Chapter Thirty-Two
‘Right hand… red.’
The guy standing in front of me grins, his eyebrows rising as his hand moves towards my chest. He is the third guy to try this tonight, because the impromptu costume Jonah made for me is a Twister mat made from a plain white T-shirt and coloured circles positioned in rows, with the red circles covering my breasts.
‘Touch me and I’ll break your fingers.’
The hand is snatched away. It is the third hand that has made a hasty retreat after my threat, but it’s the first that elicits a snigger from behind me. I turn and see the knight who stopped me from falling on my arse outside earlier.
‘I imagine that’s happened a lot this evening.
’ He gives me a wry smile, and I simply shrug and turn back to McHandsy, to make sure I don’t have to follow through on my warning.
Thankfully, he’s taken the hint and slunk away.
‘Are you at uni with these guys?’ The knight waves a hand around to encompass the other party guests in the kitchen and beyond.
I shake my head and grab the bottle of gin. ‘I’m not at uni. I’m friends with someone who is though, and he’s friends with Malachi, Ezra and Umar.’ I slosh gin into my cup. I have yet to forget about work and the deep shit I’m in but I’m working on it.
‘I’m Noah, Malachi’s brother.’ The knight holds his hand out but snatches it away a split second later. ‘You’re not going to break my fingers, are you?’ He grins and I find the corners of my lips tugging upwards, despite my best efforts to resist.
‘That depends.’ I untwist the cap on the tonic water and top up my cup. ‘Are you going to use my costume as an excuse to be a creep?’
The knight – Noah – places a hand on his armoured chest. ‘Fair maiden, I give you my word that I will never cross that line.’
A giggle bubbles up, but I press a hand to my mouth to smother it. I have fallen for this kind of schtick before and I won’t allow myself to be charmed only to be let down yet again.
‘I’m glad to hear that.’ I screw the lid back on the tonic water.
‘But I need to go and find my friends now.’ With a nod of farewell, I stride out of the kitchen and push my way into the living room, where I immediately spot Thea (she’s hard to miss in her red catsuit) as she snogs the face off Aquaman.
My eyes move on, spotting everything from Alice in Wonderland to Michael Myers, but I can’t see SpongeBob Jonah anywhere.
Draining my gin, I dump the cup on the side and head upstairs to find the loo.
After several drinks, I’m desperate for a wee but there’s a queue of more than a dozen people that I have no choice but to join.
‘Fair maiden, we meet again.’
I close my eyes and hope with all my might that when I open them there won’t be a knight standing behind me in the queue. But, of course, there is, and Noah performs a little bow, although he’s barely able to bend with the metal plate over his torso.
‘Hello again.’ I don’t smile, because I don’t want to encourage this interaction. I simply want to inch forward in the queue until I experience the sweet relief of making it to the bathroom.
‘We could be here for a while.’ He nods at the queue, which doesn’t seem to be moving at all. ‘It always takes people longer when they’re in costume. Extra layers and that.’ He holds his hands out, splaying his heavy cloak at his sides. Damn, a cloak is sexy. I push the thought away.
‘Luckily I don’t have that problem.’ My Twister T-shirt is a creep magnet, but it doesn’t present any bathroom troubles.
‘Only the problem with groping.’ Noah clasps his hands behind his back, as though demonstrating that I’m completely safe with him.
But I’m not. I’m not safe with any man, because even the ones you think are decent, that have the potential to be The One, can unexpectedly break your heart. Although I’m over Kit, I’m not prepared to put myself through that again.
‘I can wait, actually.’ I nod at the still-unmoving queue and, ignoring my burning bladder, scurry back down the stairs and push myself back into the living room where Thea is still snogging Aquaman and there’s still no sign of Jonah.
I mill around, mainly because if I stand still I will wet myself, until I think it’s safe to return to the toilet queue, which is now snaking down the stairs.
My bladder is screaming. My pelvic floor is fighting for its life.
I am hopping mad with myself (and physically hopping from foot to foot to keep the wee at bay) for giving up my place in the queue for fear of being subjected to another meet-cute.
Because I have no doubt that Noah is another in a long line of men pushed into my path by fate; first there was the heroic way he broke my fall outside, followed by the attempt to charm me in the kitchen and then oh-so-surprisingly bumping into me in the queue for the toilet.
Those are some classic meet-cutes right there, but I won’t be won over by Noah, no matter how handsome he is.
And he is handsome. I can admit that, if only to myself.
He has a Heath Ledger in A Knight’s Tale thing going on with the armour and his blond curls.
Past Christina would have swooned. She’d have felt fluttery and her brain would have turned to mush as she tried so hard to say something intelligent or witty, to make him believe she was worth talking to.
But Present Christina has been fatally wounded when it comes to men after months of disappointment and disenchantment.
‘Jelly!’ Jonah is heading towards me, making his way carefully down the stairs, sideways to allow his cuboid padding to pass the people waiting in the line.
‘Where have you been hiding? We’ve been looking for you.
’ Jonah’s face is shiny, his eyes bright, and his hands are flying about the place as he speaks.
He’s in the good stage of drunk: happy and sparkling and wanting to share his joy, and I can’t help smiling in response.
I don’t need meet-cutes when I have Jonah.
He’s the one person I’d trust over anyone, bar Mum and Dad, and I’d quite happily spend eternity with this man, watching romcoms into our old age while we snack on crisps and tea.
‘Look who I found.’ Jonah’s eyes light up further as he beckons someone else down the stairs. They also have to tread carefully to accommodate their costume, though theirs is star-shaped rather than cuboid. ‘Look, Jelly. It’s Patrick!’
‘Hey.’ Patrick waves as they join Jonah opposite me on the stairs. ‘Cool costume.’
‘Thanks.’ I pull at the T-shirt and grimace. ‘Turns out it’s a bit of a pervert magnet though.’
‘Oh?’ Patrick frowns, but she nods when I explain about the right-hand-red thing, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
‘That sucks. Luckily, most guys find my costume goofy rather than an excuse for sexual harassment.’ She holds her hands out as wide as she can manage in the tight space and does a little wiggle, but she stops with a gasp as the music blasting from the living room changes.
‘I love this song! Let’s go and dance!’ She grabs my hand, but I have to shake my head, even though it is a good song.
‘I really, really need the loo.’ As though on cue, there’s a sharp jab from my bladder and I have to push my legs together.
‘Find us in a bit then, yeah?’ Already jigging to the music, Patrick places her hands on Jonah’s shoulders, and they head down to the living room, giggling about something before they’re swallowed up by the crowd.
I finally make it to the toilet, but my relief is short-lived as my phone starts to ring as I’m making my way down to the living room to join SpongeBob and Patrick. I frown at the screen, partly because I rarely get calls on my phone, but mainly because it’s my boss’s name on the screen.
‘Hello?’ I push a finger into my ear as I pass the living room and head into the kitchen, where it’s a bit quieter.
‘It’s Halloween, Christina.’ I can barely hear Sally’s voice with all the noise of the party, but she doesn’t sound happy. She sounds super-stressed. Strangled.
‘I know that.’ I look around the kitchen: the people dressed as witches and demons are a big clue.
‘It’s the thirty-first of October.’
Again, I know this, but I don’t say as much as I open the back door and step out into the chilly but muted garden.
‘That means it’s exactly two months until New Year’s Eve, and as far as I can tell, you haven’t booked anyone to play at Rollerz. Please tell me I’m misinformed.’ She whimpers. I want to join in, because she isn’t misinformed.
‘I am working on it, Sally. I promise.’ I’ve spent the last few months since Charlie’s exposé trying to find a replacement act, but my only options are the terrible magician and his redundant dog or a Beyoncé soundalike who sounds nothing like the megastar but does a good impression of someone being swung at repeatedly with a bag of spanners.
‘We have one more week, Christina.’ Sally doesn’t add what will happen if I fail to find a replacement after one week, but I can hazard a guess as she’s been murmuring about cutting the staff’s hours to reduce the bar’s outgoings.
Sally ends the call and I slump down on the threshold between the kitchen and the garden, my legs suddenly losing the ability to keep me upright.
One more week to dredge up someone better than the crappy magic man and the crappier warbler. I am screwed.
‘Hark, what ails thee, fair maiden?’
My head is already in my hands, but I groan when I hear the voice behind me, which can only belong to my knight in shining armour.
‘Doth thou require mine aid?’
I groan again, louder this time. I can’t deal with Sally’s wrath and a persistent, medieval-speaking meet-cute. ‘Do you have to talk like that?’
‘What dost thou mean?’
I twist so I can glare up at him, but I have to work really hard to maintain my ire because he’s grinning down at me, his eyes crinkled at the corners with delight. He places a hand over his heart and earnestly furrows his brow.
‘I beseech thy pardon. I shall cease to be a knave forthwith.’
‘A knave?’
Noah squeezes past me to hop down into the garden. ‘A knob, in modern language.’ He grins down at me and I battle to keep my own smile at bay. ‘So, what’s making you look like such a mard?’
I laugh. I can’t help it; it splutters out of me before I can even think about stopping it. ‘A mard? Harsh! I think I preferred it when you were speaking like a knave.’
Noah crouches in front of me and takes my hands in his, a look of pure sincerity on his face. ‘What dost cause thee to wear such a countenance of sorrow?’
‘Seriously?’ I pull my hand away and shake my head. ‘How do you even know these words?’
Noah lowers himself so he’s sitting cross-legged on the concrete ground, even though it’s cold and damp and he’s only wearing leggings under his armour. ‘I studied medieval literature and languages at uni. Plus.’ He leans forward, so we’re nearly touching. ‘I’m a bit of a twat.’
I laugh again. A proper belly laugh that roars out of me.
‘So.’ Noah waits until my giggles have subsided before he turns serious. ‘What’s wrong?’
I shake my head. ‘It’s nothing. Just a work thing.’
‘What kind of a work thing?’
A work thing that’s going to see me sacked before the year’s out.
‘I messed up.’ I shake my head. I didn’t mess up; I acted with nothing but virtue.
It was Kit’s wrongdoing that caused this disaster, but I don’t need to go into all that now with this well-meaning stranger.
‘I work at a bar, and I was supposed to book an act for New Year’s Eve.
But I haven’t and it’s probably too late now. ’
‘What kind of act are we talking about?’
Anything, I want to say. I am desperate. So desperate I’m seriously considering booking the magician right now. But I don’t tell Noah this. ‘We had a Steps tribute act lined up, but they had to cancel.’
Noah sits up straighter. ‘So you’re looking for a tribute act?’
I shrug. I’m looking for anyone who won’t get booed off the stage by disappointed revellers, to be honest, tribute or not.
‘Because I sort of know someone who used to perform as a George Michael tribute on the side. My uncle’s best mate.’
My eyes widen as I lean in towards Noah. ‘Is he any good?’
‘He was on Stars in Their Eyes years back. He didn’t win, but…’ He lifts his shoulders and lets them drop lazily.
I have no idea what that is, but I don’t let on. ‘You say he used to do it? Do you think he’d come out of retirement to save my arse?’
Noah shrugs. ‘I could ask him. Give me your number and I’ll let you know.’
I hesitate. Does he actually know this George Michael-alike or is this simply a ploy to get my number? Noah must sense my hesitation because he grabs his own phone and starts to tap away on the screen.
‘His name’s Brian Butterman.’ He hands me his phone, which is playing a clip on YouTube of a glitzy TV show. A man emerges through smoke and the intro to ‘Careless Whisper’ starts to play. My eyebrows shoot up when the man begins to sing. He sounds a lot like George Michael.
I hand Noah his phone back and reel off my number. I’m still not one hundred per cent sure this isn’t a meet-cute ploy, but I have to take the chance. My job at Rollerz depends on it.