Chapter 3
Petey
“Congratulations to our incredibly talented friend. You are living your dream, and we are all so proud of you!”
“Absolutely!” Ludo said, lifting his plastic flute of champagne.
“Chuffed for you, mate,” Stav added, raising his red wine.
“Well done, pal,” Nick said.
I felt a warm glow and for a moment I thought I might cry, but it would have ruined my tough-as-Mrs-Thatcher-in-a-tank image, so I raised my glass instead.
“Cheers, fam!” I said, and everyone clinked their unclinkable drinking vessels together.
The DJ changed the music to a Cole Kennedy club remix. The shrieks of delight from the hordes of twinks could have shattered glass, if the venue had any. The children streamed past us, beelining for the dance floor like there was a Boxing Day sale at a toy store.
“Tune!” Nick said. “Who wants to dance?” Without waiting for an answer, he downed his drink in one gulp, handed his boyfriend the empty cup, spun his wheelchair around, and disappeared into the sea of twinks.
“Sometimes I forget how incredibly Scottish he is,” Dav said, putting both their cups on the bar and following Nick into the crowd.
Jumaane and Stav went, too, leaving me with Sunny and Ludo.
All the boys and I, with the exception of Ludo, had been at uni together in Leeds.
Sunny was a journalist for the BBC’s current affairs programme Compass Point, but used to write for Britain’s trashiest tabloid newspaper, The Bulletin.
His fiancé, Ludo, was a reporter for a theatre magazine and, I supposed, probably technically the heir to the Sentinel media empire.
His family were, as Sunny often said, “proper minted.” I mean, my family were well off, but Ludo’s father had bought a helicopter to cut his commute.
“Any luck finding a gaff for your wedding yet?” I asked.
“Nope,” Sunny said, grabbing Ludo’s hand and squeezing it. Ludo’s grandmother had been unwell, and the boys were trying to bring their plans forward to make sure she could see them get married.
“It’s proving jolly difficult,” Ludo added. “All the decent venues are booked out three years in advance.”
“That’s ‘decent’ according to Ludo’s father,” Sunny clarified. “We’d be fine with the registry office, but Hugo seems to think this is going to be the society wedding of the year. And he’s paying for it, so…”
I shrugged. “Can’t you get hitched on a beach or in a park or something?”
“English law,” Ludo said, shaking his head. “You can only get married in a registered venue. We can’t get a marriage licence until we have a venue. Those take six weeks. And now my idiot brother Jonty has announced he’s going travelling and will be uncontactable for at least a month…”
Ludo was starting to spiral. This was one of a thousand reasons I never wanted to get married—the stress weddings cause is even more outrageous than the expense.
Sunny put his free hand on my shoulder. “Did I overhear you telling Stav your new show is being filmed up in my hometown?”
I nodded. “Just outside. In some spooky old gaff near a haunted little village called Newton Bardon.”
“Not Buckford Hall?”
“You know it?”
Sunny laughed. “How do you not know it?”
“Well, I don’t come from Leicester, so I’ve never had to beg the local lord for potatoes in winter, or whatever you had to do to survive growing up.”
“You’ve never heard of the Bisexual Baron Buckford?” Sunny asked.
I winced. “No? Why would I care who some sticky old duke is shagging?”
“Oh, he’s not old,” Ludo said. “He’s a couple of years younger than us. He was in the same year as Jonty at Petersham. Fabulous rugby player, as I recall. An excellent equestrian too. Thighs so thick I always worried he might accidentally snap the horse.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No, he’s a proper dish,” Sunny said.
This I could get on board with. “How do you know he’s bisexual?”
“To be fair, I don’t,” Sunny said. “But it’s the nickname The Bulletin gave him after he was caught on a park bench in Berkeley Square at four in the morning with his tongue down some lass’s throat and his hand down her lad’s pants.
It was a whole scandal. He’d only inherited the title a few weeks earlier. His old man was barely cold.”
“Have I been lied to about the aristocracy?” I said, stifling a yawn. “I don’t remember anything like that happening in Pride and Prejudice.”
“But seriously, the whole thing was a terrible tragedy for the family,” Ludo said. “Their plane went down. One of those little fixed-wing jobs. The elder brother died too.”
“Jesus,” I said. “So, suddenly, he’s the duke? And he’s bi? And he’s fit?”
“Baron,” Sunny corrected.
“That’s the problem you had with what he just said?” Ludo chimed in.
The next month was going to be all long days and hard work, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain about a bit of eye candy on set. Stav came bounding back up to us from the dance floor, sweat running down his face. The DJ was now playing Chappell Roan.
“We need to change venues,” he said. “It’s like a kindergarten out there. I literally found someone’s lollipop stuck in my chest hair.”
I pulled open Stav’s shirt and peered down at his gloriously furry belly.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Checking the twink’s not still stuck down there, trying to get his lolly back. They can easily fall between the gaps, if you’re not careful.”
As we laughed, the rest of the gang rejoined us, their faces betraying various levels of exhaustion.
“That’s it, I’m done,” Jumaane said, puffing. “Let’s head to Vauxhall.”
Vauxhall was where Jumaane and I belonged.
The grittier, grimier clubs under the railway arches south of the River Thames were our spiritual home, our natural hunting ground.
We could find our way around the darkroom at Crucifix with the precision of bats.
We’d spent many a night trawling it in search of, um, let’s call it, er, love… I guess?
I checked the time. Two o’clock. I shook my head. “I’m going to bail.”
Six pairs of eyes glared at me, like this had literally never happened before.
“Are you OK, pal?” Nick said.
“Did you come off the PrEP or something, babes?” Jumaane asked.
“I’m tired,” I said.
Jumaane clicked his fingers in my face. “You’re leaving for a month. Who you think you banging while you’re out in the sticks, babes?”
“Oi, that’s my hometown!” Sunny said.
“Sorry, babes, no offence.”
“Are you saving yourself for the bisexual baron?” Ludo asked.
“No!” I said, a little too quickly. “This next month is all about my career. This is my big shot. I don’t have time for boys.”
“All the more reason for one last hurrah, babes,” Jumaane said.
I sighed, deeply. “I also have lunch with Sir Edward and Angelica tomorrow.” I used my parents’ first names to really drive home the full horror.
The boys cringed in unison. “It’ll be easier to cope with them if I’ve had a good night’s sleep.
I love you, fam. Thanks for tonight. But I’m off home to crash. See you all in a month, yeah?”
“What is even happening?” Jumaane said, as I pecked him on the cheek.
“Your wee pal has finally discovered something more important to him than cock,” Nick said, as I went around the group kissing everyone goodbye. “I’m so proud.”
Dav smacked his boyfriend on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Why couldn’t you have said ‘personal growth’ or something, like a normal person?”