Page 13 of Just Say Christmas
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Now,he walked into a room that smelled of paint and contemplated a man and a woman, whom he’d have most decidedly said werenota couple, getting naked while his bride-to-be painted a fairy flying over a red-and-white mushroom and ignored them.
She put down her brush and turned to him, and the smile spread all the way over her face, which had a streak of green paint on it. “Hi,” she said. “Good day?”
“Oh, yeh.” He lifted her in his arms, the same way he had on that other night, twirled her around—carefully—felt the press of her hard little five-months belly against him and got the frankly possessive thrill that always gave him, kissed her mouth, and said, “Went shopping for my bride. Call it a new experience. How’s the bub? All right with the paint?”
“Fine. On both counts.” She rubbed her cheek over his, probably transferring paint, and said, “Did I ever tell you that I love the way you smell?”
“You can’t possibly smell me. Too much paint. My life is paint.”
“True. But I canwantto smell you.”
“Sorry,” Victoria said. “I’ll just . . . I’ll . . .” She was looking self-conscious now, as a woman in a bra might tend to do, and pulling on the shirt that Tom had handed her. So he was still half-naked, and she wasn’t.
“Instagram,” Marko said, stepping back with reluctance. “I wonder why. Surely not.”
“I was just saying,” Victoria said, looking flustered, almost hunted, “that neither Nyree nor I do the social media thing much—although you should, Nyree. You should put your paintings on there, at least. Brand awareness, eh. Social media matters, I hear.”
“Maybe,” Nyree said. “Hard, though. Feels like exposing too much skin, or maybe scraping off a layer of it, putting my work out there to be judged and commented on by everybody and her uncle, telling me I’m shallow and decorative. Ugh.”
“Ella could set it up for you,” Tom said. “She’s brilliant at all that. And could be they’d tell you they loved your work. You could always delete the other comments, if they were too bad.”
“That makes me wonder,” Nyree said, “why you don’t post photos yourself. Why not?”
Marko wondered why they were discussing this. Hopefully not because somebody was going to broadcast his stag weekend. It wasn’t going to be that exciting. Why would anybody care?
“Because,” Tom said, then glanced at Marko and visibly hardened up. “With Ella. Not a good look.”
“What, why?” Victoria asked.
“Because of her age,” Nyree guessed. “Tom, that’s sweet. Or was it the team’s idea?”
“The team?” he said. “No. Of course not.”
“What, you can’t put up photos of the two of you because of her age?” Victoria asked. “I thought she was eighteen. She was sixteen when she fell pregnant, wasn’t she?”
“Yeh,” Tom said.
“So why would that be a problem?” Victoria asked. “The age of consent for sex is sixteen, for girlsandboys. I’m a prosecutor. You could say I’m familiar with all the permutations of that. Unless you’re much older, there’s zero issue, and even that isn’t illegal. Not like you were her teacher. You weren’t even the father.”
Tom looked uncomfortable, as well he might. Victoria might be a brilliant prosecutor, but she’d never make her living at PR, and the Diplomatic Service wasn’t going to be ringing her up, either. “I’m twenty-one in a couple weeks,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s not legal, being with her. I’m saying I don’t want anybody thinking it’s dodgy, or mentioning the pregnancy bit. She’s a schoolgirl.”
“Like I said,” Victoria said. “Age of consent. You’re all good.”
Tom said, “Never mind. I’m off. See you at your place in an hour or two,” he told Marko, and left.
Marko wondered a few things. He wondered why Victoria had been standing there in her bra, and why Kane was in the other room, covered in paint. He’d heard things had ended badly between them. From Nyree, because neither of them had said anything to him, no surprise. He also wondered whether there were going to be dramas between his cousin and his teammate, and felt, as usual, about fifty years older than both of them. But mostly, he wondered for approximately the three hundred forty-second time why he’d agreed to wait a year and a half before marrying Nyree, and why the whole glamour wedding bit, with its pre-bookings, formality, and complications, was necessary at all.
Never mind what her mum wanted. He wanted to marry her now. Unfortunately, he’d found in his post-Nyree life that sometimes, love meant not getting what you wanted.
Bugger.
7
Where Your Feet Are
TOM
