Page 15 of Gold Digger
“I just don’t want her to…”
“You don’t want her cleaning?” Claire paused with her eyebrows raised. “Your cleaner. You don’t want her to actually clean.”
“I’m gonna go practise,” Florrie said, likely bored now with the lack of swearing.
“Don’t go upstairs, darling,” I called after her as she flounced out of the kitchen. Florrie was practising her TikTok dances. Doing weird dances for TikTok, obsessing over Taylor Swift and following fashion seemed to be the fuel that Florrie ran on.
Claire crossed her arms as she stared at me, and I pulled the washing-up gloves off to chuck them in the sink.
“I told Claire what happened at the club,” Vicky said.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Claire said dismissively. She was often dismissive of Vicky. “But by the way, Ollie – I do think you were a bit OTT. Pinning someone to a table. Honestly.”
“Those fucking morons are barred. I don’t care if Blake is mates with those dickheads. They were manhandling the waitress. Totally out of order.”
Claire sighed. “They’re not all bad. I mean, Giles is a piece of shit, and I’m not keen on that Will bloke, but the others are relatively harmless.”
Visions of thoseharmless guyspeering down Lottie’s top all night, deliberately crowding her, touching her, flooded my brain and I had to force the red haze back.
“Your husband has shit taste in friends. He’s lucky that he was too pissed to know what was going on by the time I came over there, or he’d be barred too.” Claire’s face lost colour, and she swallowed.
“Blake wasn’t…” she trailed off and closed her eyes slowly. When she opened them again, I could see real concern there. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “He didn’t do anything, did he?”
I frowned. “No, Claire. I would have told you.” She sagged in relief, and I had an uneasy feeling. “He didn’t stop the others, though.” Claire looked away for a moment and nodded. “And, I’m sorry, darling, but he was pretty shitfaced.”
“Yeah, I know,” she muttered.
“Claire, is everything okay?” My brother-in-law was a bit of an arrogant blighter, but I wasn’t really one to talk on that score. Otherwise, he was a decent bloke. Hewastotally shitfaced that night, though, and if I thought back to the last few times we’d got together, he’d been very on it drink-wise. He’d got through a full bottle at Sunday lunch at Mum’s a couple of weeks ago. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time. “If you want me to talk to Blake again, I can see if?—”
“What? No, no way. Blake wouldnottake that well. He already…”
She trailed off, and I blinked. “He already what?”
“Never mind,” she said in a fake bright tone.
“Blake has a problem with alcohol,” Vicky stated in that stark way she had of cutting right to the point. Claire shot her a dirty look.
My sisters had a tricky relationship. We’d met Vicky for the first time when I was twelve, Claire was thirteen and Vicky was six. Up until then we had no idea she even existed, seeing as she was the product of my dad’s affair. Then, one summer, this small blonde girl who didn’t speak a word was dropped off at Buckingham Manor, and Mum was expected to take care of her for the holidays. Apparently, due to Vicky’s problems, her own mother couldn’t cope with her all year round and Dad certainly wasn’t getting involved (he was barely home anyway by that stage). After that, Vicky spent every summer with us, much to Claire’s annoyance. She never forgave Dad. By the time he died suddenly of a heart attack five years ago, they were barely speaking. I’d always felt protective over Vicky. It wasn’t her faultthat her parents were shit, and I was her big brother. Claire simply tolerated her.
“Why don’t you keep your opinions to yourself, Vics,” Claire snapped then turned away from her towards me. “Well, Ollie. Everyone’s been saying you went totally Hulk on them. I was worried.”
“I feel that Ollie was justified in his actions,” Vicky said in her matter-of-fact way. “Although it was assault, Ollie, which could have resulted in a criminal record. The reason I brought it up is because the waitress was your cleaner. Correct?”
“What?” Claire’s eyebrows were in her hairline now. “Ollie that’s?—”
Her words cut off as the kitchen door opened, and we all turned to see Lottie shuffle through, carrying all her cleaning supplies.
“Fudge nuggets,” she muttered as a couple of the bottles in her basket fell out of the side. As she bent to retrieve them, the rest of the basket tilted. I shot across the kitchen to right it before the entire contents ended up on the floor. She was so shocked when I crouched down in front of her that there was no resistance as I took the basket out of her hands. Her brown eyes went wide as they locked with mine, and it was like all the air was sucked out of the room.
“Hello.”
Lottie broke eye contact at the sound of Vicky’s voice, and the spell was broken.
“Er… hi,” she squeaked, looking around me to see both Vicky and Claire.
“Hi there,” Claire said with a smile and a small wave. “You must be Lottie.”
Lottie nodded, then did a double-take when she saw Vicky. “Oh, I recognise…” she trailed off, and for some reason, her cheeks flushed red.
