Page 74 of The Moon Also Rises
“Yes, I got that, but who is he to you? And what did he call you? Looney Tunes? What is that all about?”
“Oh, just a silly nickname.” I wave my hand and look around the open space desperate to see someone who may be the hotel manager that we’re supposed to meet.
“And he seemed surprised you were working in events? And what was all that about the desert?”
“There are lots of deserts in Southern California. We would go out there with friends for holidays now and then. Jamison came on a few trips.” The lies I tell Jake taste bitter and sour.
“But what about—” Jake begins but I pull away and walk to a newly available receptionist before I can hear the rest.
“Excuse me,” I ask the woman standing behind the desk. “We’re here to meet Elliot Marcham, the manager, at ten o’clock.”
I give her our names and then follow her instructions to take a seat on the leather couches behind us. As Jake comes to sit next to me, I avoid his eye contact and find myself staring through the glass doors that open onto a courtyard in the middle of the property, the very courtyard where the footballer and his future wife will make their vows, and then later, where they’ll eat dinner, dance and start the rest of their happy lives together.
“You don’t need to worry,” Jake says, and I look at him, alarmed and curious what he means. Has he figured it all out? “About owing me. I didn’t really mean it.” He leans against my body in a quick nudge.
I couldn’t stop the smile that takes over my mouth if I tried.
“Oh, I do,” I say in a voice that takes me back to that night. “And I meant what I said. I have been thinking about exactly what I can do to make it up to you too.”
And what do you know, that completes a hat trick of moments when Jake is completely lost for words.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jake
Elliot Marcham is very close to getting on my last nerve. And it has nothing to do with his chiselled good looks or his striking dark hair and ice-blue eyes combo. Fine, it has a bit to do with that. But there’s more to it than just that. First, he interrupted Rami and I at a critical moment – namely when I was searching for a suitably flirty rejoinder to what seemed to be a thinly veiled proposition of us doing sex stuff again – and secondly, he has decided my name is Jack despite Rami introducing me and using my name many times in a way I strongly suspect were attempts to correct him.
Finally, the salt in my wound is the way he is flirting with Rami as he gives us a tour of the building. He’s complimented Rami’s eyes no fewer than three times. He’s casually asked if Rami and his ‘significant other’ have sampled many of Status’ hotels and he commented on Rami’s explanation that there was no significant other with an almost villain-esque “Hmm, interesting.” And now, as we near completion of the tour and circle back to the lobby to meet Wayne Bell and his fiancée Alison Wentworth, he’s telling Rami all about how his ex-boyfriendloved the company discount and how he’s practically convinced this ex-boyfriendwas more upset about losing that than losing aboyfriend.
“So, you’re gay and single, are you?” I say glibly as we approach the same leather couch Rami and I had our rudely interrupted moment on.
It’s not that I’m jealous of Elliot or feeling possessive of Rami. I have no right to be either of those things. I just find it a little unprofessional to flirt with a colleague – a senior colleague – in such a blatant way. Once I’ve stated this case in my mind, I have to do considerable mental gymnastics to ignore the fact that Rami and I are colleagues and we have actually done more than just flirting.
“Takes one to know one, I see,” Elliot says with a fake smile I would almost be jealous of if it didn’t also come with a dagger-like stare that has me shrinking into the leather as I take a seat. Much to my further dismay, neither Rami nor Elliot sit and so that leaves them standing opposite each other talking about how the next hour’s meeting will go, and I’m completely excluded looking like a child sitting at the kids’ table.
I’m about to stand again when both front doors burst open and a wave of noise from outside rushes in. We all turn and look to see an impossibly tall, slim and well-put-together couple march through the entrance as the clicks of cameras and shouts of names fill the lobby. On their heels is a short man wearing a very tight-fitting suit and boasting far too much gel in his hair.
As they approach us, I stand and decide to stop sulking for the sake of this meeting seeing as the paparazzi uproar outside clearly indicates they are something of a big deal despite me personally always skipping their stories in the Mail Online. I won’t mention that to them.
“Alison, Wayne, welcome to Clapham Manor,” Elliot says extending his hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Wayne says in a voice that is surprisingly soft and almost high in pitch.
“Sorry about the carnage outside,” Alison says. She is much louder and her Home Counties accent clashes considerably with Wayne’s gentle Lancashire tone. “They followed me from doing Lorraine this morning.”
I resist the urge to make a joke about her ‘doing’ Lorraine, and instead shake their hands when I am introduced by Elliot, once again as Jack.
“It’s Jake, actually,” I say, tightly.
Finally, the mouse-like man with an entire pot of gel in his hair is introduced to us as Sergio, their wedding planner and he shakes all our hands with a limp, lacking grip and a very noticeable head-to-toe eye-fucking of Rami. Just as well he and I are only fake dating. Going out with someone that striking in real life would make me even more paranoid than I already am.
“Thank you for the last-minute meeting, and well, last-minute everything,” Sergio says, and I notice then that he has a tablet in his hands, which he is swiping away at furiously. “Wayne and Ali only have an hour now so we really need to make sure they see everything as quickly as possible.”
“Right.” Elliot claps his hands together in a way that makes me jump. “Let’s show you the courtyard.”
The only part of the property we didn’t see in our whistle-stop tour earlier, Elliot proudly opens the glass doors to the courtyard as if he’s revealing a new kingdom to a lost nation. But I almost can’t blame him.
It’s stunning.
