Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Normal.
Whatever normal means.
Duration: All night long.
Proposal price: ￡10, and bring your own bottle of De Chante.
Iread Heath’s proposal in the cab again on the way down to Southampton, and it makes me smirk through the jitters. We’re off to another random hotel overlooking the docks. Hardly a Cannes adventure, but it’s ok. It’s by the sea this time, at least. Maidstone wasn’t exactly a tourist landmark.
Josh has the bottle of De Chante on the seat between us, wrapped up in purple gift paper with a big silver bow on the top of the cork. He was so proud of himself when he positioned it there.
At least it’s got a decent head on it.
Our expensive purple bowed champers cost a small fortune, but Josh insisted on abiding to the proposal to the letter. Even the fee remained the same.
Ten quid for a whole night session is hilarious, but if this is the new normal, Heath is more than welcome to it. The Agency might get pissed off at the lack of commission on his bookings, but I’m sure Orla could handle it. Especially with Vinnie Hampton coming onboard as a new client.
If Vinnie was right about the potential influx of seven figure proposals coming my way, then The Agency would stomach less of a paycheck from Heath Mason month to month. Or I hope they would.
Damn. How I hope they would.
Another bout of jitters on top of jitters. I’m getting sick of it.
Even now I get nerves about my account getting blacklisted, and getting struck from the entertainer list like a criminal.
Josh doesn’t seem all that worried about the technicalities considering that he’s the biggest stickler to the rules.
He has hold of my hand as we travel, smiling happily, but his mind isn’t on The Agency or entertainer accounts right now.
His foot is tapping in the footwell, in desperation to see Heathy baby again.
Josh may be able to read me like a book, but I’m getting pretty good at doing the same in reverse. It’s not even a year yet since I met him, but it feels like for ever.
Now here we are. Two people in heartfelt love, ten quid on the cards for tonight, a bottle of champagne to be handed over, and two entertainers besotted with their three-way client.
The last time I took a proposal this cheap was for charity, even though I didn’t have a clue.
The guy at the mall who gave me thirty grand to spend as I wanted, in reward for attempting to help a man in need over Christmastime.
The proposal said that he needed a fake partner at short notice, and I took it on with no expectations of it being a tester in disguise.
I thought the very opposite. I thought I was just being kind.
Wow, I’m still so glad I took the opportunity. The way I handed out cash to the people who needed it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
I didn’t regret that proposal, and I definitely won’t be regretting this one. I can’t wait to hand over the bottle of De Chante to Heath with a grin on my face. Ten quid or ten million, it doesn’t matter. With Heath it will never matter again.
Fuck the bullshit of anonymity tonight, I’m done with it. Thanks, Vinnie.
I walk straight on up to the reception desk at the Ocean Blue hotel, standing right next to Josh and our suitcase as I put the champagne on the counter top.
I look like me tonight, in my full gothic glory.
My hair is twisted in long dark curls, with skull clips in my hair for a dash of novelty.
My cat flicks are on point, and my lips are blood red, my cleavage on full display in the satin bodice showing under my black furry jacket.
The woman behind the desk looks at me with a smile, her eyes giving me an up and down as she checks me out, but once she turns her attention to the gorgeous Joshua, I’m just a piece on the sidelines. He takes centre stage as he checks us in.
Like just about everyone else, she wants a piece of him.
I don’t blame her.
“Suite four, sir,” she tells him, and hands over the key cards. “Floor seven. You’ll have a fantastic view of the docks during your stay.”
We’ll have a much better view than the docks during our stay here, and I’d love to tell her so. We’ll have a view of Heath Mason’s magnificent cock, which is enough to outshine any ocean liner in the world.
“You alright, baby?” Josh asks when we step inside the elevator.
I’m holding the De Chante like a trophy, and he has our cutesy skull print suitcase at his feet like we’re a pair of weirdos set to see the Southampton sights. Little does the world know.
What would it be like if it did?
“I’m more than alright,” I tell Josh, as the wave of butterflies takes over me. “Seeing Heath is going to be, just…”
“Amazing. Yeah, I know. I’m feeling it, too.”
Suite four does have a great view of the docks, the receptionist wasn’t lying. There are three cruise liners moored there along with a load of huge freight ships, and they are all mighty and fine. I love boats, and I love the sea.
Especially in Cannes…
If only it was me, Josh and Heath boarding one of those bad boys and setting off to sail around the world.
We could drop in on my parents in Sydney, and check out the Easter Island heads on the way.
Maybe I could check out the Easter Island heads while giving head on Easter Island, two dicks at once. That would be a memory of a lifetime.
“There’s the lip thing again,” Josh laughs, and joins me at the window.
He wraps his arm around my waist, taking a sniff of the spritz of Dior on my neck.
“You trying to guestimate how many containers are on one of those freight boats? I Googled it once, when I was here with my parents. My grandma wanted to see the sea.”
I laugh at the absurdity.
“Come on, then! Share the wisdom. Don’t leave me hanging after that cliffhanger.”
“Some of the largest ships in the world carry over twenty-four thousand containers at once.”
I twist back to him. “You’re having a laugh.”
“No. For real. It’s crazy.”
I giggle, caught up in the madness of reality.
“Everything about our life is crazy, Josh. Even the fact we’re discussing cargo ships at a hotel window while Heath Mason is prepping for dirty time with us down the corridor. Or I guess he is. I hope he is.”
“Well, you know what the famous Seal says about Crazy.”
“Doesn’t everyone in the universe know what the famous Seal says about Crazy? And he’s right. We’re never going to survive without it. We’d have no chance.”
That’s when I truly clock my decision. Right here and now, overlooking boats in a bustling dock as the sun goes down.
Normal means nothing to me.
Nothing that means anything to me is normal. Not even our rug at home. Not Josh’s weird collection of books and cacti. Not the way I salute magpies and give a hop, hop, hop on my left foot like a weird ballerina whenever I slip a stiletto on.
Not my life, not my career, not my boyfriend.
And not Heath.
Heath Mason is a million amazing things, and the word normal wouldn’t feature in any of them.
The cards come tumbling down in my mind, and my inner jeep veers off the road of security. But I don’t care. I don’t give a toss.
I know what I want.
I want the three of us. Me, Josh and Heath living our best lives, without the constraints of normality.
I want our magic trio all in, for all time. I want to love the two men, just as they love each other. No holds barred. No proposals involved. Nothing but us, being us, far away from normal.
Still, there are three of us involved in the outcome, and two votes can easily outweigh one.
I only pray Heath hasn’t gone all rational and is set to side with Josh, because that’s not where I’m standing. Not anymore.
Thanks again, Vinnie Hampton.
He’s left me with a lot more mental stimulation than memories of being fucked on a lion.
“You’re tense as all hell,” Josh says, massaging my shoulders. “Want to talk anything through before the proposal starts? Any last-minute discussions you want to run through?”
This time I shake my head.
“Nope.”
“No?”
I turn to Josh, grinning with an inner glow I feel bursting through from my very core. I’m resolute. Determined.
“Nope. I’ve got this.”
He looks confused, surprised, but gives me a smile, nodding at my words.
“Go you, Ells. Team us, whatever the outcome may be.”
We link pinkies, because yeah, it’s team us, whatever the outcome may be. I just hope the ultimate outcome has a third us in it, without any baggy disguise hoodies, and pre-scheduled meetups until Heath finally meets someone else and waves us goodbye.
That’s not the normal I want in my life.
Josh grabs the purple wrapped De Chante when the proposal time approaches. He clicks arrived on the app and awaits the instructions.
I laugh out loud when the response comes through, because I should have guessed it. Heath is in suite fucking three, next door. And this time, if I’d have known for sure, maybe I would have given a little fuck it to normality and walked right on over.
“You’ve got so much sass about you tonight, baby,” Josh says as we leave the hotel room. He raises an eyebrow at me as we approach Heath’s door. “I like it. And I think Heathy Baby’s gonna like it, too.”
“We’ll see about that, won’t we?”
“Sure will. In just about… ten seconds’ time.”
The door to suite number three swishes open wide the very moment Josh’s fist lands on it, and seeing Heath standing there before us sends my heart into a scattered frenzy, because holy fucking shit, he looks amazing, with his long dark hair and cool blue eyes.
He pulls us inside, and scrap convention, my lips are on his before the door has even snapped shut properly, and he’s kissing me back, pulling Josh in close as he does it.
Three-way kisses, and tight hugs, and missed yous on loop, all three of us a tangle as we stumble for enough of a greeting to make up for lost time.
“Here’s your De Chante,” Josh says finally, and hands the bottle over to our client.
“I was taking the piss, Joshua,” Heath says.