sets of eyes land directly on me. No one was looking at the remnants of Luca’s only mug, which now lay in shattered pieces at my feet, my attempt to place it silently back on the counter having failed. Miserably.
‘Tony, I’ve got to go. Something’s just – come up.’ Luca’s girlfriend spoke quickly into her phone, her eyes never leaving my face as she ended the call. She looked confused. Definitely surprised. Maybe a little mad? God, I hope she wasn’t about to go allKill Billon my arse.
‘Jasmine, what the hell are you doing here?’ Luca asked, his tone accusatory. Impatient, almost. My mouth fell open at the sheer brazenness of it. A classic male power play. Turning the interrogation around on the woman before she could start asking the questions. If I wasn’t technically the ‘other woman’ in this scenario, I’d have called him out on his chauvinistic behaviour, but something told me it was probably best just to stay shtum.
‘I left this here the other night.’ Jasmine waved the file in the air, her head ping-ponging back and forth between Luca and me as if she was watching a tennis match.
‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ Luca insisted, holding up one hand whilst keeping a firm grip on his towel with the other.
‘No?’ Jasmine asked calmly, the weight of her stare landing on me to see if I had a different version of events.
‘Yeah, we’re just friends. Actually, we’re not friends. More like work colleagues. Acquaintances at best. I can’t stand him,’ I babbled. I was babbling. Luca’s eyeballs bulged and I pressedmy lips together to keep more word vomit from spewing out. Jasmine raised one eyebrow, shifting her weight onto her left hip, her French-manicured fingers drumming against her trousers.Shit.
‘You two look .?.?.cosy.Had a little sleepover, did we?’ Her cherry-red lips were parted in an expectant O, clearly wanting an answer.Double shit.
‘Luca slept on the sofa,’ I spluttered.
‘Thompson was pissed as a fart.’
‘I’d maybe had one too many tequilas,’ I corrected Luca.
‘She basically rugby-tackled her way in here .?.?.’
‘.?.?. not sure I’d put it quite like that.’
‘.?.?. and then immediately passed out on my bed,’ Luca ploughed on, throwing his one free hand up in the air.
I rolled my eyes at his description of events. The silence stretched on, the two of them appearing to have some sort of silent conversation that involved a lot of eyebrow-raising and loaded stares. The creaky floorboards gave away my discomfort as I shifted my weight from foot to foot, Jasmine’s gaze darting back to me. Her eyes narrowed.
‘Look, the last thing I want is to cause any problems in your relationship,’ I promised, my voice coming out a bit squeaky.
‘Ourrelationship?’ Jasmine frowned, somehow making the word sound dirty. How was it possible that I was making this worse? Were they one of those couples who didn’t like labels, or something? I smiled sweetly, my cheeks beginning to ache.
‘As much as it physically pains me to give Luca anything remotely resembling a compliment, he was the perfect gentleman last night.’
‘No need to sound so surprised,’ Luca grumbled, but I ignored him. I’d just spotted my other shoe out the corner of my eye. It was on one side in the hallway, as though someone – clearly me – had kicked it off upon entering the flat.
‘Anyway, as lovely as this has been, I should really get going,’ I said, grabbing my bag and left shoe from the counter and darting out from the kitchen before anyone could stop me.
‘Please don’t rush off on my account.’ I froze, turning to see Jasmine smiling warmly at me. In any other situation, I’d go so far as to call it friendly.Did she just wink at me?
‘Jas!’ Luca snapped. His tone a warning.
‘What?’ She laughed, flashing her pearly whites. Oh no, we’d progressed to deranged hysteria. I didn’t want to stick around to find out what came next. ‘Calm down, Luca, I’m not suggesting you should marry – Jenny, is it?’ I shrugged meekly when she turned to me for confirmation. ‘I’m just saying that the two of you look good together. Besides, you haven’t been able to shut up about her these past few weeks.’
Oh my god!My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, my fingers scrabbling to undo the fiddly little buckles on my shoes so I could escape this nightmare. Luca mumbled something incomprehensible, pinching the bridge of his nose. I’d noticed him do it a couple of times now. At work. When he was talking to me. Mostly when he was talking to me. I think it was a stress thing.
