Page 45 of Charlie Sunshine
He narrows his eyes. “It worries me to say this, but yes. You have carte blanche, Charlie.” There must be evil in the smile I give him, because he sighs long-sufferingly. “Okay, sunshine. Tell me what we’re doing.” He shakes his head. “I somehow know that it’s sadly very worthy and cultural and will in no way result in us being arrested.”
“Nope,” I say happily. “I want to go to the National Gallery.”
“I knew it,” he says sadly. “Ugh.”
“Want to back out?” I ask tauntingly.
He raises his chin. “Never. We’re celebrating, sunshine.”
“Then go and get dressed. We’re doing culture, baby.”
“This is not what I imagined,” he grumbles, getting off the bed and vanishing out the door. “Not. At. All,” he shouts over his shoulder, missing the look of happiness that must be written all over my face. God, Imissedhim. So much.
Trafalgar Square is as busy as it possibly can be even in the cold February weather. Families stand around with their children as they jump about trying to look at the huge lion statues. The fountains play, sending spumes of cold water into the air that make me shiver and pull my jacket closer from just looking at them. Traffic mills aroundand the square is full of the sound of cars hooting and the occasional jangle of a cycle bell. Voices talk loudly in many different languages.
I inhale, smelling petrol and the sweet blackberry scent of someone vaping nearby. “God, I love London.”
Misha shakes his head. He changed into jeans, a navy jumper, and his leather jacket before we came out, but he never shaved and there’s stubble on the sharp line of his jaw. He looks warm and slightly rumpled, and I think I actually prefer him like this. It’s as though he’s shed work, and now he’s all mine.
“Have you got some sort of martyr problem I wasn’t aware of?” he grumbles, keeping his hand on my arm as he manoeuvres around a group of tourists who are talking loudly and laughing.
“No, why?” I laugh, crouching to pick up a teddy bear that a child in a pushchair has dropped. I hand it to his mother, smiling at her thank-you, and we walk on.
“Because this place is so fucking crammed with tourists, it’s actually painful, Charlie. You’ve lived in London all your life, so you know better than to come somewhere like this on a fucking Saturday morning. It must be a bit of a change from Norfolk.”
“Norfolk was lovely, but it was a bit too quiet,” I say. “I like noise.”
“You’re like the anti-librarian. Don’t say that too loudly or you’ll lose your shushing and shelving qualifications.”
The National Gallery looms ahead, the iconic building instantly recognisable with its eight columns and the distinctive dome rising above them like bread in an oven. Red banners hanging from the columns snap in the cold wind as we descend the stairs and join the queue to get in.
I pinch his side. “Librarians do a lot more than shushing and shelving, and you very well know it.”
“I only know it because you bang on about it ad infinitum.”
“Mikhail Lebedinsky, have you swallowed a dictionary?”
He shoots me a wicked smile. “I suppose you’d consider that better than swallowing a cock?”
An old man gasps next to us, and I smile at him in mute apology before turning back to my best friend. “Well, it’s definitely better if it improves your conversation level. You’re like a caveman when we’rein a club. I wouldn’t be surprised if you just threw your conquests over your shoulder and grunted at them.”
“And yet still they fall,” he says in a singsong voice. He pulls me forward as the guide gestures. Removing his wallet, he smiles at her. “How much for two, please?”
“Oh, it’s free,” she says, her cheeks pinkening at the visible display of his charm.
Misha gapes at her. “Free?”
“Yes, sir.”
He turns to me, looking discombobulated.
I grin. “Art is free, Misha. Just as it should be.”
“Oh, now you’ve done it,” he says to the woman darkly. “He’s about to get on his soapbox. It’s too late for me, but you can still save yourself.”
She laughs, and I gesture him over to a clear Perspex box. “You leave a donation in here.”
“So, not free, then,” he says cynically. “Just forcibly voluntary.”
