Page 7 of Tangled With the Wrong Guy
‘Tis.’
‘Male groupthink. Gotta be one of the lads, can’t have them calling you a lightweight, oh no. Your stag do needs to go down in lad history. Wey hey!’ she said, and the chain clinked as she raised a clenched fist. ‘Should’a seen the state of ’im, should’a seen what he got up to with that stripper.Legend. You know what? It’spathetic.’
‘I’m–
‘And why are you even here, in a cemetery? Shouldn’t you be at Pigalle, harassing sex workers instead of dead bodies?’
‘S’why my mates are pissed off. I wanted to come here, and it’s my stag, so … but they made us do the pasties thing first.’
‘Pastis!You’re in Paris, not Penzance.’
He laughed.
‘Do I look like I’m being funny?’
She felt him attempt to move. ‘No idea. I can’t see you.’
Finally, she deigned to look at him. Her face was inches from his, which was still half-covered by the black beret. Much of the rest was obscured by the enormous fake moustache.
‘For god’ssake,’ she said, and with her left hand she reached across and ripped off the moustache. It had been stuck on a lot more efficiently than she’d expected.
‘Ow! FUCK! That hurt.’
Good.
He shook his head from side to side, and the beret fell off, revealing a head of spiky fair hair.
And … oh.Those eyes.
They were quiet for a moment as they took stock of each other, shackled together as dusk began to descend over Paris.
‘Joel,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I’m Joel. Who are you?’
‘Chloe.’
‘Practically an anagram.’
‘What?’
‘Pleased to meet you, Chloe. Probably a lot more pleased than you are to meet me. Like I said, I’m sorry about them.’ He cocked his head in the direction in which the lads had left. ‘Knew something like this was gonna happen. I heard them talking about a prank. They wanted to go to Amsterdam–’
Amsterdam.The word rekindled Chloe’s anger which, since she’d looked into those eyes, had been paused.
‘Ofcoursethey did,’ she snarled. ‘God, men are solame. Let’s organise a sleaze-fest, so poor Joel can make the most of his few remaining days of freedom. Get him plastered, facilitateone last free fuck with a hot stripper – if he’s capable – before he’s shackled to the person he’s going to have to spend the rest of hislifewith.’
Joel blinked, then looked down at their chained-together wrists. ‘Or he could spend that time shackled to someone with zero fuckin’ sense of humour.’
‘Shut up. Just …shut up.’ She heard the wobble in her voice.
‘Jesus, girl. It’s just a fun weekend with my mates. Haven’t you ever wanted to do something wild before life pulls you down?’
She carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘When did it all change? In my parents’ day you just went to the pub for a few more pints than normal, woke up the next day with a hangover and got married on the Saturday. Now, there’s a compulsory weekend of depravity–’
‘Yup, it’s mandatory. They’ll be right into it again now. Like I say, they’re not coming back any time soon.’
