I wonder if the reason Billie has been so distant the last couple of days is that she knew she had this date lined up. It all makes sense now, getting her hair done this evening and asking for tomorrow off. She obviously wasn’t planning on coming home tonight and lied about messaging me once she got back.
I’m more than a little disappointed . . . I’m fucking gutted.
“Fuck,” I sit up and say into the darkness.
I climb out of bed, reach for the bottle of liqueur, and take a swig as I pace. I feel like a crazy person, like I’m coming out of my skin. I fucking hate the idea of her spending the night with another man.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” I whisper-shout as I continue to pace.
Why did she flirt with me the way she did the other morning? I’d resigned myself to the fact that Billie and I were gonna happen. I’d even gone over in my head how I’d tell Cal and imagined how he’d probably punch my head in but would come around to the idea once he sees how serious I am about her.
Serious? She’s twenty-fucking-two. I’m a thirty-eight-year-old, soon-to-be-divorced, single dad. I’m a joke.
A fucking joke.
I lie back on my bed and do the most irresponsible thing I’ve done since becoming a father. I pass out cold.
Whitney
I love it when a plan starts to come together.
Billie
I wake to the sound of my phone vibrating with a text, and a banging headache. Scooting up the bed into a sitting position, I rest my back against the headboard and reach for my phone to read the message.
Mel: Kris Kringle has been drawn, you got Max! £50 limit xxx
Because the band doesn’t usually get together for Christmas, they do a Kris Kringle at Thanksgiving when they’re all together.
Between visiting my aunt, college, and work, I’ve been in the States for the last five or six Thanksgivings and had completely forgotten about this tradition Mel and Marnie had started.
I snort as I wonder what the worst present fifty pounds can buy me is as I get dressed and head downstairs.
“Looks like it’s even too cold for the vultures this morning,” Mick says as I slide into the passenger seat next to him. He gestures with his chin towards the gates. There’s not a single reporter or photographer in sight. “Whitney will be hating that she’s no longer headline news,” he adds.
Just wait till next month when news of the divorce breaks, I think.
“How’s the head?” Mick asks before I can respond to everything else he’s already said since I got in the car.
“Sore, and I’m out of coffee again.”
“Not surprised, you were a bit wobbly last night.”
“Yeah, I’m not a big drinker, and it’s been a while, so it hit me a lot harder than usual.”
“You wanna stop on the high street and grab a coffee?”
“I absolutely would.” I give him my best smile.
“There’s a place by the chip shop. You wait in here, I’ll go in and get it.”
“Make sure you claim it as an expense.”
“I can shout you a cup of coffee, Spice. Flat white, no sugar?”
“You are amazing, Micky, how do you remember that?” He hadn’t had to stop for coffee for me in years.
“Part of the service, sweetheart.” He winks as he climbs out of the Range Rover.
Micky Doyle looks like a real-life Mr Incredible. At around fifty-years-old, six-foot-four tall, and shoulders almost as wide, I always feel safe when he’s around. His square jaw and cropped, light, strawberry blond hair, all just add to his superhero look.
Micky returns ten minutes later with coffees and muffins for each of us. I place my coffee in the cup holder and take a bite out of the blueberry and poppy seed muffin. As soon as we pull off, a call comes through the Bluetooth system of the car.
“Boss man?” Micky answers.
“Hey, Mick. You took Billie to get her hair done last night, didn’t ya?”
“Yep.”
“Did you pick her up after?”
“Yep.”
Mick looks across at me, winks, and smiles.
“Where’d you drop her?”
I frown and shrug at Micky, having no clue as to why Max needs to know this.
“Walked her right to her front door, Max.”
“What time was that?”
“Eight thirty-ish. I can check if you want me to pull over.”
“Nah, mate, that’s fine. Did she say if she was going out anywhere later?”
“Max, she could barely walk or string a sentence together. The only place she was fit for was bed.”
I smack Micky in the chest with the back of my hand. He makes an oomph sound and tries not to laugh.
“She was drunk?” Max sounds kind of shocked by this revelation, and I’m a little offended.
Am I that fucking boring?
“Apparently, the hair salon she went to offers free cocktails and prosecco. Billie appeared to have taken full advantage of both.”
“And she definitely didn’t say she was going anywhere later?”
“Like I said, Max—”
“Yeah, yeah, cheers, mate. Thanks for that.”
“Not a problem.”
The call ends.
“What the fuck?” we say in unison.
“What the fuck was that all about?” Micky repeats, taking his eyes from the road to look at me with a frown.
“I honestly don’t know,” I tell him truthfully. I suddenly feel too hot, so open the window a little before the muffin I’ve only had two bites of attempts to vacate my stomach.
Jessie Ware’s “Say You Love Me” is playing on the radio, and for some reason it pisses me off, so I lean forward and change the station.
“Not a fan of that one, Spice?”
“Not this morning, Mick,” I respond.
“Talk to me, and I want you to be honest.” Micky again slides his gaze from the road to meet mine. “I had Jake in the car the other day, and he said something about there being chemistry between you and Max. Is there something going on between the two of you?”
I blow out a long slow breath. I don’t want to lie to Micky, but at the same time, I’m not exactly sure what I’d be admitting to.
“Nothing’s happened,” I tell him, closing my eyes and shaking my head slowly. I retrieve my coffee from the cup holder and take a sip, hoping it doesn’t come back up.
“I hear a but.”
“Yeah, there’s a but; however, I’m not sure what that but is.”
“Talk to me, Spice.”
“It’s . . . I dunno. When we’re together, there’s something there. It’s real, almost tangible. We talk . . .” I turn in my seat and look out the window as I try to formulate the words to describe exactly what’s happening with Max and me. “We talk, Mick. We talk with our words, we talk with a look, and we talk with the simplest of touches. It’s like each of us knows what the other’s trying to say, whether we use words or not. There’s a spark, a draw, a pull . . .”
“Fuck me, Spice.”
“I know, it makes no sense, and it’s all been so quick and intense.”
“Your brother will lose his fucking mind when he finds out about this.”
I spin my head to look at him, his eyes now fixed on the road. “You won’t tell him, will you? Nothing’s happened, honestly. And now Whitney’s back, nothing will.”
“Whitney? What the fuck has she gotta do with anything? He’s getting shot of her as soon as he can.”
“He spent most of yesterday and last night with her. Deana was trying to find somewhere to make herself scarce when I popped over there after you dropped me off.”
“Max spent last night with Whitney? Nah, I’m not having that.” He shakes his head but doesn’t look my way.
“After you dropped me off, I had this crazy idea I needed another drink.” Now he looks at me with a raised brow are-you-kidding kind of glare. “Yeah, I know, anyway, I went over to the house to pinch a bottle of
wine, and I could hear Max and Whitney giggling and laughing in her room. He had the baby in there with him too.”
I know she’s Layla’s mum, but just the thought of Whitney being around her makes me want to cry. She doesn’t deserve that little girl after the way she so blatantly disregarded her.
“I bumped into Deana as I was leaving, and she told me they’d spent the whole afternoon and evening together and that she felt like a spare part. So, why he’s calling you now and asking what I did with my evening, I don’t know.”
I feel strange. Angry. Emotional. Confused. I have this pent-up energy that I’m not sure what to do with. It’s only ten in the morning, but I already feel like I need a drink, and I’m not usually a big drinker.
Fucking Max Young.
Fucking fucker. Yeah, I’m not a big swearer either, but this man has got me doing all kinds of things I don’t usually do.
“Right. I’m gonna tell it to ya straight, ’coz I think you’re grown up enough now for me to do that.” When he gets serious, Mick’s nasally South London accent makes him sound like Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses, a show my dad used to love. “Actually, if you’ve got this something, whatever it is, going on with Max, then you’re definitely old enough to hear me out. That boy has a lot on his plate. You know what their job demands of the boys, you’ve lived with it your entire life, on top of that, he’s a new dad, a single dad, and he’s about to start divorce proceedings that are gonna cause an absolute media frenzy around him and anyone associated with him.” Micky licks his lips and rubs them together as I study him. He shoots me a quick glance then back at the road as we enter the heavy traffic on Camden high street.
I’m meeting Dan outside the World’s End pub, but with the way I’m vibrating with tension, I’d rather Mick dropped me right here so I can walk some of it off.
“You need to know, if you do this, if something comes of these sparks, rainbows, or fucking unicorn bollocks you reckon is going on between the pair of ya, then that media frenzy is going to turn into an out-and-out shitstorm.”
I attempt to ease the dryness in my mouth by chugging the last of my now barely warm coffee. It does nothing except add to the queasiness in my stomach.
“You’re his nanny, Spice. You’re what? Twenty years younger than he is?”
“Sixteen,” I correct him.
“Sixteen? How old are you then?”
“Twenty-two.”
“When the fuck did you grow up and get so old?”
“While you were running around looking after drunk and high rock stars,” I tell him with a smile.
“Ain’t that the truth? I thought my job would get easier when they grew up.”
“Jake’ll never grow up.”
“Again, you’re not wrong there.”
We’re both quiet for a beat as the car inches forward.
“Anyway,” Micky clears his throat then continues, “even a sixteen-year age gap, the press will go to town on, plus, like I said, you’re his baby’s nanny. You’re also his band mate’s, who also happens to be his best mate’s, sister. Add to that whatever might be about to come out regarding his divorce and the fact your brother is gonna hit the fucking roof, that is one scary ride you’re about to embark on. The point I was gonna make is if you’re not prepared to go the distance, if you don’t think you can put up with all of the attention you’re both gonna attract, then my advice to you is: don’t go there.” He catches me frowning at him. “I mean it, Spice, unless you’re all in, don’t go there. There’s a little girl who’s already been abandoned by one mum to consider, and I don’t think that boy will survive another broken heart.”
I’m feeling defensive. I’d never do that, not to either of them, and this is all an overreaction anyway. Max doesn’t want me; he wants another supermodel.
“I’m not gonna break his heart, Mick. Nothing has even happened, and as far as I’m concerned, it never will. He could be rolling around in bed with his wife and her fucking sister for all I care.”
Micky gives me another one of his eyebrow-raised looks that lets me know he knows I’m talking shit. I give him one right back as he double-parks the car outside the pub where Dan is waiting for me.
“Just think on it, Spice. Have a great day, and bell me if you need picking up or have any other problems.”
“Will do, thanks for the lift and the coffee. Love ya, Mick.”
“Love ya too, sweetheart.”
After a day of trawling the market and shops in the cold, Dan and I find ourselves in the warm pub we met at this morning. My cheeks are burning, mainly because I’m on my second cosmopolitan. It’s happy hour, so we bought two each.
It’s the first time I’ve seen Dan since I got back from the States, and the first time since he came out to visit me in September. Although he’s asked about my job, he’s avoided any mention of Max and Whitney’s situation, but I just know he can barely contain himself and is bursting to ask.
“So, girlfriend, I know you’ve signed an ND and yadda, yadda, yadda, but can’t you give me something on the sitch?”
I lean back and stretch my arms nonchalantly above my head, which, thanks to the vodka in the cosmo, isn’t as painful of a manoeuvre as it has been since breaking my ribs. I yawn, drawing out my response before asking, “The sitch?”
“Don’t mess with me, Billie. The sitch with your boss and his wife. Girl, it’s my job to find out these things, but as your friend, I should know them, and this is me talking to you as your friend. Your very best friend.”
“Dan, I love you, but I can’t. Your job just makes it all too complicated.”
“So, there is a sitch then?”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve spent the last two years with adults who don’t talk in Urban Dictionary language or with children who’ve yet to learn such a language even exists, so if by sitch you mean situation, then, yes, there’s a sitch.”
“You’re such an old lady. And I knew it. Finish your drink, I’m getting us another. You said in your text you had so much to tell me, well, I’m all ears, darling.”
I watch Dan’s lean frame wind around tables to get to the bar. Appreciative eyes, belonging to both males and females, follow him. My phone is sitting face down on the table next to my drink. I placed it that way to keep me from looking at it. I’m not sure what I’ve been expecting it to do. Max is my boss, nothing more. It’s my day off, and there’s absolutely no reason for him to get in touch.
As Dan sits down in the padded leather bench style seat next to me, I raise my brows and ask, “Where are the drinks?”
He taps my nose. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, princess. The sitch is all in hand, drinks are on their way. Now, talk to me.” He emphasises the word sitch by childishly widening his eyes as he says it. Feeling equally as childish, I roll mine when he does this.
“I have a major crush on Max Young and I think he likes me too,” I blurt. “Well, at least he did like me, but now his wife’s back, and even though he reckons he’s divorcing her, I’ve actually no clue what the fuck is going on or what I’m doing.”
“Oh, Billie, please don’t tell me he promised to divorce her for you just to get in your knickers and you fell for it?”
My whole face screws up at what he’s just said. “What? No.” I shake my head.
One of the barmen appears carrying a tray with four more cosmos on it.
“Thanks, Rick,” Dan says and winks at the waiter.
Rick tucks the round tray under his arm and leans his hip against the table. “So, do I get your number or what?” he asks with a smile and an accent I can’t quite place.
He has dark curly hair, he has olive skin, and his eyes are the greenest I’ve ever seen.
“What d’ya reckon, should I give Ricky here my number? Are we up for some three-way fun later or are you too tired after all the shopping we’ve done?”
I look away and again roll my eyes. Daniel has a habit of passing me off as his girlfriend when he’s n
ot interested in the person hitting on him.
“Wait, you’re together?”
Rick sounds hurt, and I feel sorry for the poor kid.
“Sometimes,” Dan tells him. “It’s kind of an I’m-straight-for-her situation. You know, when she’s desperate, I help her out.”
Rick looks between us, pulls what looks like a business card from his back pocket, and says, “Well, when you’ve finished saving the lonely females of the world, maybe you might give me a call.” He places the card on the table and leaves.
“You are such a dick.”
“I know, but he looked older behind the bar. When he walked over here, I realised he’s a child. Not my thing. He’ll turn twenty-one, realise his life will be less complicated if he likes pussy, not dick, and then leave with my heart. Now, continue . . .”
I finish my drink while Dan slides another three in front of me. I slide one back, so we have two each lined up.
“Whitney Federov was having an affair with Alix Gardener—”
“Well, hellooooo. I think the whole world had that one figured out. Considering they’ve got history, why else was she in that car with him?”
“Their affair dates back to before she and Max were even married, the entirety of their relationship in fact.”
“Like I said, they’ve got history from way back before she was ever with Max, and if the rumours are true, which it’s now sounding like they are, even since she’s been married.”
“I did not know this,” I admit, my heart aching at the thought of Max being cheated on.
“So, is the kid his?”
“Will you hush and let me talk?” He flicks his wrist at me flamboyantly, and I once again roll my eyes before continuing, “Whitney had left Max the day before the accident. Despite telling him Layla might not be his, she left her with Max, which, in hindsight, is about the only good thing she’s done for that little girl.”
“Holy fucking hell.”
All the Forbidden Things Page 25