Lindsey Kelk 5-Book 'I Heart...' Collection (103 page)

‘Alex, people are here,’ I shouted into the bedroom, buzzing a whole group of people up. Holding open the door, I kissed them all hello. Graham and his boyfriend. Craig and his latest, well, I wouldn’t say girlfriend, but she was a girl and they seemed very friendly. Vanessa and some of the girls from The Union followed, with Erin and Thomas and about a dozen of Alex’s other friends from around Brooklyn.

‘Alex, can you put some music on?’ I asked, about to shut the door when a gorgeous pair of leather flip-flops blocked it.

‘You’re gonna shut the door on me?’ a voice wailed from the hallway.

‘Jenny!’ I screeched, grabbing her by the neck and wrapping her up in a huge hug. ‘I didn’t know you were coming!’

‘Can you believe that we actually managed to keep a secret from you for almost a whole week?’ Alex leaned against the other side of the door frame, looking extraordinarily pleased with himself.

‘Oh you great big pair of bastards,’ I said, so happy I could have cried. ‘You should have told me. Do you have any bags?’

‘Nope, they’re all at the apartment,’ Jenny said, taking in my outfit. ‘Cute. Very cute.’

She wasn’t looking too shoddy herself, her tiny tanned frame just about covered by a slip of aqua silk. ‘Vena Cava,’ she confirmed, not waiting to be asked. ‘Awesome, right?’

‘Absolutely,’ I agreed, taking another glass of wine from Alex. ‘So you’ve been back to the apartment? How long are you staying?’

‘I have, and well, maybe for good?’ she said, peeking at me from behind a cascade of unruly curls. ‘I was thinking, maybe New Yorkers should only do LA in small doses.’

‘Honestly? Oh Jenny, that’s amazing!’ I tried not to splash wine on the pair of us as I went in for a second hug. ‘I am so so happy. Yes, stay, don’t go back.’

‘You just want me for the discounted shopping.’ She laughed, but I could tell she was happy for the warm welcome. As if I would ever give her anything else. ‘I figure I can work just as much in New York as I can in LA. There are still people here with too much money and not enough sense, right?’

‘Definitely,’ I nodded. ‘Oh, I’m so happy. But I’m sad that we won’t be roommates.’

‘I’m not moving you back over the river,’ Alex butted in. ‘I can’t believe how much shit you had. And that’s after half of it got blown up.’

‘Please, I’m not having her back,’ Jenny said, chugging her first glass of wine and passing the empty back to a passing and already smitten Craig. Apparently his date was forgotten. ‘Van is moving out this weekend and I kinda thought it might be nice to live by myself for a while. You know, after Daphne’s escapades. I’m gonna turn the spare room into an office.’

‘Well, I’m still coming over for Top Model,’ I declared, hugging her again. I knew that I was grinning like an idiot and I didn’t care.

‘Damn right you are,’ Jenny agreed, brushing my hair over my shoulder. It was getting so long. ‘But you’re bringing the beers. Damn, I missed you, Angie.’

‘I missed you too,’ I said, getting the same pang I had the last time I hugged Louisa. Except this time, I got to keep Jenny. ‘Now let go of me so I can go and pee.’

‘Don’t you dare pee on this dress,’ Jenny said, releasing me instantly. ‘It’s one hundred per cent silk.’

‘And it would look even more beautiful on my bedroom floor,’ Craig purred in her ear, holding out his hand. ‘I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Craig.’

‘Tell me you didn’t just say that?’ Jenny stared at Craig with a blank expression. ‘Damn boy, you are going about this in all the wrong ways.’

I dashed off to the bathroom, closing the door behind me. Smiling into the mirror, I held a piece of tissue underneath each eye, trying to catch the tears before they fell and spoiled my carefully applied messy make-up. It was almost a week since we’d got back from Paris, I was all moved in to Alex’s apartment and nearly all healed from my double black eye. I still hadn’t heard anything from Mary about getting my job back, but I had received a written apology from Cici and a cheque for two thousand dollars. It wouldn’t nearly cover what had been ruined, but I appreciated the effort that Mary must have gone through and it gave me hope that I’d be able to get my job back somehow, some day. Until then, I was pitching my arse off to UK magazines and getting by on my column. And generally not thinking about the immigration issue.

There was a quiet knock before the handle turned, and Alex stuck his head through the door before I realized I hadn’t locked it.

‘You OK?’ he asked with a soft smile. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Jenny, I thought it would be a nice surprise.’

‘It is,’ I said, flapping my hands in front of my face. ‘I’m so happy.’

‘And so you’re crying because?’ he slipped into the tiny bathroom and shut the door behind him.

‘Because I’m happy,’ I repeated. ‘Honestly. Moving in, having Jenny back, they’re happy tears.’

‘You don’t regret not staying in London?’ he asked, wiping a stray tear away with a gentle thumb.

‘Nope,’ I said, my voice thick and popping on the p. ‘I do miss Lou and I suppose even my mum, but I want to be here. I felt an awful lot worse when Mary said I could lose my visa than I did when I got back on the train to Paris.’

‘We’ll figure it out,’ Alex promised. ‘We will. It’s just paperwork. It’s nothing.’

I nodded, hoping he was right.

‘Are you two rutting in there?’ Jenny yelled through the door. ‘Because you have guests, so it’s really fucking rude. And I need to pee.’

I shook my head and pushed past Alex, opening the door to Jenny, hand on hip, one eyebrow raised so high I was worried it might fall off her face altogether.

‘Dude, control yourself when you have company,’ she said, slapping Alex lightly around the head. ‘She’s living with you now, it’s like you have hot and cold running Angela, twenty-four-seven. You can’t wait until we go home?’

Someone had turned off the big light during our intermission in the bathroom, and switched on the fairy lights I’d hung earlier in the week, despite Alex’s concerns that they might make the apartment look like the Playboy grotto. But they did not. They looked awesome. Twinkling around the window, they framed the blinking lights of Manhattan, the Empire State Building lit up green, the Chrysler building glowing like an upside down ice-cream cone, and the rest of the city flashing away, just to let us know it was there. Life went on.

‘Do you need anything?’ Alex asked, putting a hand around my waist while I looked at the happy scene in our apartment.

‘Uh-uh.’ I shook my head, turning in towards him for a kiss. Lipgloss be damned.

‘You don’t want anything?’

‘I have everything I need and everything I want,’ I replied, squeezing him tightly, watching Jenny roll her eyes at whatever bullshit story Craig was telling her, glancing at Louisa’s scan photo stuck up on the fridge.

And for that moment at least, it was absolutely true.

Massive thanks enough to everyone at HC, especially Lynne, Victoria, Claire and Sarah. Kate and Lucy, you’re amazing. Lee, thank you for making the covers so incredibly beautiful that people pick the book up in the first place. Wendy, thank you for convincing buyertypes to put it in the shops so people can see the pretty cover. Liz & Kiera, excellent work ladies. And to everyone else, as an ex-HCUKer, I totally appreciate what amazing stuff you’re doing for me and I’m so proud to work with you in any capacity.

I also want to say super special thanks to Sam ‘The Butcher’ Hutchinson and Jane ‘Gaga’ Griffiths for making our Parisian research so much fun but then, I always say that, don’t I? Thanks to Jenny Jacoby and all her friends for their hints and tips and ‘a sparky young monger named Hugh’ and to the man on Rue Oberkampf with the bottle of vodka … That answer’s still no, thank you.

To everyone that helped me make New York feel like home; the World’s Best Roomies, Ro and Shirin, Beth, Janet, Kari, Sarah (B/HS! B/HS!), Erin, Brenna, Rachael, the America’s Next Top Model Watching Collective and everyone who has laughed with me, instead of at me. Appreciated. And finally for all the redheaded Texan poets in my life. I would like to acknowledge their abundant inspiration, encouragement and physical attractiveness. And the fact that they had the balls to suggest I put this in here. Ask and ye shall receive.

I Heart Vegas

Faster, faster on your feet …

For Ryan

Hands on hips, I stood in the middle of the living room and surveyed my work. Excellent. The Christmas tree was up, champagne was chilling in the ice bucket and the apartment was, hmm, passable. As long as no one turned the big lights on. Alex would be impressed. Almost as impressed as the random man on Kent Avenue staring up into our window, surveying my pants. Shit. If I was going to insist on walking around the house in my knickers, we were going to have to get curtains. I staggered backwards, trying not to trip over in my borrowed high heels and hit the light switch. Another bright idea, Angela, I mentally slapped myself as I stumbled straight into the kitchen counter, banging my knee hard as I went. Because nothing went as well with black lace lingerie as a purple throbbing bruise, did it? Surely most twenty-eight-year-olds had grown out of being such an incredibly clumsy cow. Surely most twenty-eight-year-olds didn’t wander around in the pitch black wearing four-inch heels. Surely most twenty-eight-year-olds weren’t like me.

There was a reason for my playing peep show. Alex, my lovely boyfriend and quintessential rock god, had been away touring the Far East for exactly forty-three days, and he was due home any minute. Having had far too long to think about how I would welcome him back, I’d let Jenny, my best friend and quintessential sex kitten, talk me into a sultry seduction scenario over one too many afternoon cocktails. Although now I was here, trussed up like a chicken, I couldn’t help but feel he’d have been as happy with beer and a pizza. Served me right for meeting her at the bar at Hotel Delmano on a Wednesday afternoon. I was so weak in the face of peer pressure. And Pinot grigio.

‘Alex gets back tonight, right?’ she had asked.

‘Yep,’ I had replied.

‘Big plans?’

‘Beer. Pizza. Lovely sit down. He’ll have been on a plane for a billion hours.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ Pause. ‘Why?’

‘Dude, if my guy had kept his pants on for an entire month while he was on tour in Japan, where all the groupies live, well, I kinda think he’d be expecting a more exciting welcome home.’

At which point she removed her spike-heeled, black patent leather Louboutins, forced them onto my feet and a plan was born.

‘Too late now, Clark,’ I whispered to myself, rubbing my knee and hobbling over to the sofa to arrange myself in what I hoped would be a sultry fashion. Sexpot was not my natural setting. Not that I wasn’t excited to see him. My ‘ladyboner’, as Jenny would call it, was at Thumper levels. I was twitterpated out of season. Seriously, I was just about ready to knock Alex right off his feet the second he walked through the door, but I still wasn’t convinced spending twenty minutes trying to fasten a pair of suspenders onto seamed stockings (after spending twenty minutes trying to get the seams straight in the first place) was a good use of my time. Not least of all because for most of that twenty minutes, I looked less like Dita Von Teese and more like a very slutty dog chasing its own tail. Why were these things so hard to put on? How was putting your neck out fastening the bastards supposed to put you in the mood? There was also the fact that there were a lot of other things I probably should have been doing with my time. Like Christmas shopping. Like looking for work. Like cleaning the bathroom for the first time in three weeks instead of going in, pulling a face and shutting the door. Lots of things, really.

But now wasn’t the time to worry about that, I told myself as I lowered my arse onto the couch, trying to fan my dark blonde hair out around my head and position myself so as to avoid any and all exposure of cellulite. Which was basically impossible. The clock on the DVD player flashed nine p.m. Alex’s flight was due into JFK at seven-twenty. He would be walking through the door any second. I yawned and tried not to fall off the sofa. It had been a long hard day of procrastination. Any second now he’d be home. Any second …

‘Dude, hit lights?’

Keys jangled in the door. I rubbed my eyes, leaving big black smudges on my fists. Keys? Burglars? Burglars with keys? I noticed the champagne bobbing around in a bucket full of water. What time was it? And why was I semi-naked?

‘Where do you want this?’ The voice again, this time definitely inside the front door. With very little time to make a decision, I decided to stay on the couch and hide. I really wasn’t dressed for vigilantism. Batman hardly ever wore heels, after all.

‘Uh, just drop it anywhere. Angela?’

Angela? That was me! And that voice belonged to Alex! It wasn’t burglars, it was …

‘Woah, dude!’

The living-room lights flickered into life, revealing me on the couch in all my sultry glory. If looking like a very confused, cut-price hooker with messed up eye make-up and a little bit of drool on her pillow was in fact sultry. Judging by the expressions on Alex, Graham and Craig’s faces, it wasn’t. Of course he’d come home with his band mates. And a four-way with my boyfriend, his gay drummer and super slutty guitarist, who I was almost certain must have at least one STD at any given time, really wasn’t in my plans for the evening.

‘Oh, Angela.’ Graham, gay as the wind, turned away immediately. Craig, straight as a die, grinned from ear to ear. ‘Nice rack.’

‘Craig!’ I couldn’t even look at the giggling guitarist. ‘If you want to keep your balls, just stop bloody laughing.’

I pushed myself up, performing a very clumsy fan dance using the sofa cushions before tripping over my own shoes and landing in a graceless pile at the foot of the Christmas tree.

‘Alex?’ I called, face in the floor.

‘Angela?’ he replied. I could tell he was trying not to laugh. Twat.

‘Could you turn the lights out, please?’

‘Absolutely.’

The living-room lights dimmed, and somewhere inside my shame I heard him herding the others out of the apartment. Much to Craig’s dismay. A healthy combination of humiliation and the throbbing pain in my knee kept me face down on the hardwood floor while I waited for the click of the lock. At least my Christmas tree smelled nice. That was something.