Chapter 29
Finn
Pi chugs the entire bottle of prosecco in under two minutes. He belches, and I think he’s going to vom, but he raises the empty into the air and shouts, “More!”
Honestly, I must be growing as a person because my immediate thought is one of trepidation. That it’s . . . not a great idea for him to be hammering the booze like this.
Me, Finn Eggington, had the notion that something stupid and potentially dangerous might not be the greatest plan for this moment.
Who have I become?
Buuut he did just break up with his girlfriend, and for innumerable reasons, I feel guilty, so I fetch him another bottle and together we rejoin everyone else inside the marquee.
All I can do now is mind him, and make sure he doesn’t accidentally cause a million pounds worth of damage or give himself alcohol poisoning.
After he polishes off the second bottle, I coax him into downing a pint of water before he moves back to yet more prosecco.
“Is he okay?” Gadget asks from the edge of the dance floor.
Pi’s currently “dancing” with Owen’s daughter and her partner to “The Rhythm of the Night” with a bottle of fizz in each hand.
I see-saw my hand. “His girlfriend dumped him.”
Gadget narrows his eyes at me. I’ve long suspected him to be the only teammate with any inkling of what Pi and I get up to, but Mathias has never said anything. He’ll just quietly observe from whatever corner of the room he’s sequestered himself into. “Didn’t you guys all arrive together?”
“Yep.” I swish around the dregs of my Diet Coke and knock it back like it’s neat whiskey and I’m in an old frontier saloon relaying all my troubles to the barkeep.
Corona finishes playing, and the DJ loops up Darude’s “Sandstorm.”
“Fuck yeah!” Pi yells, jumping on the spot, thrusting a bottle into the air by its neck.
“What happened? Why did they break up?” Gadget asks. He’s looking at me again with that slightly too understanding sparkle in his eyes.
“Uhh . . .” Shit. It’s all going to come out, isn’t it? “That . . . I am not sure of.”
Georgia’s going to tell Megs. If she hasn’t already. They’ll compare notes, piece in the gaps. Other people will find out. The other Cents boys are going to know that Pi and I have been rearranging each other’s guts on the regular for over a year.
Everyone will know. Everyone’s gonna fucking know.
Will they fire us? Transfer us?
What if the press get wind? Pi won’t cope well under that kind of sudden scrutiny.
And what if he doesn’t want anything to do with me after that? What if he leaves? Goes back to Oz?
Oh, great, and now I’m having a panic attack.
“You alright, mate?” Gadget says, placing a hand between my shoulder blades.
“’Scuse me.” I need some space to think—and spiral—in peace. “Can you keep your eye on him for a bit?”
“Um . . .” Gadget looks around the tent. Probably for a more suitable stooge to babysit my drunken friend, but he doesn’t find anyone.
“I just want to get some air. I’ll be back in two minutes, promise.”
“Okay,” he says, finally agreeing, but his eyes are still searching for some way out of the arrangement.
The pergola where Pi and Georgia broke up earlier is now filled with people, mostly smokers, and I don’t feel like chatting to any of them, so I make my way deeper into the grounds of Abs’s ex-boyfriend’s dad’s mansion.
There’s a crooked wooden gate sandwiched between an arched bush of some kind.
I push it open and walk down a dirt path.
It’s illuminated not by the overhead festoon lights that stretch across the event space, but by small solar lanterns staked into the soil.
I get the distinct impression that I’m in a private part of Mr Oakham’s garden, and that party goers are definitely not meant to be here.
I find a bench under a willow tree, sit down, and square breathe for a minute, two minutes, three. I need to hurry up with my panic attack so I can get back to Pi and relieve Gadget of his duties. It’s his wedding day after all, but my feet won’t budge.
It’s the crushing realisation that nothing will be as it was. The impending sense of doom. It almost feels as though by breaking up with Pi, Georgia’s also ended my relationship with her boyfriend.
I lean forward, place my elbows on my knees, and pillow my face in my hands.
Maybe things could be different. Maybe we could . . .
What if we . . .
I wonder if . . .
What if we just fucking ran away together?
To Cornwall, where my son is, and the Cents aren’t.
Buy a little flat, two bedrooms so Logan can stay over. I could have joint custody. I could take him to school and cook his tea and help him with his homework. Pi could put all his Star Trek models back out. What if we learned to surf? What if we taught rugby to the local kids?
What if we . . . grow old together?
And now I’m fucking crying.
I push my fingertips into my sockets to stem the flow of tears.
Somebody yells—yelps in fact—like an animal caught in a trap. The sound is followed by an almighty crash. I look up, and a blur of black and white and blonde curls pitches into the bushes beside me.
“Fuck! Fucking spiky cunts!” an Australian accent screams. It’s Pi. He’s flat on his back, grappling with what appears to be a rosebush. The bush rustles wildly and fat pale-pink petals tumble to the ground like confetti. “Ah, fuck off, you fucking drongos. Get away from me.”
“Shit, pard, are you okay?” I rush over to him and try to help him to his feet, but he’s right, those rose spikes are fucking drongos.
They’re massive, and the more Pi struggles, the more entwined he seems to become. I hold my hands out to him and pull him free, but his jacket doesn’t give up without a fight.
“Does that hurt?” I ask.
“Nah. But it fucking will tomorrow!” He laughs like nothing has ever been funnier.
“How did you find me? Also, Gadget is supposed to be watching you.”
“I told Gadget . . .” Pi crawls the rest of the way out of the bush.
He stands up and there’s mud on his knees.
He takes one step to the left, five steps to the right, one backwards, and then timbers forwards.
I catch him before he faceplants the path, but now he has dirt all over his hands.
He wipes them down the front of his white shirt.
“I told Gadget I was gonna spew,” he finally finishes. “He said don’t spew in the tent, go find a bush to spew in. So I did and you’re here. Funny that.”
I plop him onto the bench and sit beside him. “Are you gonna spew?”
“Oh, yeah. Hundo per cent.” He holds his dirty hand over his mouth, puffs out his cheeks, and shrugs. “Not yet, though.”
“Okay, well, let me know when you’re gonna barf so I can move out of the way.”
“Okay,” he says, closing his eyes and leaning his head back. Only there’s nothing for his head to rest against, so his neck jerks backwards. He groans. “I’m so drunk.”
“You are.” I pat his thigh, and leave my hand there.
“Georgie broke up with me, didn’t she?” Pi says, swinging unfocused eyes towards me.
“She did. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not sorry . . . Oh!” He holds his fingers over his mouth again. “Nope. Not yet. It’s okay, it’s okay, false alarm.”
“You’re not sorry?” Why the fuck is my heart beating so fast?
“Nope. Not sorry. At least I don’t have to feel guilty any longer. About shagging you!” he shouts.
There’s no one in the rose garden with us, but who knows who could be lurking on the other side of those bushes.
I shush him by holding my thumb over his mouth, but he nestles his face into my palm, hiccups, and closes his eyes.
“I really like shagging you, actually.” Thankfully, he’s whispering now.
“Thanks,” I say. “I also enjoy it.”
“I’m glad I never let my stupid girlfriend stop us from shagging.”
I don’t reply to this because I have nothing to say. Again, it’s all my fault. We wouldn’t have started all the shagging if I hadn’t kissed him at Halloween. He wouldn’t even have dated Georgia if I’d never introduced them.
“Is Georgia going to tell anyone about us?” My heart is beating at quadruple its normal speed.
Pi hiccups again. “Probably not. She said it was fucking embarrassing, so she’s gonna tell everyone the real reason we broke up is ’cause I’m boring.” He huffs out a highly flammable breath. “She’s right. I am boring. Aren’t I boring?”
“You’re literally the least boring person I know.”
He smiles, then his face drops. His brows knit together in the centre, and his lower lip wobbles. “Don’t say things like that. It’s not fair.”
“I’m sorry,” I reply, even if I don’t understand what’s not fair about it. “Do you want me to drive you home?”
“Nope. I wanna dance some more. And drink. And I wanna suck your cock.” He slides off the bench as though he’s been hosed from it, onto his knees on the dusty ground.
“None of those things are happening,” I say, getting to my feet to help pull him up again, but he stumbles backwards and drags me down with him.
Great, now we both have muddy knees.
“Is it going to rain tonight?” Pi asks from his spreadeagled position.
“Don’t think so.”
“Good.” He crawls over to the base of the tree and collapses onto his side. “I’m just going to have a little sleep here for a bit.”
I kneel beside him. “Come on, princess. Let’s get you home.”
“No. You lie here with me. I’ll protect you. You be the little spoon.”
“You’ll protect me?” I say, laughing. “From what?”
“Spiders and . . . cows.”
“Did you know that cows are the most deadly animal in the UK?” I’m still laughing.
“You are so fucking smart, Eggling Finnoton, and that’s why I love you.” His eyes are shut and I’ve forgotten how to breathe.
I should ask him to repeat himself, pretend I didn’t hear what he’d said, just to be sure he meant to say it. He probably meant love as a friend, though. But what if it’s something more? No, of course it’s not, he’s pissed as a fart. I expect he’d tell anyone he loved them right now.
“I’m going to be sick in a minute,” he says with his eyes still closed. “Is that okay?”