Page 78 of Something Borrowed

He bites his lip. “It’ll be okay.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugs. “I just do. I watch people.”

“That makes you sound like Sergeant Stalker.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“You’re more optimistic than Julie Andrews,” Joe says in an awed voice.

“Not really. Raff just needs to talk to Stan. Miscommunication is aterribleplot device in romance novels.”

I roll my eyes. “This isn’t a romance novel. It’s more like a horror story in twenty acts. Anyway, it’s not possible to talk to Stan. I’m on a vow of silence imposed by his beloved.”

He blinks. “Why?”

“Better ask Bennett. He’s displaying rather gorilla-ish tendencies at the moment. He just needs a tyre to swing on and a bigger chest to beat.”

“Ouch,” Joe mutters.

Artie taps his desk thoughtfully. “Maybe you’d better ask why that is.”

“The tyre?”

“No, the secrecy.”

I shake my head. “I have so many things to question that I could hostMastermind.”

Two hourslater I back through the door of Leo’s salon, hefting a cardboard box. “A little help, please. I don’t have the build for weightlifting.”

“You’re more of a snowflake than the white stuff that falls out of the sky,” Micky says, coming to my aid. “Jesus, what is in this? A dead body?”

“No, it’s gift-bag samples I just picked up for the office, but I admire how your mind went to that. Does this outfit look like a grave robber’s?”

He studies my purple checked suit. “Not really,” he says rather doubtfully. “But then the dead are probably the only ones who’d appreciate your fashion sense.”

“Lovely,” I huff.

We heft the box onto the reception desk, and I look around. “Where’s Leo?”

“They’re in the staffroom.”

“They? I thought I was just meeting Leo.”

He doesn’t answer, as a customer comes in behind me, so I make my way to the staffroom. I pause at the door at the sound of ominously familiar laughter.

I take a breath and throw the door open a little too hard. The bang it makes as it hits the wall covers the sound of all the breath leaving me as three people turn to face me. Leo and Richard are here, but my attention is all on Stan. He’s wearing old jeans, a thin green jumper, and black Converse hi-tops, and his face is full of lovely laughter.

“Fucking hell, Rafferty,” Leo says, jumping up. “If you’ve damaged that wall, you’re repairing it.”

Richard rolls his eyes. “I’m sure that’ll go swimmingly, darling. Do you remember the painting party at our house?”

“When he stepped in a tray of paint and tracked it all through the house?” Leo says.

Stan laughs, and I put my hands on my hips. “You should have been sued for false advertising. A party implies a social gathering full of laughter and joy, which is the furthest thing away from the salt mine air ofthatparticular shindig.”

“Don’t worry. It only took fifty thousand tins of paint remover to repair the damage, and we got a rug to cover up the bit that still bears your mark. Coffee?” Leo asks.

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