‘Um … I’ll have red wine please,’ Romy said.
Lesley and Danny both asked for white and Ethan disappeared to get the drinks.
Romy had expected Kit to make a beeline for her and monopolise her all night as his ‘girlfriend’, and for once she would have been happy to act the part. It would provide a useful shield against Ethan. But Kit was on the other side of the room and made no move towards her when she came in – perhaps because she was with Danny.
‘There are nibbles over there,’ Ethan said as he returned with their drinks, waving to a table where chips and dips were laid out. ‘But we’ll be having proper food later.’
Romy was relieved that as soon as he had distributed their drinks he was called away by Hannah as more of his friends turned up. She recognised Fiona and Sarah among the new arrivals.
Somehow, she managed to avoid Ethan, strategically moving around the room so that she was always on the opposite side to him. As co-host, he was busy and in demand, so it wasn’t too difficult to keep out of his way, but it wasn’t the most relaxing way to spend a party. Now he was across the room, chatting to a group of girls and drinking beer from a bottle. She scanned the group, wondering if one of them was Anna.
‘This party sucks,’ Danny said beside her.
‘Yeah.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe we should blow it and go to the local for midnight.’
At
least Lesley seemed to be enjoying herself. She was getting chatted up by a tall rugby-playing friend of Tank’s.
‘Having a good time?’ Kit asked, striding up to them.
‘Yes, great!’ Romy said, plastering on a cheery smile. ‘Oh, excuse me, I’m just going to say hi to Hannah,’ she said, leaving Kit and Danny alone as she saw Ethan heading their way.
‘I really loved your garden design,’ Kit said to Danny. ‘Thanks.’
Danny just shrugged in response.
‘It’s really nice to see you, Danny. I’m glad you came.’
‘Actually, I was just thinking of leaving.’
‘Oh? Got somewhere better to go?’ Kit asked, but was greeted with a churlish silence. ‘Romy told me you were meeting Paul the other night,’ he pressed on.
‘So? What’s it to you?’
‘I thought you might bring him tonight.’
‘We’re not back together.’
‘Good.’
‘Not that it’s any of your business.’
Kit sighed. ‘Well, anyway, I’m glad you’re here. There’s something I wanted to tell you.’
‘Yeah? What’s that? You’re getting engaged to my sister?’
‘I’ve made a New Year’s resolution,’ Kit said. ‘And I’m going to start it right now.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Danny said disinterestedly.
‘Well, aren’t you going to ask me what it is?’
‘Uh, no – I wasn’t planning to.’ Danny lifted his drink jerkily to his lips and took a gulp, twitching with bad temper.
‘Why not?’
Danny looked at him askance. ‘Because I don’t give a fuck. Do what you like.’
‘Oh, I plan to,’ Kit said. Then he very deliberately set down his drink, took Danny’s face in his hands, and kissed him softly on the lips.
Danny
grunted in surprise, too stunned to move. But as Kit’s mouth moved against his, coaxing and teasing, gently prising his lips apart, Danny relaxed into it. He put his arms around Kit and kissed him back, and the rest of the world zoned out as they stood there in the middle of the party kissing and kissing, completely oblivious to the open-mouthed stares of everyone around them.
‘Is that—’ Lesley stuttered. ‘Oh, my God!
‘What the hell?’ Ethan echoed her sentiments.
‘Am I really seeing this?’ Romy said, dazed.
It felt like the whole room had gone still and quiet as everyone watched Kit and Danny snogging like a pair of loved-up teenagers.
Finally, they broke apart. ‘Was that public enough for you?’ Kit asked Danny, a slightly smug smile on his face.
Danny just grinned back at him in answer. Then they seemed to simultaneously become aware that they had an audience, and Kit raised their joined hands in the air before taking a theatrical bow.
‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be here all week.’
Everyone clapped, and Danny and Kit took more bows.
‘About bloody time,’ Hannah said.
‘So Kit’s defnitely—’ Ethan began. Somehow in all the excitement Romy had dropped her guard and he had ended up beside her.
‘Gay,’ Romy finished. ‘I’d say that’s pretty conclusive proof, wouldn’t you?’ she said, turning to Ethan, forgetting in her shock that she wasn’t speaking to him.
She looked at Danny and Kit, both beaming at the crowd and each other. Well, at least someone was happy, she thought. They looked ecstatic. Clearly, she wasn’t going to be required for role-playing duty tonight.
‘I haven’t seen you all night,’ Ethan was saying, turning the full
force of that heartbreaking smile on her. ‘I’m beginning to think you’re avoiding me.’
‘Ethan!’ Sarah rushed up and grabbed him before Romy could reply. ‘You’re needed in the kitchen. We’re running out of margarita mix. Sorry, I just need him for a minute,’ she said to Romy, an unmistakable gleam of triumph in her eyes as she pulled him away.
‘I’ll be back in a sec,’ Ethan said, as he let Sarah drag him off.
Romy looked around the room, her eyes raking over all the pretty glossy-haired girls and wondering once again which one Anna was. What did it matter anyway? she thought. If it wasn’t Anna it would be someone else. She saw Fiona watching beadily as Sarah dragged Ethan out of the room. Was tonight going to turn into another who’ll-get-to-sleep-with-Ethan contest? Well, she wouldn’t be throwing her hat in the ring. At least she had more self-respect than that.
She found Lesley still chatting to her rugby player and pulled her aside.
‘Do you mind if I go?’ she asked. ‘I’m not feeling great.’ It wasn’t really a lie. The thought of Ethan with any of these girls made her feel nauseous.
‘Aw, that’s a shame. But no, go on. I’m grand.’
Romy was pushing her way to the door when she felt a hand on her arm, stopping her.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going home,’ she said, trying not to look as pathetic and heartbroken as she felt.
‘What? You can’t go home yet,’ Ethan said, beaming at her. ‘I haven’t even had a chance to talk to you. And you have to be here at midnight.’ He leaned close to her ear and whispered, ‘We’ll finally have an excuse to kiss in public. Though, now that Kit has very publicly dumped you for your brother—’
‘Ethan!’
Just
then a slight dark-haired girl with a pixie haircut to match her equally pixyish face came rushing up and clutched onto Ethan’s arm. ‘I want to dance,’ she said in a French accent, and Romy immediately knew that this was Anna. She was stunning. ‘Come and dance with me.’
‘Well, don’t let me keep you,’ Romy said, turning on her heel and rushing from the room. She scrabbled for her coat in the hall, desperate to get out of there before she started crying and made a complete fool of herself.
‘Romy!’ Ethan emerged in the hall looking rather bedraggled – mauled by his hordes of adoring fans, no doubt, she thought bitterly. ‘Don’t go, please.’ He looked at her with a pained expression. ‘Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been able to see you the past few days. Anna just turned up out of the blue and—’
‘It’s fine, Ethan. You don’t have to explain anything to me.’
‘But I want to. I feel like you’re angry with me for some reason.’
‘I’m not angry,’ she said flatly, and in that moment she meant it. She wasn’t angry. She just felt dead inside – tired and numb and fed up. ‘I’m just – disappointed,’ she said honestly. ‘And I know I’ve no right to be,’ she interrupted as he opened his mouth to speak. ‘I know we were just … hanging out or whatever, and it didn’t mean anything.’
‘Hanging out?’
‘And now I’m not convenient anymore and you have another fuck-buddy to keep you company—’
‘A what?’ he asked, screwing his face up in what looked like genuine confusion and horror. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Kit told me about Anna—’
‘Kit! Well, I don’t know what he told you, but Anna is not my … my fuck buddy!’
‘Isn’t she?’
‘Romy, I
am not fucking Anna or anybody else, and if you came upstairs with me right now I could show you a hard-on with your name on it that’s been nearly two weeks in the making.’
She was stunned into laughing despite herself. ‘Oh my God, that is so romantic!’
‘I know,’ he said with a sheepish smile. ‘Smooth, huh?’
‘You do know you can, um … handle that yourself?’
‘Oh God,’ he groaned, ‘is that what you’ve been doing?’ His eyes darkened.
‘Be mindful of your thoughts, young Skywalker,’ she said.
Ethan smiled, relaxing a little. ‘I don’t want to handle it myself. I want you to handle it for me.’
She sighed. ‘Why haven’t you called me, Ethan? Why haven’t I seen you for days?’
‘Why haven’t
you
called
me?’
‘Uh-uh, don’t throw this back at me. As soon as Anna showed up, you disappeared. You really expect me to believe you didn’t sleep with her – as you have every right to,’ she continued when he began to protest. ‘You’re young, free and single, and we never said we were exclusive or anything.’ To her horror, she felt her lip tremble, all the strain and anxiety of the past few days overwhelming her, and tears spilled from her eyes before she could stop them.
‘Oh, Jesus, don’t do that, please,’ Ethan begged, taking her hand and pulling her into the relative privacy of the corner under the stairs.
Romy swiped at her tears impatiently with the back of her hand.
‘I should have called you, and I’m sorry.’ He sighed. ‘I guess I was afraid. Anna’s someone I used to sleep with, okay? That’s all in the past. It was over ages ago. But she just turned up
out of the blue, and I said she could stay here, and I didn’t want you to find out and get the wrong idea. That’s all.’
‘The wrong idea being?’
‘That I was sleeping with her.’
‘And you’re not?’
‘No!’ He raked a hand through his hair impatiently. ‘If you don’t believe me, you can ask her yourself,’ he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her back into the party. He weaved through the crowd until he found Anna chatting to a group of Tank’s rugby friends and tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Anna,’ he said firmly, as she turned to face him, ‘can you tell Romy here – have we slept together while you’ve been staying?’
Anna looked startled, but she recovered quickly. She raised an eyebrow, her eyes flicking over Romy coolly. ‘No,’ she said finally with a wry smile that wasn’t entirely unfriendly. ‘I guess now I know why.’
‘Oh,’ Romy said in a small voice as Anna turned away.
‘See?’ Ethan said to her.
‘Well, that wasn’t embarrassing at all.’
‘So – you’ll stay? Please?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you want another drink? Red wine?’
She shook her head. ‘I think you said you had something with my name on it. I’d like to see that.’
‘So – you
and Ethan!’
‘You and Kit!’
Romy and Danny faced each other across the table the following morning, while Ethan, Hannah and Kit bustled about the kitchen making breakfast. Despite the slight awkwardness of the situation, they couldn’t stop grinning at each other like a pair of loved-up idiots. Kit placed a plate of bacon and sausages in the middle of the table and sat down beside Danny, while Ethan sat next to Romy.
‘Help yourselves,’ Hannah said, plonking a pile of toast and a pot of tea in the centre of the table. Then she went to the door of the kitchen and yelled to Tank that breakfast was ready.
He
shuffled into the kitchen, yawning and bleary-eyed. ‘Good party last night,’ he said as he and Hannah took their places at either end of the table.
‘Where’s Anna?’ Kit asked. ‘Isn’t she staying here?’
‘She, um … decided to move to a hotel,’ Ethan said.
‘It was like musical beds here last night,’ Hannah said.
Romy smiled, thankful that when the music stopped, she had ended up with Ethan.
‘You two are going to be in so much trouble with Mom,’ Hannah said, grinning evilly at her brothers.
‘Hey, it was your party too,’ Kit said. ‘Anyway, the place isn’t that bad, is it?’
‘And we still have plenty of time to clear up before they get back,’ Ethan added.
‘I’m not talking about the mess. That’s the least of your problems.’
‘Why will we be in trouble, then?’ Kit asked.
‘You,’ she said, pointing her fork at Ethan, ‘for messing around with someone who has a baby.’
‘I’m not messing around with her,’ Ethan said, taking Romy’s hand under the table and entwining his fingers with hers.
‘Yeah, right. Let’s see how long that lasts,’ Hannah said with a cynical laugh. ‘Sorry, Romy,’ she added. ‘No offence.’
‘That’s okay,’ Romy said shakily. Under the table, Ethan pulled her hand onto his thigh and gave it a reassuring squeeze.