The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp

by The Bad Boyfriends Bootcamp (retail) (epub)

  ‘Perhaps just a bit. For Dutch courage. Rach made me.’

  ‘Uhuh.’ He smiled and looked down at his shoes, nodding slowly.

  ‘But I have more and better reasons, more intelligible ones.’ Molly kept chattering in case Patrick was dreaming up a final put-down. ‘I summed up your faults, so it’s only fair that you know mine. I can be bossy – many people have pointed this out – and I talk too much, and I like taking control. And …’

  Patrick held up one hand. ‘In terms of fair play, I should really be allowed to continue here.’

  Molly, humbled, sat with her hands between her legs and her lips buttoned. ‘Right.’

  ‘You kept forgetting who I was, and you don’t really listen to what people say. You called me Patty, even when I said I didn’t like nicknames. You say “dude” too much: you’re neither Bill nor Ted, in case you don’t know. And, I know I’m hardly Dolce and McCartney or whatever, but it would be nice if you didn’t just wear jeans and cardigans all the time.’

  Molly pressed her lips completely together, until they all but disappeared from her face. The big heavy stone in her stomach sunk another foot. He was right, about all of it, and they both knew it.

  ‘But you are kind. Unfailingly kind. You have done loads for Sam, and for John, by the sounds of it. I think your heart is good. You’re funny, and you’re clever. And I’m pretty sure you’re really hot, under the cardigans. I like being with you; I like watching classic nineties movies with you.’

  Molly’s face lit up like St Paul’s at night. Her heart glowed fiercely. She had gone from damp squib to red-hot firework in just seconds.

  The nosey OAP at her side strained her ears to hear the response.

  ‘Yey!’ Leaping from the bench, Molly flung herself into Patrick’s arms, the gin in her system allowing her to bound over any hurdles of embarrassment, literally and figuratively.

  ‘Whoa!’ Patrick stumbled back a step, adjusting to Molly’s weight against his and finding that he liked it very much. ‘We should probably continue this conversation inside, Mols. OK?’

  Molly’s excited agreement was lost in the material of Patrick’s shirt but the audible sigh of disappointment from Mrs Giddeon at the bus stop caught his ear. He shrugged at her in a genial ‘tough luck’ way and smiled.

  * * *

  ‘So you don’t despise me?’ Molly’s grin went from ear to ear and back again.

  ‘Drink your coffee. You need sobering up.’ Patrick smiled back, relief beaming across his face.

  ‘I’m not drunk,’ Molly slurred just a touch as she punched his knee. They were sitting very close together on the leather sofa in Patrick’s flat. Molly really hoped it wasn’t the kind of leather that made farty noise when you moved. Patrick had his arm around her shoulder and she liked the warmth she got from nestling into his side. She could definitely get used to this. Then a thought prickled Molly’s fogged brain.

  ‘No, I don’t hate you. I don’t like what you’re doing in this bootcamp thing, but I definitely don’t hate you.’

  ‘Hey! If you didn’t completely hate me, why the Noel didn’t you call me back? I left you lots of messages, you know!’ Molly did her best indignant face but was really too chuffed to be anything but madly grinning.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Patrick smoothed a non-existent wrinkle on his dark jeans. ‘Well, when I saw how horrendous you obviously thought I was – in spreadsheet format,’ Molly cringed and covered her face with her hands, but Patrick pulled them away, ‘I figured that arse Rob must have successfully pulled you in Devon. So I sort of gave up. And, um, I got really drunk after our, you know, falling out and dropped my phone in the loo at the pub. I’m still waiting for my replacement. I emailed Sam and he told me that you’d been getting in touch but … I was a bit too embarrassed to explain.’ He laughed uncomfortably.

  ‘But the Facebook pokes, the Tweets? There are so many ways to ignore someone now, and you managed them all!’

  Patrick rolled his eyes, but to Molly it was the sexiest movement she’d ever witnessed. ‘My sister Theresa signed me up for those when she said I needed to meet more girls, but I never check the things. Sorry, I didn’t even realise you were using them to stalk me.’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I was not stalking you, I was wooing you. Chuh, idiot.’ Molly dug her elbow into Patrick’s ribs with all the force of a tickling feather.

  ‘Wooing, is it?’ Patrick asked deliciously slowly. When his lips pushed together to produce the ‘w’ Molly could think of nothing but snogging his face off. He lowered his head closer to Molly’s and let his voice drop to a deep whisper. ‘Well, the one thing I don’t need lessons in is wooing.’

  ‘Hmmm?’ was all Molly could manage, with a squeak.

  And then the conversation sort of finished.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Molly leant up on one elbow. ‘I’d like you to know that I usually save that for Date Four.’

  Patrick chuckled and smoothed a few stray strands of hair from her face, then pulled the duvet up a bit further over her back. ‘I don’t doubt it. Let’s count New Year’s Eve as date one, the speed dating as date two, the spilled tea as date three and bingo. Not that I would have minded if it’d happened on date one … Are you warm enough, Mols?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Can you speak at all? Am I that good?’

  Molly laughed. ‘It’s just weird, but it’s also not weird. Is that weird?’ She rolled on her back and wriggled down further under the covers. ‘I feel so like me again.’

  ‘Who were you before?’ Patrick picked up a pair of shorts from his semi-messy bedroom floor and put them on.

  Molly observed her clothes heaped on the floor next to lots of Patrick’s. ‘When we weren’t talking I felt like a different Molly. Or a Molly I didn’t like much, anyway. Because I had gone a bit power-mad. Now I’m back where I should be. And although this,’ she indicated her nakedness under the duvet and the bed in general, ‘is new for us, it feels like we’ve been doing it for years. Huh.’

  Patrick was just about to nip downstairs for tea but stopped at the doorway. ‘At best I can manage twenty-seven minutes, Mols. Don’t push your luck.’ He ducked the pillow that came sailing at his head and smiled at the delighted laughter that followed him down the stairs.

  Molly and Patrick spent the rest of the day more than companionably. Apart from Patrick having to send the odd email to keep on top of his work, they lost themselves in classic cheesy movies, toasted cheese sandwiches, and Patrick’s laughing confession about how he’d wanted to floor ‘that slimy’ Rob at the speed dating night. Patrick had come round to Molly’s that Valentine’s Night to spontaneously ask her out and had only tagged along to the speed dating in the hope that he could chat long enough with Mols to get up the courage to suggest a dinner or a movie. Speed-dating to Patrick was, he said, ‘a bigger nightmare than licking Jeremy Clarkson’s armpit. With my leg in a bear trap.’ Then, when the ‘casual chat’ over a cup of tea didn’t go as planned, and Molly failed to invite him to Devon, though she asked Rob and all her other new bloke ‘mates’, he grumpily assumed she had no interest in him. The spreadsheet pretty much backed it up. After all that, things had gotten a bit confusing.

  Patrick also admitted, as they stood side by side at the cooker, making some scrambled eggs for a lazy dinner, that his excuse of coming round to collect a shirt at New Year’s was pathetic at best. ‘I just wanted to talk to you.’ He winced as he stirred the pan, the honesty leaving him feeling more than a little vulnerable.

  ‘But we were always talking!’ Molly came behind Patrick and looped her arms around his broad chest. He’d lent her his old blue hoodie to keep her warm in the draughty kitchen. She rested her head between his shoulder blades and moved with him when he reached for the pepper grinder.

  ‘Yes, but with other people around. It’s bloody hard to get you on your own, Miss Cooper. Shit, I’m going to hav
e tell your brother what’s happened.’

  ‘Don’t give him details,’ warned Molly. ‘Though, if you think of it this way, it just saves speculation at the wedding. The best man and bridesmaid have already hooked up. Done!’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s going to smooth things over with him in an instant, but good point. Could you grab that toast and some plates?’

  Molly’s BlackBerry buzzed in her back pocket. ‘Sure.’ She opened and shut lots of cupboards till she found plates. Molly put two on the sideboard and pinched the toast out of the toaster with nimble fingers, then allowed herself to check her messages. It was an email from Josie.

  From: workoutdiva27@live.com

  To: thecolonelbb@gmail.co.uk

  Subject: Hey hey

  Hey lady! Come learn the ropes during the workout tomorrow morning. I need someone to cover while Kurt & I go away for a few days next week. Can you say mini break? Am so excited.

  We have tonnes of new recruits coming. Fresh meat! Yey xxx p.s. It’s 6 a.m., on the Rye. Don’t be late. I mean it x

  ‘Oh, knickers.’ Molly pulled a face.

  Patrick shovelled scrambled eggs onto the toast with a lack of precision. Quite a lot hit the top of his feet. ‘Is that my new nickname? I actually quite like it.’

  ‘No,’ Molly bumped her hips against Patrick’s. ‘I have to do a really early thing tomorrow. It means I have to leave super super early to get there. Knickers.’

  ‘Is it a work thing?’ Patrick’s back stiffened. ‘So your business is booming, huh?’ He carried the plates over to the kitchen table and sat down with a scrape of his chair. Molly picked up on the drop in temperature pretty fast, and scooted into her seat next to him.

  ‘Well, yes, because we had this magazine article that got us lots of new … participants.’

  Patrick chewed slowly, avoiding eye contact. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘We didn’t really talk about this yet, did we?’ Molly felt the day’s absurdly happy buzz start to drift away, like a wispy cloud. ‘I know there are things you don’t agree with, but I’ve been making changes, stepping back from the bootcamp. It’s come close to ruining really important things – like my friendships, and people’s love lives and,’ she smiled sheepishly, in a way she hoped was charming, ‘a chance of us becoming a real “us”. And I know that I have to make a change. It’s going to be different now; I’m not going to interfere. I’m learning to de-boss.’

  Patrick finally looked at Molly. ‘No, I was wrong to react the way I did. I mean, not about the bits where you said I could be too sarky and had clown feet, but if it’s your business I’ll just have to – um – adjust. Even though it’s a bit unusual. And involves you spending lots of time with many, many other men. If you look at it this way – would you be relaxed if I was telling a big group of young women how to be sexy while watching them jump around in the mud?’ Patrick’s gaze wandered away to the ceiling for just a second as he let this image play out. Molly cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, I would feel easier if you weren’t so hands-on. I mean, if that’s your plan anyway? How about you take a break from bootcamp activities for the next two weeks? You can see what life would be like without it. Plus, it would give me a chance to woo you regularly.’ A hopeful light twinkled in Patrick’s eyes and Molly didn’t have the heart to extinguish it.

  ‘Yes, uh, absolutely. Two weeks off is a great idea. Nothing too hands on. Nope. I’ll just be the paper-pusher and number-crunchy. From afar. Silent partner, that’s me.’

  Patrick’s mouth lifted into a one-sided smile. ‘OK. Let’s just keep everything out in the open. Especially after all the craziness and false starts. And no more spreadsheets about me, capishe?’

  ‘Capishe.’ Molly felt relief run over her like a hot shower. She could just sneak in a few last sessions, while she decided what she would do with the bootcamp in the long-run, but keep them on the down-low. She wanted to be totally honest with Patrick, of course. But she owed it to Josie to let her have her saucy little weekend escape with Kurt in peace.

  ‘Mmm, great eggs,’ Molly enthused, after loading up a forkful and shovelling it in.

  ‘Eggs are a great source of energy, you know,’ Patrick said. ‘I bet this amount here,’ he pointed at half his laden piece of toast, ‘would give me, oooh, at least twenty-seven minutes’ worth of intense energy.’ Patrick’s eyebrows told Molly all she needed to know about his intentions.

  She attacked the rest of her scrambled eggs at a rate of knots.

  * * *

  On what was either the last night bus or the first morning bus back down South from Camden, Molly sent out a very smug group text:

  To: Suze Mob, Rach Mob, Josie

  I don’t care if this wakes you up (Jose, I know you’re doing press-ups already), I had to tell you – P and I made up! I think he’s now my boyfriend. And he is in no way bad. No siree Bob. ALL details later, I promise. See you in a bit, Jose. Happy Molly x

  ‘And then what?’ Josie clasped her hands together at her chest. If she hadn’t been in head-to-toe camouflage with mud smudged under her bright eyes, she would have been a perfect breathless extra for Gone With the Wind. The sunny Californian hung on Molly’s every word as she replayed the gin in a teacup, the bus stop seduction (of sorts), all the confessional chat and hinted more than a little about the upstairs business. Both girls were in a gushy, blushy paradise. It was just a shame that it was 6 a.m. and that eight grown men (who they needed to intimidate for the next hour) were marching towards them, yawning and stretching muscles.

  ‘More. Of this. Later,’ Josie muttered through the side of her mouth. ‘Now, watch and learn, petal, I am going to make these boys cry.’

  Molly felt a shivery sensation run through her as Josie seamlessly assumed her role and suddenly The Punisher appeared before her, complete with steely glare and an eerie control to her voice.

  ‘Well, what do we have here then?’

  The guys had no idea what they were in for. This was a ‘fresh batch’ – entirely new recruits that needed shaping up and putting through their paces, fast. Some of them were still smiling innocently. Fools, Molly thought to herself, poor, defenceless fools.

  Prowling around them like a particularly hungry lioness on the lookout for a wounded zebra, Josie sized up each cadet in turn. She blew her whistle once, sharply.

  ‘One whistle means start!’ She bellowed, followed by two short blasts. ‘Two means stop! And I never repeat myself. Star jumps!’ That shrill blast of the whistle again made Molly’s ear drums vibrate, but the men failed to act. They stared at Josie dumbly.

  Uh oh.

  ‘Don’t you dare make me say that twice!’ The whistle screeched again, this time for five seconds longer, and in an instant eight pairs of legs were scissoring open and shut at a frantic pace, as the heads above them figured out that this woman wasn’t taking any baloney.

  Josie strolled over to an awestruck Molly and whispered, ‘You scare them like that to start with, really out of nowhere, and then for the rest of the time they are totally like jello in front of you. It’s awesome!’ She bit down on her bottom lip to hold back the giggles. ‘So, I’ll get them running relays, to get those hearts pumping. I like the guys to chant some mantras as they go, it imprints good behaviour even while they’re building a good body. Smart, huh?’

  ‘Amazing idea, hun!’ Molly beamed enthusiastically. ‘Let me see if I can dream up some extras while you’re doing your thing. What do you use at the moment?’

  Josie sucked in cheeks and thought, while behind her the men wheezed their way through more and more sit-ups, their stomachs already causing them more pain than a back, sack and crack performed with hot tar. ‘Um, OK, so I ask them “What do you like to hear?” and they have to say “All about you!” That’s a good one. I’ve also been working on “One, two, three, four: I put clean clothes in a drawer; five, six, seven, eight: that’s why I get a second date.” But that still needs a little fine-tuning. Shout if you have any good ideas.’ With a wink, Jo
sie went back to her droopy clay men, ready and willing to be sculpted into marble gods.

  * * *

  Molly soon found herself relishing the ultimate power that the fitness session allowed her, despite all her good intentions. Maybe it was the near-silence of the park that morning – a handful more joggers and she might have found herself embarrassed, screaming as she was at the top of her lungs. Maybe it was the fact that none of the cadets so much as smirked or huffed, let alone answered back or refused to play along. They sucked it up: every hard, dirty, sweaty mouthful of it. Maybe it was just the shiny whistle. She was even so bold as to take a quick pew on a particularly wide-looking cadet as he did his tenth push-up. She couldn’t quite resist. Whatever the reason, Molly completely forget that not twenty-four hours before she’d described herself as the paper-pusher, the number-cruncher. Silent partner? Not now she wasn’t. Molly was being plenty loud.

  And just as she was getting into the swing of things, just as she was really building up a head of steam and feeling pleased with herself for her on-the-spot chant (‘Conversation makes connection! Conversation makes connection!’), she saw him. Molly saw the blue hoodie she’d worn the night before to stay cosy in the kitchen. And she saw the wide shoulders that she’d stroked in a dreamy way in bed. She saw them turn, as Patrick marched swiftly away.

  Molly had never sprinted so hard as she did that morning to catch up with Patrick. Thank god for the broken crossing lights that kept him hemmed in at the junction, unable to find a window even in the early-morning traffic. As he heard her footfall approach, he turned his head sharply and threw something into a nearby wire-mesh bin. Two pastries tumbled out of a white paper bag. A milky coffee leaked caramel-coloured liquid onto the concrete below.

  Oh. Breakfast. Molly mourned the caffeine and sugar offerings, now off the menu.

  ‘Wait!’ she shouted. Calling out after a disgruntled Patrick was now becoming one of her strongest skills. But she wasn’t sure if it was a strength or weakness. ‘Don’t go! I’m sorry,’ she panted.