Page 9 of The Price of Love
‘No, nothing, really. Just wondering, when you and Dan got together, how long was it before you went to bed? Together, I mean, obviously.’
Jazz gave a smutty snigger. ‘About twenty minutes I should think.’
‘You know, Jazz, not everyone is as sex-obsessed as you.’ Katie drained her glass. ‘It was, let me see, we went out on the . . .’ Her lips moved and I felt better. I’d begun to wonder. Was it me? I fancied Luke so much that it was driving me crazy. We’d kissed, quite a lot, but he told me he wanted to take things very slowly and get to know me properly before we jumped into bed. Okay, gentlemanly behaviour and everything, but, good grief, I was going to spontaneously combust at this rate. ‘Seventeen hours.’
‘Does this mean that you and Wonder Boy haven’t done the thing yet?’ Jazz shuffled his feet in barely suppressed excitement. ‘Willow Cayton, you have definitely lost your mojo.’
‘Mojo? Those are little sweets, aren’t they?’
‘Your “thing”, you know. Your “it”.’
Katie and I looked at one another. ‘He’s so obnoxious when he’s pissed,’ she said. ‘And don’t ask me to take him home. He’s got his Frankenstein remedial boots on again. Couldn’t pick him up with a forklift.’
‘Nah, we could just leave him here.’
But Jazz unfolded himself to his full, not inconsiderable height and peered down at us. ‘I shall make my way home under my own sht . . . steam, thank you, ladies.’ He drained his glass. ‘Willow, I will meet you at four in the Basement Bar for a soundcheck on Saturday.’
‘That’s tomorrow, Jazz.’
‘Sho kind to remind me. Yes. Tomorrow.’ Gathering his dignity around him, which stretched it pretty tightly, he stalked from the bar.
‘He looks like a clothes peg from Castle Dracula,’ Katie remarked. ‘But, pissed as he might be, he has a point. Are you and the delicious Mr Fry not yet making the beast with two backs?’
‘We’re taking it slowly. After all, we’ve waited ten years, a few more days won’t kill us.’
‘All right, no need to be defensive.’ Katie emptied her glass. ‘Well, better go, I’m meeting Dan in half an hour and we’re off to the pictures. His mum is babysitting. First time in three years.’
‘Great. What are you going to see?’
‘The way I feel, the insides of my eyelids comes top of the list, followed by the contents of Dan’s trousers. Anyway. Take care, Will.’
Once Katie and Jazz had gone, I felt suddenly flat. Friday night. Seven o’clock to be precise, and the rest of the evening stretched ahead of me as empty as, oh, I don’t know. Name me something emptier than the prospect of a Friday night alone with the monotonous silence broken only by my beery pizza burps and early evening TV. Luke had apologised profusely, butsaid he had to work on Saturday — promised to be at my house in time to drive us out to Bree’s for lunch on Sunday, so what was my problem? I had, as Jazz so kindly pointed out, seen him every night this week.
I wandered home, couldn’t think of anything else to do. British Summertime had officially started last week, so it was raining and cold. Flint had flown back to Beijing so there would be no one to share a takeaway. God, I was miserable. The misery deepened when I turned into my street and saw Ash perched across his bike in full gear, with his helmet on his lap, swinging one foot in the running gutter and obviously waiting for me.
‘Hey.’
‘What?’ I fumbled sullenly in my bag for the key.
‘No, nothing. I thought . . . you doing anything tonight?’
Friday night and Ash didn’t have a date? I looked around in case the end of the world was nigh. ‘It’s not like you to be on your own on a Friday night. Hell, it’s not like you to be on your own full stop, unless you’re off on a job. What’s happened?’
‘Happened? Nothing.’ Ash pushed past me into the hallway and flung himself down full-length on the chesterfield. Leather met leather with a creaking like a boned corset under pressure. ‘I just wondered if . . . hell, I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet, all right?’
I paused on my way through to the kitchen, watching Ash pose. There was definitely something different about him today. ‘You’ve taken all your piercings out,’ I realised suddenly.
‘Well, notallof them.’ He grinned up at me. ‘Only the ones you can see.’
I grimaced. I’d been treated, along with Jazz and Katie, to a blow-by-blow account of the agonies of Ash’s Prince Albert. (Jazz still couldn’t look Ash in the face without tears of sympathy welling up.) ‘Thanks. I’ll have to go and lie down in a dark room to expunge that particular mental image. So, what’s happeningwith losing all the metal? Afraid you were going to fall through the earth’s crust?’
Ash shrugged a skinny shoulder. ‘I just fancied a change. You coming, or what?’
‘How far?’
‘Up onto the moors. Thirty miles, no more.’
‘All right then, if you promise to go slowly. You know I hate riding pillion. Oh and I’d better get my gear on, hadn’t I.’
