Page 71 of The Best Book Boyfriend
“Drink?” I signal to Megan and she nods and follows me back to the bar.
We’ve just finished another vodka and coke and are heading back to the dancefloor when Megan grabs my face with both hands and turns my head. In the corner, Hattie seems to have found herself a man, someone who looks like he’s squeezing her bum so much he might pull it right off her body. We look back at each other and burst out laughing.
“Do you see anyone you like the look of?” Megan shouts into my ear and we both try to glance around discreetly as we dance together, then shake our heads.
“I think this was a terrible idea,” I yell. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Everyone here is much younger than us, and though age doesn’t seem to bother Hattie, I feel gross thinking about pulling a 22-year-old. We don’t fit in, we look super awkward, and the longer we are here, the more I feel embarrassed I dragged them out with me.
After dancing past eleven without even a sniff of interest from our fellow clubbers, I’m ready for my bed. I wrap my hands around Megan’s waist and pull her in close to me. “Do you want to go?”
“Yes, I really do, sorry, is that OK?” she shouts over another song I don’t recognise.
“It’s fine! Let’s get Hattie.”
It turns out that Hattie is quite happy to stay in the arms of whoever this is.
“I’ll text you when I get home,” she shouts, and Megan and I make our way outside. There’s a big queue for the limited number of taxis, so we link arms and huddle together as we head down the little high street that leads towards my side of town.
“I don’t know why I thought that clubbing would be a good way to meet a man, Megs.”
“I don’t know either, my darling, but I think this is one of those lessons you need to be reminded of now and then.”
I laugh, hiccup, and burp at the same time. “Why did we let Hattie buy us tequila?”
“I don’t think we had much say in it. Shall we get chips?”
“Yesss! I love you!” I roar.
The chip shop is just beyond the alley that leads up to Sunshine Coffee, and as we walk past, something catches my eye.
“Hey look,” I point. “Luke’s lights are on. Let’s go in.”
“It’s nearly midnight, it’ll be shut.”
“Well then, he’s left the lights on. I’ll snap a photo and tell him.” We hold each other up as we wobble up to the courtyard, taking care not to go over on the cobbles in our ridiculous shoes. The door is locked, but when I peek through the window I can see Luke inside. We knock loudly until he comes to open up for us.
“What are you two doing here?”
“We’ve been to a club,” Megan says, bounding inside and hopping herself up at a table with the high stools. I’m weirdly annoyed. I always sit at our table by the window and I think he catches me staring at it.
“Why are you here so late?” I ask. He looks so good in his dark jeans and a burgundy t-shirt that, because he was made to torment me, he’s rolled it up a little at the sleeves showing me even more of his biceps.Mmmm biceps.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I came in to re-varnish the tables. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages.”
He starts rubbing away at the surface of a table with a cloth, his forearms all tight and horny and all I can picture is me laying naked on his bed and him rubbing me all over in the same way. I need to get a grip.
“You want coffee?” he asks.
“I’ll get it,” I say, making my way behind the counter, but he reaches over from where he’s standing and catches me around the waist, pushing me back. The firmness of his skin against my stomach has a moan whooshing from my chest.
“No, you won’t.”
“I don’t mind,” I shake my head.
“I do,” he laughs and guides me back to the table where Megan is making a tower out of sugar packets. “You don’t work here, Kara.”
He busies himself with our drinks and when he brings them over he says, “So how was Da Club?” and I love that he is like a really sexy old man.
“Luke, it was awful,” says Megan, a little more slowly than usual. “It was disgusting. The floors were sticky, it was too loud, and a guy groped Hattie’s bottom.”
