Escaping Mr Right

by Avril Tremayne

‘Eeew.’ From a horrified Drew. ‘Evie! Disgusting.’

  ‘Oh, so it’s okay to ask me about my partner’s penis, but not Evie?’ Me – who was not answering the size question, no matter what!

  ‘It’s a sibling thing,’ Drew said and for the first time in living memory, he squirmed. ‘Eeew, God! Anyway, let me re-phrase for all our sakes. Is it a steroid thing? Because Marcus is built like a brick shithouse. So has he … well, shrunk? In proportion to the brick structure, I mean? Those steroids can play havoc with a guy’s sex drive, you know.’

  Gape, gape, gape. Me and Evie both at that point. Wondering if he was serious this time.

  But apparently he was.

  ‘One,’ I said, raising a hold-it-right-there finger. ‘He is a top athlete and takes no – as in no – drugs! They’re tested, you know, relentlessly.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Forgot about that.’

  ‘And two …’ I couldn’t resist a satisfied smile at that point. ‘He happens to be hung like a horse.’ Okay – so I was answering the eternal penis size question after all.

  Drew grinned. Sometimes I think he really is evil. ‘Good to know,’ he said – or should I say, sniggered?

  ‘Drew, you’re being a dick.’

  ‘And isn’t that the word of the day!’

  ‘Word of the …?’ I stared at him, kind of loving the way his mind worked, but also wanting to throw something at him. ‘Only you would have the balls to say that,’ I said, as my lip started quivering.

  ‘Dick and balls?’ he said. ‘That’s some word association you’ve got going on there.’

  And the laughter exploded out of me like Mount Vesuvius erupting. Which might not have been appropriate – because the parlous state of my sex life was no laughing matter – but how could I not find that funny? Drew went off beside me, and Evie was laughing so hard she was snorting like a camel.

  The intercom sounded and Evie, holding her sides and gasping for air, could barely get up to go find out who was down there.

  Drew and I did our best to get ourselves under control while she was over at the intercom, but it required some digging around for a tissue on my part because I was more than a little snotty.

  Evie, however, was not only completely under control by the time she came back, but looking conscience-stricken.

  ‘Who was it?’ Drew asked. ‘Please tell me it’s some guy from the Congo – because I saw some ranking site online that says they have the biggest appendages!’

  ‘Cut it out, Drew,’ Evie said, grabbing her sides – as though that was going to stop her laughing. ‘It’s nobody on any online ranking site. Unless Marcus is on a site somewhere. Is he, Chloe?’

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘Marcus,’ Evie said. ‘Of the horse-sized appendage. And how I’m going to not look at it is anyone’s guess.’

  ‘Whoops,’ Drew said, and un-lounged, flicking a vain hand through his thick black hair. ‘I thought we weren’t expecting him.’

  I automatically neatened my own hair. ‘He said he might drop by, but I didn’t really think he’d make it. And by the way, the “appendage” thing …? No looking at his lap – either of you!’

  ‘Ohhhh, Chloe, not fair,’ Drew complained, but his eyes were practically dancing. Evil, I’m telling you, that guy.

  But somehow, I felt like laughing again. The truth was, I didn’t really mind if they looked at Marcus’s sizeable package. That was just the way we were, the three of us. I didn’t know much about ‘real’ family, but I knew that Drew and Evie were mine. We were the modern equivalent of the Three Musketeers. All for one, and one for all. And as far as I was concerned, they could do whatever the hell they wanted and I would love them regardless.

  ‘Okay, look at his lap,’ I said, ‘but try not to let him see you. Especially you, Drew. Don’t make it obvious. You freak him out enough as it is.’

  ‘Or maybe,’ Evie mused, ‘we could look at the other guy’s lap instead. Because he looks like he might have some serious size going on there.’

  I froze in the act of smoothing my dress over my thighs. ‘What other guy?’

  ‘He’s got someone with him,’ Evie added. ‘Cute, from what I could tell on the camera.’

  Premonition. ‘Cute as in …?’

  ‘Hmm, yeah, maybe not cute exactly. Big. Like … big.’ Giggle. ‘Short hair but not buzz cut. Dark. Dark everything. Kind of … thug? Yeah, sexy thug.’

  Drew perked up. ‘Sexy thug? I am so ready for a piece of that!’

  But I knew Drew wasn’t getting a piece of that. Because I knew who it was.

  ‘Forget it, Andrew,’ I said.

  ‘You always say that.’

  ‘Believe me, Nick Savage is not for you, I don’t care how big his biceps are.’

  Evie’s eyes widened. ‘Biceps, huh?’

  Groan.

  Drew was shooting his wild eye my way. ‘Those biceps? The bimbo-ic ones?’

  ‘Not. For. You. Got it, Andrew?’

  ‘You can’t keep them all for yourself,’ Drew protested, laughing.

  ‘All the straight ones I can.’ And then I realised what I’d said. ‘Hey, wait, no. I’m not keeping Nick.’

  Drew grinned.

  ‘I’m keeping Marcus,’ I said.

  More grinning – and an annoyingly smug glance between Evie and Drew.

  I threw my hands up. ‘All right, go for it. Give it your best shot, Drew. Hit on him, see if I care. Because I don’t.’

  More of that annoying, between-us, ‘aha’ glancing.

  I was seriously contemplating throwing my almost-empty glass at a wall, but fortunately the doorbell dinged before I could be betrayed into any more un-goddess-like behaviour.

  Evie looked at me, as if expecting me to let them in.

  ‘Hey, it’s your apartment,’ I said. ‘I’ll watch from here.’

  ‘Okaaaay,’ she said, and went to answer the door.

  ‘Welcome home, Evie!’ Marcus said, as he stepped inside. And then he drew her in for a hug, and a kiss on the forehead.

  And right between my transfixed eyes, it hit me that there was something very wrong with that picture.

  Marcus kissed Evie the way he kissed me. Hugged her the way he hugged me. Whereas Jackson J Stevens, in stark contrast, did not kiss me and Evie the same, and never had. Even when Jack was not kissing Evie, back in the early days, he was deliberately not kissing her – like he couldn’t trust himself to even touch her, let alone put his mouth anywhere near her. The difference between the way Jack treated Evie and the way he treated the rest of us was clear as a bell.

  Feeling a little disorientated, I watched as Marcus introduced Nick to Evie. Nick smiled – friendly and straightforward – at Evie. The way he should have smiled at me, with both sides of his mouth!

  And then Nick looked into the room, and his eyebrow edged up and the smile changed to the one-sided version as he … he looked at me. And something weird happened to the air, some mysterious compression that made my lungs feel like they were being squeezed.

  Premonition shivered down my spine and kept shivering, until Nick’s eyes shifted to Drew, and he smiled fully again, and the air cleared, and I could … breathe again.

  Marcus, Evie and Nick all ambled into the living room. Nick sat next to Evie on the couch on the opposite side of the coffee table from me. Marcus smiled at me as he sat beside me, and kissed me on the forehead.

  Which caused Drew, sitting solo, to point at his own forehead and mouth at me What the fuck is that? – unfortunately intercepted by Marcus, who then looked massively uncomfortable as he asked, ‘Andrew, how are you?’

  ‘If I were any weller, Mark, I’d be a danger zone,’ an unblushing Drew said with aplomb.

  Nick laughed. Marcus, however, stiffened. He hated being called Mark – the same way Evie hated the name Evangeline. And Drew knew he hated it, because I’d told him.

  A dull ache started throbbing at the base of my skull. It was bad enough having Nick in the room – and why was he even he
re? – but if Drew was in mischief-making mode, the evening was about to go to hell.

  Drew introduced himself to Nick – giving him an altogether too-appreciative ogle, which was enough to set my teeth on edge. And then he turned back to Marcus. ‘We were just talking about you.’

  I directed a subtle shut-the-hell-up look at Drew, who ignored me to say, innocuously enough, ‘Congratulations on the team medal’. But I did not trust him as far as I could throw him.

  Marcus said something about it being both a surprise and an honour.

  ‘Sort of like a surprise present dropped in your … er … lap?’ Drew asked.

  And yes, Drew looked at Marcus’s lap, and I almost choked, holding in a sudden laugh. Although why I’d laugh when the situation was so dire I didn’t know! If Marcus twigged that Drew had his package under scrutiny, there would be a freak out of epic proportions and I might never get him in the same room as Drew again. Drew really was an evil bastard! Evil, funny bastard, whom I was going to have to eventually murder.

  ‘The surprise would have been if he didn’t get the medal,’ Nick said smoothly, drawing Marcus’s attention just in time to avert catastrophe. And Nick’s slight flick of a look from Drew to me told me he’d seen exactly what was happening with regard to Marcus’s lap. I was sensing disaster all round.

  ‘Drew, weren’t you going to make coffee?’ I prompted, which was goddess-speak for get out of the room immediately.

  ‘Was I?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, you were.’

  ‘I can do it,’ Evie said, and started to get up.

  ‘No!’ Drew and I said together.

  Drew got to his feet. ‘Evie, I love you, but you know your coffee is on the official poisons list, so if Chloe is demanding coffee for some godforsaken reason, I guess I’m making it.’

  I stood. ‘I’ll help you.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Drew replied quickly. ‘You’ll stay and entertain Nick, and Mark will help me.’

  ‘Oh, um, okay, I guess,’ Marcus said, looking panicked.

  Yes, disaster was definitely looming. I tried a bit of mental telepathy as I sat again – Drew, do not perve at his package in the kitchen. Do not, do not, do not perve at his package in the kitchen.

  But Drew, immune to both Marcus’s almost tangible discomfort and my own telepathic attempts, clapped his hands and rubbed them together. ‘Excellent,’ he said, with a look in his eye I did not trust one little bit! ‘You can see if you can get your head around Jack’s espresso machine –’ (which, of course, Drew knew how to operate like a champion barista) ‘– while I make some more martinis for Chloe, who’s been chugging them down tonight like James Bond on a bender.’

  Really, it was a miracle Drew hadn’t already been murdered. Nothing like being made to feel like a borderline alcoholic when of the three of us, I was the least likely to get drunk, and certainly the least likely to show the effects of it on the rare occasions that I did.

  Nick was looking at me curiously. Which, of course, I took for disapproval, given he was the only one of the Sydney Scorpions I’d never seen roaring drunk, apart from Marcus. So, of course, I picked up my martini and drained the last tiny dregs lurking in there. I was seriously considering sticking my tongue in the glass and giving it a lick for extra effect.

  ‘Want me to get that olive out of the glass and give it a squeeze for you, James Bond?’ Nick asked me, and my hand positively itched to slap him. ‘There’s bound to be a drop of alcohol in it.’

  Evie was looking from one of us to the other. ‘She’s not really … I mean …’

  ‘She’s nothing like James Bond on a bender,’ Nick said mildly. ‘I know.’

  Evie opened her bright-blue kewpie-doll eyes at him. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He doesn’t know anything,’ I put in.

  Nick didn’t bother to acknowledge that interjection. ‘I’ve known her for a year, and I’ve never seen her drunk.’

  ‘Huh,’ Evie said – and I decided I wanted to slap her, too. ‘Known her for a year?’

  ‘Yep. Since the night of her first date with Marcus.’

  ‘Really?’ Evie said, fascinated.

  ‘I know it doesn’t sound much like a first date, bringing a girl to a drinking session with half a rugby league team …’ He gave her a what-can-you-do? style shrug. ‘… but at least most of the guys had their significant others with them, so they were on their best behaviour.’

  I gave him my most haughty look. ‘Or in the case of those who’d brought their insignificant others, their worst behaviour.’

  ‘You’re talking about bad behavior?’ Nick asked, then turned to Evie. ‘She punched me in a fit of temper that night. What kind of behavior do you call that?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Evie’s eyes went saucer-wide. ‘She didn’t!’

  ‘She most certainly did,’ Nick said, looking all woebegone. Woebegone! As if.

  Evie was fascinated. ‘Why did she punch you?’

  ‘It started with the WAG guide.’

  ‘WAG as in wives and –’

  ‘Girlfriends,’ Nick supplied. ‘Yep.’

  ‘How funny,’ Evie said, and threw in a completely unnecessary giggle. ‘We were only talking about WAGs tonight. WAGs and groupies.’ She refused to catch my laser-beam glare, and bowled on with, ‘So do you have one?’

  ‘Wife, girlfriend or groupie?’ he asked, agreeably.

  ‘Any, I guess. Although you don’t look married.’

  ‘What does “married” look like?’

  ‘Not like you,’ Evie said fervently. ‘But you do look like you’d have groupies up the yin yang.’

  ‘Yin yang?’ He laughed. ‘Is a yin yang a good thing?’

  Oh, for God’s sake! ‘Yes, he has groupies up the yin yang,’ I said through gritted teeth, detesting the camaraderie that was building between the two of them. And this time Evie couldn’t avoid the excoriating look (known in our circle as my gimlet eye) I threw her way. ‘And no, in this instance, yin yang is not a good thing.’

  Evie, completely unrepentant, said, ‘One thing I know from being with Jack is that Nick can’t control having groupies.’ Back to Nick. ‘So, what about a girlfriend? Do you have one of those?’

  I was going to kill her, in an ice-pick-wielding frenzy. Bury her body beside Drew’s.

  ‘Not yet,’ Nick answered, with the merest glimmer of a glance in my direction before adding, ‘I’m not in the market for one. At least, not right at this very moment.’

  Good Lord, it had to stop! ‘You had a girlfriend that night, as I recall,’ I said, with lip well and truly curled.

  Nick’s eyes narrowed. ‘She wasn’t my girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right, she was just your own personal groupie,’ I said. ‘That’s so much better.’

  A little extra eye narrowing. ‘Let’s describe it as our first date. Just like it was your first date with Marcus.’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘That’s a simple fact, Chloe.’

  ‘That’s not a fact. Unless you call it date-like behaviour to send a girl packing halfway through the night, which Marcus did not do to me, so don’t even think about comparing us! I’ll bet you don’t even remember her name.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Er …’ I couldn’t believe it! He was pretending to concentrate, as though trying to recall her name, while simultaneously biting his lip against a laugh. Shameless. Absolutely shameless. He was like the straight version of Drew Stevens, only he wasn’t funny.

  I turned to Evie, who was positively bug-eyed. ‘Her name was Ruby, as he very well knows.’ Back to Nick, with a glare. ‘And all she was trying to do was make you like her.’

  And it was like a snap-freeze moment. Any hint of laughter – gone. He leaned towards me, over the coffee table, and it was on. ‘I didn’t want her to like me. That was the whole point. Anyone who quotes from that dumbass guide, which she had in her handbag, if you’ll remember, is not for me. And don’t pretend you didn’t feel exactly th
e same as I did about that guide. I saw you, Chloe. I saw you!’

  ‘Oh, I agree, the guide is degrading. What I don’t get is why the next girl was practically interchangeable with her. And the next. And the next. Always the same girl, and yet never the same girl.’

  ‘It’s not about who they were, Chloe, it’s about who they weren’t.’

  I couldn’t hear that. Wouldn’t. ‘You’re either a slow learner, or you’re fooling yourself about what you like and don’t like.’

  ‘I know I don’t need my girlfriend cuddling up to me and saying “well done, honey” just because I kicked a ball. I don’t care if she knows the game, or even if she hates it – and don’t pretend you don’t hate it because I know. I don’t want her feeling like she has to learn my practice schedule, or my teammates’ names, or how many tries I score per season. Jesus, how big a wanker do you think I am?’

  ‘Big enough to tell poor Ruby to get lost. While she was sitting on your lap, sticking her hands under your shirt. Nice one. Not.’

  ‘I didn’t tell her to go, I told her to stop. She interpreted it, that’s all.’

  ‘It– You– Oooohhhhh. I can’t – I can’t believe you.’

  ‘Sure you can. You weren’t sitting on Marcus’s lap, were you? You can be damn sure he would have told you to stop. You talk about interchangeable girls, Chloe, but let me tell you, Miss Ruby didn’t really care whose lap she was sitting on. We were the interchangeable ones. Me, Steve, Trevor, Gary. Any one of us would have done. And Marcus?’ He laughed – short and hard. ‘Ruby would have thrown you to the wolves and buried your bones in the forest for a shot at the team captain, so why are you defending her?’

  ‘Because I know what it’s like to be that girl – the one looking in.’ The words were out before I could stop them.

  ‘What the –?’ Frown. ‘What does that mean?’

  Oh God. God, God, God! What had I said? ‘Just that I –. That –. I –’ I looked at my hands. Shaking. Close call. Too close. Blink, blink, breathe, blink. Not helping. I turned agonised eyes to Evie, who was sitting, in a state of shock at what was unfolding from nowhere, drink halfway to her mouth.

  Evie gave me a superfast nod, understanding. ‘She only means –’