Chapter Two #2
‘Brilliant,’ muttered Jonno, frowning into his pint. ‘The look on your face suggests that’s a much better offer.’ At that moment the door to the pub opened, admitting a blast of wintry air along with Fran and Kim.
‘Not better, just different,’ said Lucy with a wink, standing up and pulling on her coat. If Anthony was coming over, she needed to shower. ‘Have a lovely evening with these two banter legends.’
‘I hate you,’ said Jonno.
Lucy blew him a kiss and hurried outside, almost colliding with Nate as he leaned against the bin in the street outside, tapping on his phone under a street light.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, stepping to one side.
‘You should maybe slow down.’ He gave her a sardonic half-smile, his fringe falling into his eyes in a way that she found irrationally annoying.
She’d heard somewhere that he’d grown up in the UK, hence the lack of French accent, but she’d also heard him speaking French on the phone to clients on a number of occasions.
Usually there was something oddly sexy about men who were bilingual – it gave them an air of competency, and eliminated the risk of going abroad with someone whose idea of speaking a foreign language was just shouting really slowly in English.
But on Nate, it just came across as sullen mumbling, like he’d actually rather not be talking at all.
‘Places to be,’ she said, conscious that this was probably the longest one-to-one encounter they’d ever had outside of a LUNA meeting room.
‘That’s a shame for both of us,’ he said, his words creating vapour clouds in the glow of the street light. Lucy narrowed her eyes, not sure if he was taking the piss or not. He looked away awkwardly, his body twitching with restless energy.
‘Have a good weekend, Nate.’ Lucy shrugged her bag onto her shoulder. This conversation clearly wasn’t going anywhere, and she had other plans.
‘You too, Lucy,’ said Nate, but she was already on her way to the bus stop and didn’t look back.
‘I need a favour,’ said Anthony, making Lucy shiver as he stroked his long, elegant fingers down her bare thigh.
She used an app to control her central heating, but had forgotten to turn it on in a fluster of delayed buses and her hurry to get home.
So, the whole place had been frigid, prompting her to drag Anthony into the bedroom before he’d barely got his coat off, figuring it was the human equivalent of rubbing two sticks together to start a fire.
At least the flat had been tidy, but clutter and chaos were not how Lucy operated.
Living spaces, like relationships and everything else in her life, were kept clean and simple.
‘Mmm,’ said Lucy, still riding the post-orgasmic wave of tingling limbs and a sweaty flush from her neck to her knees.
She’d never considered Anthony as a long-term prospect – for a start he was an amateur boxer and rode a high-performance motorbike, both of which felt quite stressful qualities in a life partner – but he knew exactly how to get Lucy’s blood flowing.
In fact, she’d never really considered anyone as a long-term prospect.
The reasons were complicated, and even Jonno hadn’t probed that particular wound with any real enthusiasm.
‘It’s my cousin’s wedding in a few weeks, it’s gonna be, like, a massive family thing. I need a date.’
Lucy twisted round to look at him. ‘Why wouldn’t you ask someone else? Or go on your own and find a date when you get there?’ Anthony was, by any measure, a ten out of ten, so it wasn’t like he’d have any trouble finding female company.
‘Because the family will rip the shit out of me all night if I don’t turn up with a super-hot woman. It’ll be fun; my auntie Jade is doing the food and she’s amazing.’
‘Oh well, if Auntie Jade is cooking, I’m there.’ Lucy grinned, ignoring the reference to her being ‘super-hot’ and trying to keep her tone light and playful. In reality this conversation was well beyond the boundaries of their agreed relationship, and she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
‘My cousin Lee is marrying a posh girl. So you won’t be the only one there.’
‘I’m from Croydon, Anthony,’ said Lucy. ‘I don’t think that makes me a posh girl.’
‘Yeah, but you SOUND posh,’ laughed Anthony.
It was hard to deny – Lucy had ditched the South London accent the minute she’d headed north to university in Liverpool, and reinvented herself as generic, well-spoken home counties.
She hadn’t known what she wanted to do with her life at that point, but it seemed like she might have more choices if she talked like someone who worked at the BBC.
Her twin brother Leo had laughed at her, accusing her of turning her back on her roots.
Lucy had pointed out that their parents were pretty middle class by anybody’s standards, and they’d both spent years at school pretending to be more South London than they actually were to avoid being relentlessly beaten up.
‘So you’ll come?’ said Anthony hopefully.
‘When is it?’ Lucy was partly playing for time, but she’d also remembered the work trip. She wasn’t sure if a clash would be a disappointment or a relief.
‘The twenty-eighth of January. It’s a Saturday.’
‘I’m away the weekend before. A work thing in Switzerland.’ She turned her head away, immediately hoping she didn’t sound like she was showing off. Anthony had several jobs – bricklayer, underwear model, Deliveroo rider – but none of them ever took him to Switzerland.
‘Get you, Miss Jet Set.’ She could hear the teasing in his voice, and feel his erection nudging insistently at her hip. Fifteen minutes was all Anthony needed to recover before he was good to go again, like an overheated laptop. ‘Is that a yes, then?’
Lucy shrugged, feeling slightly cornered but not wanting to make a big deal out of it. In the eighteen months they’d been sleeping together, Anthony had never asked her for anything that wasn’t incredibly sexually specific. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘If you don’t get a better offer between now and then.’
‘That would be a shame for both of us,’ whispered Anthony, the tip of his finger brushing her cold nipple and making her gasp.
Nate’s face instantly popped into her head – hadn’t he said something similar earlier, outside the pub?
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate as Anthony’s head disappeared under the covers and her body caught fire again, but Nate’s dark eyes and shaggy Mick Jagger hair kept sliding into her thoughts.
French Exit, she thought. Not nearly as fun as Anthony’s face in my grand entrance.
She smiled to herself and closed her eyes as Anthony slowly and expertly took her to a place where she couldn’t think about anything at all.