By CLARE LONDON (8 page)

I wasn’t arguing with that. Just wondered what I was going to say now. How do you follow a fucking like that? Judging by my earlier pathetic “come here often” gambit, I knew I was out of practice in sweet-talking my partners. I didn’t think Seve was looking for that, anyway. If I even knew what he was looking for.

I reached down to the floor, fumbling for my jeans. He let go of me and took a step backward. My boxers were pushed into my hand, and I felt Seve’s sweaty palm against mine. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

Silence as I dressed myself. I was sticky all over my stomach, and I had to peel another polystyrene chip off there as well. The spunk was already drying, and I knew it’d be a really itchy treat when I walked home. A couple of the towels had tangled around my ankle like overeager children, and when I stood up, I stubbed a toe on one of the fallen files. I thought about moving to the doorway, but there was something scratching against the back of my thigh that was either a horny dog or an oversized toilet brush, and I wasn’t sure of the best escape route. Did we need some sort of security code to get out of here, or would I end up trapped with my postcoital aches and pains until someone came to restock the ladies’ toilets?

But a crack of light suddenly speared across the floor, and I saw that Seve had opened the door back out to the club. The noise level increased from downstairs—I heard someone shriek with laughter and the swell of sing-along to a Kylie hit. I could see Seve’s silhouette against the hallway light; then he turned back to look at me. He’d run a hand through his hair and it stood up spikily, despite its short length. But his shirt was rebuttoned carefully, and the jeans looked like they’d been molded to his body at birth.

I suspected I looked like I’d been dragged through the proverbial hedge and then back again, just for the hell of it. He was staring at me, so I guessed that must be it. Game over. I knew my cue when I heard it. Licking my lips, I said, “So. Um. I’ll be….”

“Going?” I thought I heard a sharp edge to his voice.

“Guess so.” What was I meant to do? Thank him for the hospitality? For the fuck? Some weird X-rated spin on “Thank you for having me”? I straightened up, determined to regain some kind of dignity. It was bloody difficult, is all I can say. My legs felt like jelly and my heart was only just settling back to a steady rhythm. I stared back at Seve, his body still half in darkness, preventing me from seeing everything his expression might tell. I stared at his strong profile, his perfectly controlled limbs. At the glimmer of saliva on his lips, the shape of the lush, plump lips that matched the mark of teeth on my shoulder….

Yeah. Bloody difficult.

It was a long—and itchy—walk home.

THE following Saturday, the flat was turned into a kind of actors’ commune as a whole group of Louis’s drama friends came around to help him learn his lines. He’d landed a return scene in his TV soap—“unprecedented feedback for your interesting interpretation of a minor character,” his agent, Grace, had told him, though none of us had any clue as to how far her tongue was in her cheek at the time—and the excitement was racked up high.

I knew most of Jack and Louis’s friends by now, but I couldn’t help feeling awkward when they came around en masse. Especially when I got elbowed out of the living room for the third time, squeezed between Harry—a very tall, booming-voiced Goth who quoted Shakespeare mixed in with swearing that would embarrass a navvy—and the Vs, a trio of petite girlfriends who were of completely different ethnicities but all wore the exact same pink tutu outfit over their matching skinny jeans. I never found out whether they actually all had names beginning with V or whether it just made it easier for everyone to remember them. When I tried to reach the kitchen but found Bob and Bryan—an inseparable pair, with Bob the most outrageous snoop and Bryan with the hugest appetite I’d ever known—arguing in the hallway about which bey-otch should have won what at the BAFTAs, I surrendered the battlefield to them all with a rueful smile and decided to hide out in my room.

I paused at the foot of the stairs. Louis’s laughter rang out from the living room. Someone had taped the episode of the soap he’d been in, and I heard the series theme music start up on the TV. Looked like they were settling in for a fan review session.

“Max.” Jack touched my shoulder, and I turned. He was flushed, clutching a chilled six-pack of beer and three family-sized bags of snacks to his chest, obviously on his way from the kitchen back into the fray. “Come on in with us.”

In the background, the girls shrieked in a trio of octaves when Louis obviously came on screen. Someone laughed and belched and someone slapped them—at least, that’s what it sounded like. Out in the kitchen, the arguing couple decided they needed Lady Gaga at top radio volume to accompany their raised voices.

I winced and Jack laughed. “I know. You’d rather get the hell out of here.”

I’d been considering burying myself upstairs with a beer, my headphones, and rock music, but Jack’s words shook my already wobbly nerve a different way. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m just going to change my shirt, then I’m going into town.”

Jack didn’t exactly raise an eyebrow, but his expression went carefully blank. “Anywhere good? I might join you.”

I shook my head. “You have Rehearsal City to manage.”

“No he doesn’t,” came Louis’s voice. He’d come up the hallway behind Jack and now rested his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder, staring at me. “In fact, I think I might join you as well.”

“You’re preparing for your big break.”

Louis snorted. “Cute, Max. It’s twenty lines and a cup of cold brown liquid on the café set. It’s hardly Les Mis. I’ll probably not be asked back again.”

“Bollocks,” came Harry’s voice from someplace above my head. He loomed a good six inches over all of us. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks. He’ll be a fuckin’ star.”

Louis grinned but kept his eyes on me. “Harry, you’re a silly tart, but a loyal one. Anyway, I need a break, and I’m going out with my friends.”

“So what are we?” wailed one of the girls from the other room, obviously eavesdropping. “Don’t leave us behind.”

“Where’s my bag?” called another.

“Behind you, you stupid cow.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Wait for us!” Bob called from the kitchen. He and Bryan had stopped arguing long enough for Bryan to make a plate of sandwiches, and he was finishing off the last crust.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Looks like we’re all coming, Max.” He put the beer and snacks on the bottom of the stairs up to my room. The girls spilled out from the living room, and Bob and Bryan joined us in the hallway. It was starting to look and feel like some kind of rush-hour bus queue. Bryan bent down quickly to pick up a bag of tortilla chips.

“Greedy bastard.” Bob jabbed him in the ribs and Bryan shrugged, unapologetic.

“I was only going for a bite to eat and a drink,” I said in mild protest.

“Works for us.” Jack slung his arm around Louis’s shoulders. “I want more time with this one before he goes off to film in London.”

“A few days away, that’s all,” Louis scoffed, but his eyes danced at Jack’s attention. “And Grace says I’ll be stuck in some small, shabby B&B, nothing glamorous. Minimum expenses, mostly my own makeup, no guaranteed callback.” To my amusement, Grace seemed to spend a lot of her time managing her clients’ expectations downward. “But maybe I’ll get some free time to look around. I haven’t been up to the smoke for a long time. You’ll point me to the best places to go dancing, Max, won’t you?”

I froze. Everyone else must have picked up on the sudden tension, because they all stopped talking and turned to look at me.

“You from London, man?” Harry asked me. “Would I were in an alehouse in London! Right?”

“Just….” I swallowed quickly. “Stayed there for a while.”

“Fuck,” Louis whispered, not quietly enough.

“London’s a big place,” Jack said, his voice steady. “Max isn’t some kind of walking A to Z, Louis.”

Louis laughed carelessly, placing his pale, elegant hand over Jack’s dark one. He was a much better actor than people gave him credit for; I expect only I noticed how tightly his fingers closed on Jack’s. “Of course, yes, it’s a huge city, and Max was only passing through, right?” He grimaced at me, apology in his eyes. “Stupid of me. I didn’t mean to… anyway, people, this is my chance for the big time, isn’t it?” He wriggled out of Jack’s grasp, shaking his blond curls and seeking the attention back from the others clustered around us. “No time for dancing! I’m sure Grace will have me reading Stanislavski rather than Maeve Binchy every evening. I’ll have to sneak ten minutes away just to call home and weep about my boredom. Now, has anyone seen my denim jacket?”

“Whereabouts were you in London, man?” Harry was peering at me from under a straggly jet-black fringe. “Gotta fuckin’ love the vibe up there.”

“London?” One of the Vs peered at me, her head on a level with Harry’s elbow. “You’re so lucky. I’d love to go there. Were you working? Did they replace you? If you know someone and could put in a word for me….”

“No,” I said. She blinked hard so maybe I’d pitched my tone too sharp. “I don’t know anyone there anymore.”

“Let’s get going, everyone,” Jack said, his hand on the front door.

“Bob, Bryan, was my jacket in the kitchen?” Louis called overloudly. “Help me find it, will you?”

They were doing a brave job, running interference for me.

“I’ll go and get changed,” I said. “I’ll be ten minutes.” No one replied, but Jack stepped to the side so I could dash up the stairs. As I pushed through the door of my room, all I could hear in the hallway was a long sigh from Louis and Bryan’s open-mouthed crunching of the tortilla chips.

THE casual drink out with friends didn’t go so well, or maybe it was just me. We ambled down to the prom again and, deciding we were hungry for a proper meal, sat down at one of the seafront fish and chip restaurants. It was warm enough to stay outside under the flapping red awning. The smell of chips covered in salt and vinegar was familiar and comforting, and we all tucked in apart from Louis, who picked at a chicken salad, continuing to chat and entertain us with stories of the TV actors off set. The gulls cried overhead and a couple of kids shrieked at each other on the beach, playing catch with a bunch of damp seaweed fronds. Music from a jukebox wafted out the open door of a nearby amusement arcade. But the group had lost some of its liveliness. Harry had dropped both the swearing and the quotations, and Bob and Bryan couldn’t find anything more interesting to bicker about than how much ketchup Bryan should or shouldn’t put on his double saveloy and chips. The Vs met up with a couple of other friends and drifted back out on the pavement, making plans for the rest of the evening. Obviously whatever one did, they all did. They were very sweet.

And all through his meal, Louis sent me pleading looks. I smiled at him, hoping he’d see it as forgiveness. It wasn’t a problem that he’d let slip I’d been in London for a while. After all, it was true, wasn’t it? Just not something I wanted to dwell on. I think the others had picked up on that. I caught a few curious looks coming my way, though I didn’t flatter myself I was that interesting.

The evening got chilly, so we moved on into the town and one of our favorite bars just inside the Lanes. Jack wanted a drink, though Louis was itching to go dancing. He’d eased off on his dance gigs when he got the call for the TV work, but we all knew he missed the excitement—and the limelight. After a couple of pints, Harry left to visit his Goth friends in a pub up Ditchling Road. The Vs had already gone to catch a recommended drag show back in Kemptown.

“You all coming to the show?” Bob asked us. He was shrugging on his jacket, ready to follow the Vs. “She does a fabulous Judy.”

“And there’s food at the bar,” Bryan added.

“You’re always bloody hungry, man.” Bob rolled his eyes.

Jack smiled. “No, thanks. I’ve got work to do tomorrow, preparing for a case meeting on Monday. A couple of beers and a chat is all I’m up for tonight.”

Louis sighed but he was smiling too. “Me neither, guys. I’m with the homebody here.”

“Max?”

“No, thanks.”

Jack was peering at me. “But you’re not coming back with us?”

I didn’t remember saying that, at least not specifically. “No. I’ll probably stay in town, have another drink somewhere else. Then go on to a club.”

Jack nodded, never taking his eyes off me.

“Which club, man?” Bob asked.

Both Louis and Jack were staring at me now. Had I suggested I was looking for a snack of babies’ heads or threatening to run amok through the Lanes with a machine gun? No, just another drink, just a trip to a club….

“Compulsion,” Louis said into the pause. “That’s where you’re going, isn’t it, Max?”

I nodded.

“Where Louis dances?” Bob said. He and Bryan were blissfully unaware of the fresh tension between the rest of us. “Yeah, we’ve been a few times since it got taken over. It’s a good location, near the marina but not too far out of the town center.”

Bryan snorted. “The drinks are too bloody expensive.”

“Who are the new owners?” I thought I sounded almost careless.

“It’s part of a chain. Some franchise, I suppose, though there’s family money behind it.” Bob’s nosiness asserted itself. He was always the first to read the entertainment and society pages in the newspapers, and urban myth had it that he loitered around the local fish and chip shop most nights, just to borrow the old copies of Celebrity Hassle or whatever those weekly glossy magazines were called. “The top man’s name is Medina. Alberto… Alvin, something….”

“Alvaro,” Bryan offered.

Bob nodded—they were used to helping out each other’s conversations. “He made his money in some kind of exporting. Don’t ask me exact details, because I don’t do the business pages, but now he’s launching out into entertainment. There are other clubs in Manchester and Newcastle. A small venue opened in London last year.”

I may have made a noise in the back of my throat; I didn’t mean to.

Bob continued with oblivious enthusiasm. “He’s going to refurbish the whole of Compulsion over the next twelve months, which will be fucking great. The carpet near the bar was starting to feel like glue, and those dance stages aren’t too sound, are they?”