CHAPTER 29
SHERIDAN
The Toonies are held at the Park Plaza Hotel in Westminster, London, on the third weekend of December. Due to its proximity to Christmas, the festivities are all but shoved down our throats from the second we arrive in the capital city, and it doesn’t wear off even after we leave.
Myles and I decide to treat the event as our first weekend break away as a couple, so we pack our bags and head down on the train the Friday night, leaving Hector with Auntie Brin at the cottage.
Myles’s flat is now liveable again, so he is back to staying there in the week and only visiting me on the weekends. I’m sure Brinsley is thrilled not be listening to us shagging multiple times a night, not that she’s ever said anything more about it.
On Saturday morning, I ask Myles to show me where he grew up, so we get on the tube outside the hotel, and ride it all the way to Morden—the very last stop on the Northern Line.
I feel like we walk the entire town and he somehow manages to have an anecdote for everything—the shop on the corner where someone stole his scooter; the cinema where he kissed a girl for the first time; the house where his driving instructor lived; three of the five foster homes he lived in growing up, as well as the care home he was almost always sent back to.
I fall in love with him a little bit more with each story he tells me, and in between he tells me about Sam, a kid at school who is going through a similar thing.
As we ride the tube back into the city after our tour is complete, I realise that Myles could’ve become an absolute liability after leaving school. He could’ve got himself into trouble, continued feeding off his anger in a negative way. But he didn’t. He stuck his down and managed to take everything he learned and turned it into something he can give back.
By the end of the morning, Myles becomes the man that I admire the most.
* * *
We eat lunch at The Ivy where we share a bottle of champagne—because we’re celebrating, duh—oysters, and beef wellington. Myles spends the entire meal looking like he thinks he’s about to be thrown out and tells me more than once that he feels out of place.
“You’re not out of place, Myles.” I assure him as we mop up beef jus with crusty pastry. “You’re exactly where you need to be. With me.”
We pay the bill and head back to the hotel, where I spend two hours showing him exactly how I feel about him and what he means to me, with my mouth and my body.
When I finally find it in me to drag myself off him, we share a long shower and get ready for the evening.
I’ve never been to the Toonies before and given the possibility it could be full of a bunch of incels and nerds, I’m not sure how formal the whole thing is going to be. I’ve bought a new outfit for the occasion—a rust-coloured velvet jumpsuit with a cowl neck and wide legs. I fashion my curls into a low bun, add a golf pendant necklace and matching bracelet. It’s the most glamorous I’ve ever felt.
Myles manages to match with me in burnt orange and brown plaid trousers, and pairs it with a pale blue waistcoat over a white shirt. He’s put a comb and some wax through his hair to neaten it up, and when I walk out of the bathroom and spot him standing by the window scrolling through his phone, I almost combust.
“Wow,” he says as I approach him, his gaze trailing downwards in a sweeping assessment of me, “you look amazing.”
I rest a hand on his chest, still dwarfed by him even in my heels. “You scrub up pretty well too, handsome.”
He grins and bends to press a light kiss to my lips.
We take a number of what he refers to as ‘obligatory couple selfies’ and then head down to the lobby to find the function room.
We’re directed to a lower ground lobby, where near one hundred people are mingling in their finery while sipping bubbly from branded flutes. It’s loud, dark, and crowded.
My palms start sweating and I feel the skin on the back of my neck prickle with heat.
I flag down the nearest staff member with a tray and hijack two just for myself. I knock the first one back down in one.
The girl stares at me wide-eyed, and Myles is snickering just behind me.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumble, abandoning the glass on her tray. Unconsciously, I wipe my hands down the sides of my dress.
“Are you okay?” The server asks, her gaze wary, and I am almost certain she is a student working part time just to earn some cash.
Myles rests a hand on my back and takes a glass for himself. “We don’t do big crowds very often.”
She looks twice at Myles—a double take, visibly interested in his face—and then her attention returns to me and the fact that I’m now pressing the cold glass to my cheek, even though it’s December and the air conditioning is on down here.
“Are you having a panic attack?”
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “I get them too, before interviews and exams. Can I give you some advice?”
“I’ll take whatever you can give.”
“Alcohol is a stimulant, not a relaxant, so it’ll only make it worse. The best thing you can do is stand outside for ten minutes, and then when you come back in, talk out loud about what’s going on around you. What you can see, what you can hear.”
I blink at her. “Wow, okay. Are you some kind of therapist?”
“Not quite.” She grins. “I get it, anxiety is a bitch.”
“Thank you…” I squint at her name tag, “Cass.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you get to enjoy yourself.”
I leave the second glass on the tray, and Myles tugs me up and outside the front into the bitter December air. Even though it’s cold, I have to admit it feels good on my skin.
“You alright, Sheridan?” Myles asks quietly, squeezing my hand.
I meet his gaze and nod once. “You’re not allowed to leave my side all night.” I tell him sternly.
“What if I need the loo?”
“I’m coming with you.”
He chuckles and wraps himself tightly around me. I fall into his warmth easily, comforted by it. “I’m not sure the other men would appreciate that. The scenes at the urinals might permanently scar you.”
“I am permanently scarred by things far worse than men at urinals.”
That green-gold gaze studies my face intently, a small crease appearing in his brow. “Having the opportunity to meet you and love you is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I wasn’t expecting him to get so deep, but hearing the words come out of his mouth make me feel buoyant. “I’m not going anywhere, Myles.”
“I really hope not.”
We share a kiss, right there on the pavement in the centre of London so the world can see.
This man is mine.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me too, by the way.” I say against his mouth, “Just don’t tell Hector.”
Myles’s responding laugh is throaty and dirty. “I think it would be in poor taste to gloat to a dog.”
I snort shamelessly. “God, I love you.”
“Good, because I love you, too.”
* * *
When we finally head back inside, we’ve been called to sit for dinner. After the lunch we shared I’m not particularly hungry, but I eat what’s put in front of me and don’t manage dessert. Myles, who is apparently a gannet, eats everything, and mops up each plate afterward.
When the noise levels feel just a bit too loud, I close my eyes and count up to ten, then back down to one, and then I turn to Myles and tell him five things I can see, five things I can hear, and five things I can feel. My favourite is his warm palm against my thigh. The anchor.
The awards ceremony starts after tea and coffee has been served and is hosted by a YouTuber who I’ve never heard of and barely looks the legal drinking age. He reads the list of categories, which feels immense and time-consuming. We’re going to be here for hours.
Like any ceremony, they start with the subcategories: -
Best Horror
Best Thriller
Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Best Comedy
Best Drama
Fortunately, there’s no fannying about with different readers or speeches—we just go up and collect the award, take a photo with someone and then head back to our tables.
Sitting and waiting for the Comedy category feels like it takes hours, and when it finally rolls around, I feel like I might be violently sick right here in front of all these strangers, all over the nicely decorated table. I stare at the black linen and try to calm my breathing as they read out the nominees. I’ve never been to a show like this before. With my interior design work, Marina would always go on our behalf, even if it was one of our projects that was nominated.
Why did I decide to do this?
Why did I come here?
Why did I ask Myles for this?
Suddenly I’m being shaken, and the room is in whistling applause.
“Birdie,” Myles says to me with his hands on my shoulders, “you won, baby.”
Fuuuuuck.
Somehow, I manage to stand, and looking out across the vast, packed function room, my ears fill with cotton wool and my vision blurs, like I’m underwater. I navigate my way to the front of the room blindly, up the steps without tripping, accept the award that looks like a glass cock ring, and take a photo with a man who’s easily pushing sixty-five and can’t take his eyes off my cleavage.
I’m dismissed with a pat on my back that’s dangerously close to my arse, and I stumble my way back to the safety of my Myles.
“Congratulations, baby,” He beams with a peck on my cheek when I sit down.
I just about manage to smile at him, but I know it doesn’t touch my eyes.
“How much did you hate that?” He smooths his hand up and down my back and it eases some of the tension.
“If it were on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, it’d be about fifty.”
Myles pecks my cheek again, and then my shoulder. “I’m proud of you. Although, I have to say these awards look very…”
“They’re like designer sex toys,” says the man sitting on Myles’s other side, apparently having heard us.
“Yes! That’s exactly it.”
And this makes me smile, because even if today had me in a mental headlock, at least I know I got a designer cock ring out of it.
They announce the technical awards next, and I lose out on the Best Animation category to a pair of forty-year-old men with Red Dwarf T-shirts and big beards. I don’t know what their show is, but from the clips they show of it, I’m not surprised I didn’t win.
It’s late by the time Show of the Year gets read out. I’m ready to call it a night, I’m drunk, and would rather let some other nerd win just so I don’t have to walk up to that stage like a zombie again. My wish comes true when they announce the winner as a girl who can’t be older than fourteen with bright purple hair, black makeup, clothes, and massive stomper boots. I think I love her.
Myles leans over, arms slung across the back of my chair and murmurs, “Is it time to leave so I can celebrate you in my own way?”
I heat up in an instant like a damn Bunsen burner. “I think so.”