Page 31 of Crazy Spooky Love
She pulls a “so there you go” face. “Precisely. It’s not your fault. You’re entirely blameless for the fact that your rival looks incompetent, and you can swoop in and save the day. You’re a hero, Melody. You deserve your own TV show.”
She says that last bitreallyloudly, and I think she expects the TV crew to elbow Leo out of the way immediately and sign me up instead. They don’t, obviously. They’re too busy wiping egg off their faces and hastily throwing their equipment into the back of their vans.
I shift my attention to Leo, aware that Gran has just pushed me off my favorite patch of moral high ground. I feel as if I’m face down in the dirt right now with a whole shovel-load of sucking up todo.
“Leo, I’m so sorry, I genuinely didn’t have a clue she was planning to embarrass you on live TV.”
He stares at me, and I’m not entirely certain, but I think he might have just hissed. I don’t think it was intentional; at least I hope not. I’m touched by the fact that Artie takes a step closer to me, my unlikely henchman should I need him. Leo looks him up and down for a second, and then turns his derisive glance back onme.
“Jealousy is a terrible thing,” he says, clearly not in the mood to believe me. “Frankly, I thought better of you.”
Okay, so he’s planning on strutting around the moral high ground I’ve recently vacated. I’m not surprised.
“I didn’t realize you’d stoop so low as to involve an octogenarian though. She could have broken her brittle bones falling like that.”
I’m fast running out of patience with him for not believing me; he really should know me better.
“Oh please, I do yoga.” Gran rolls her eyes. “I’d like to see your wounded peacock, young man.”
We all look at her, startled.
“What? It’s a yoga pose. I’d show you but I’m not exactly dressed for it.” She takes a pointed drag on her cigarette and wafts her hand down in the general direction of her kimono.
I can feel Marina laughing silently beside me, and I know it’s one of those situations I’ll probably look back on and laugh at too, but right now it feels really important to make Leo believe I’m not trying to sabotage him. Oh, I want to win, but I want to take him down cleanly because I’m better at my job, not feel as if I’ve won by default. This is the first job the agency has taken on, hopefully the first of many. We need the confidence boost of a win.Ineed it, badly, because this is my twenty-seventh year, the year when my life has to change.
“Pose for a picture, guys?”
Oh, for God’s bloody sake. As if this situation couldn’t get any worse. Fletcher sodding Gunn just turnedup.
Chapter
Nine
“This is the story that just keeps on giving, isn’t it?”
He’s leaning on the garden gate and is evidently more amused by the situation than I am; the only person even less pleased to see Fletch is Leo. There’s never been any love lost between these two, they’re at opposite ends of the spectrum in pretty much any way you’d care to mention. Leo has to be close to the top of Fletch’s “discredit before I die” list, right below the Bittersweet family, two generations of which are currently caught here on the lawns of Scarborough House in a compromising position. He must feel like it’s his frigging birthday.
Gran blows an elegant plume of smoke into his camera lens when he tries to direct it her way, and he shakes his head.
“A pleasure as always, Paradise.”
She prickles at his use of her full name; it’s so rarely used that it feels like a reprimand, which of course is precisely his sarcastic intent.
“Nothing better to do than hang off my coattails, Gunn?” Leo’s eyes bore into Fletch.
“Cape,” Marina mutters beside me. Artie hovers on my other side, watching everything with wide eyes.
Fletch notes Leo’s attire, his eyebrows raised in amusement. “Who have you come as today, Dark? A cut-price Mr. Darcy for the morning TV crowd?”
Much as I can see the cause for comparison, I hate that between us we’re giving Fletch a story he’ll dine out on for weeks. My grandmother is in her dressing gown in the street, for God’s sake.
“I almost hesitate to ask what’s going on here,” he laughs. “I mean, I can hazard a good guess. Bunch of fakers exposed whilst colluding to con the public into believing farcical ghost shite on live television. Blah blah blah. Is there more to the story or should I wrap it up and go for an early lunch?”
Gran takes a pointedly slow drag from her cigarette, every inch the star of her own film noir.
“Your gran is the only person alive who can still make smoking look sexy,” Marina says in open admiration.
“She’s had long enough to practice it,” I mutter, still sour with her for causing this entire debacle.
