Page 62 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club
‘I don’t want the fact that I’m the son of a multimillionaire business owner to come between us,’ Flynn whispered, sliding my T-shirt off over my head, but very carefully so as not to make my arm flop.
Inearlylaughed about the hyperbole, but he was so earnest, plus, well, he was hot and he didn’t seem to care that the left-hand side of my body was a little inert, and that the bruising came down over my ribs in colours that any artist would have given their brushes to have mixed. He was gentle, he was kind, but above all he wasthorough, and the sex was both an affirmation and a breathless riot.
‘Well,’ I said, when I was capable. ‘We must have your father over more often.’
There was a tentative knock on the door and Flynn and I looked at each other for a moment, wide-eyed. ‘You don’t think he’s come back, do you?’
The tap was followed by an altogether more robust knocking, and Fraser’s voice cheerfully calling, ‘If you two are banging in there, can you get your clothes on andopen this door?’
‘Shit,’ said Flynn, succinctly. ‘It’s the guys. I’d forgotten it was club night.’
He scrambled off the sofa and began pulling on his clothes, then looked over at me. I couldn’t put my T-shirt on one-handed, so he carefully dressed me first, and then went to answer the door, jeans half done-up and his T-shirt on backwards.
‘Youwerebanging!’ Fraser announced to the entire world as he came in. ‘Knew it!’
Wren, passing me, suppressed a grin, and even Margot wiggled her eyebrows.
‘Busted,’ Flynn said cheerily. ‘I knew that strip Scrabble match was a mistake.’
‘Sssh,’ I said, from the far side of the room. ‘We were, in fact, reading improving literature and quizzing one another on the subject of seventeenth-century?—’
‘Banging,’ Fraser interrupted and flung himself down on the sofa next to me. ‘Wow, this place is small. Do you know, the stairs smell of…’
‘Fish,’ I finished. ‘Yes, thank you, I did know, but it’s cheap and… Well, no, it isn’t anything else. Cheap, and cheap is good.’
‘And you live at home with your mum, Fraser,’ Wren pointed out. ‘You’re not exactly in a position to critique someone else’s living arrangements.’
Fraser straightened importantly. ‘I’m moving out,’ he said. ‘Minnie and her bloke helped me get one of the new places in the old warehouse behind the library. That one they’ve turned into flats.’
He was clearly almost bursting with pride about this.
‘I thought that was sheltered accommodation for the elderly?’ Margot dropped in, in her usual brusque way.
‘There’s flats for people like me, too.’ Fraser didn’t sound upset at all. ‘As long as we helps out the old folks now and again –bit of shopping, put up some shelves an’ all – we gets cheap accommodation. And, you know, the neighbours aren’t going to be playing grunge rock full volume ’til four in the morning like at Mum’s.’
‘That sounds great,’ I said, pulling down the back of my T-shirt. ‘That’s really good, Fraser.’
He beamed at me. ‘Some of those girls who comes in to do personal care are a bit tasty too,’ he said. ‘Might get to chat them up as well.’
‘Aaaand we’re back to our usual standard.’ Flynn put the kettle on. ‘It will have to be tea, I’m afraid, we’re a bit short on the chardonnay, what with most of my stock being locked away behind an exploded building which we’re not allowed to go into.’
Margot smiled and pulled a bottle out of her handbag. ‘I brought supplies,’ she said. ‘I thought we could have a drink because Wren and I are off to Scotland on Thursday, so we won’t be able to make next week’s meeting.’
Flynn brought through my mismatched collection of drinking glasses and a cup of tea for me. ‘Can’t drink on the medication,’ I explained, somewhat sourly, watching them pour themselves big glasses of what looked like a really classy wine. ‘Besides, drinking is overrated. Look what it led me to.’
‘Have the police made any progress in locking up your ex?’ Margot peered at me over her glass.
I thought of the phones that had been hidden under my floor. ‘There’s been a bit of a development.’
‘We’re hopeful,’ Flynn said. ‘If he gets let off, we move up to Defcon Terrified and Australia.’
‘If you need any legal help, I would be prepared to step in on the case,’ Margot said. ‘It’s about time I got back to practising – I had to take time off around the divorce, but now that’s all sorted, there’s only the decreesto finish now.’
‘And I could use all my journalistic contacts,’ Wren added, clinking glasses with Margot. ‘If you need me. I’m an absolute expert at forensic examination of social media.’
‘And I can always punch him,’ Fraser chimed in. ‘If you needed me to. Or sit on him again. I liked that bit.’
I smiled at all of them. ‘You are very useful people to know, thank you. We’re hoping that the police will have enough to put him and his cronies away for a good long while.’
