Page 102 of Short Stack 3

I sit up in bed. “Yourfather?”

He stares at me. “Yes. Surely, I have spoken to you of this.”

“No. Believe me, I’d have rememberedthatone.”

“Ah. Well, he shared some lovers with me.”

I blanch. “Together?”

He snorts. “Good grief, Laurie. Your mind is a veritable sewer. Not together. He took them as lovers after me.”

I vibrate slightly in my excitement. “Did he steal them away from you?”

He gives an aggrieved sigh. “Nothing so dramatic. That would imply that I wanted to keep them. You know my past, Laurie.”

“Ah, more ribbon wearers.”

He ignores that comment. It’s a talent he possesses that always amuses me — the way he sorts through people’s words and chooses the ones he wishes to reply to. “My father always set a time limit on his relationships.”

“Pot and kettle. How long was the limit?”

“Usually half an hour.” I start to laugh, and he smiles. “So, he doesn’t understand us. He cannot comprehend why I have settled with one person and will not look at another for the rest of my life.”

The casual way he says it makes me feel warm inside. “But he’s married.”

“Pah. For how long? Marriage is a hundred-metre sprint to him rather than a marathon. He has had four other wives.”

“Like a little Henry the Eighth.”

“The Tudor times would have been peaceful for my father. Their way of dealing with marital disharmony was a lot cheaper than his divorces.”

“I must say your stepmother doesn’t seem to fit with these wild tales of debauchery,” I say, thinking of her quiet demeanour, her headband, and demure string of pearls.

“Ah, you’d be surprised.”

“Dorothy is a wild thing?”

“I pray to God that you never find out, Laurie.”

Silence falls, and he turns another page, his face full of disgust at whatever he’s reading.

I stir. “Anyway, returning to my original statement, I like your glasses. They make you look almost intelligent.”

He looks at me over the top of them, and it’s sexier than it should be. “It is infinitely sad to me, in that case, thatyoudo not wear yours more often.”

I snort and wait until his attention returns to his book. Then I tap it hard and smirk as it falls onto his chest, making him curse. “What are you reading?”

“Another of your ridiculous choices.”

We visited our bookshop last week. Whenever we’re in London, we always pay it a visit for sentimental reasons that are fully understood between us. Equally understood is the fact that we’ll never speak about those reasons. We choose titles for each other, and it’s an endless delight to watch him plod through the books, his huge, clever brain racing like an expensive car engine.

He adjusts his glasses on his long nose again. “This mystery is trite and cliched, and the murderer’s identity is very apparent from the first page.”

“The first page, eh? You’re like my very own Miss Marple.”

He grimaces at the book. “I could swear you pick these books to vex me.”

“I like vexing you. It amuses me.”

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