Players, Bumps and Cocktail Sausages (Silence #3)(5)

Cole held his hands up. “You asked us to get you shitfaced.”

“I did. Hand them over.” I was getting drunk because my wife was off with God knows who again. I hadn’t met all of her colleagues. Well I had, but I never paid any attention to them because they all seemed boring. Apparently I wasn’t giving them a chance because I had only met them at the school where she worked, and they were fun outside it. I hadn’t failed to notice how I never got invited out with them to witness said fun.

“I’m not really a shots kind of girl,” Holly said and smiled at me. “You can have mine.”

I narrowed my eyes. Were you even allowed into uni if you didn’t do shots?

“Thanks.” I lined my five up and took them one after another. “The hell is this, Cole?”

He shrugged. “I asked for eleven of their strongest shots.”

Jesus did they give him paint stripper?

Holly sipped her drink. She definitely wasn’t doing the uni thing properly.

“So, what is tonight in aid of?”

“Jasper’s having wife issues,” Cole replied.

“Oh,” she said, wincing. “Sorry, Jasper.”

I shrugged.

“You’re married now too, right?” she asked Cole.

He nodded. “Two and a half months.”

“Congratulations.”

Cole smiled in response and got that blissful look on his face.

“I bet you know the hours, too.” I sneered.

He stuck his middle finger up, and I laughed. Yeah, he definitely did.

“Anyway, I thought I said no more talk of women and marriages? Holly, tonight you’re a man.”

“Thanks,” she said sarcastically.

“Sorry, I just mean I don’t want any girlie talk.”

“Not really a girlie girl,” she replied. Yeah, I can tell. She was a good girl that was still half living in a badly done rebellious phase. Growing up she would dress like she wanted to rebel but never actually did anything wrong. It was like she didn’t know who she was yet. Although, who was I to judge? I wasn’t really sure I knew who I was any more, either.

Things were easier when I was happily married, but now I didn’t know what Abby wanted, I didn’t know what I wanted. Well that wasn’t true. I did know: I wanted to have kids and grow old with my wife. But I couldn’t if she wanted something or someone else.

“Cole, more shots,” Ben said.

Brad stood. “I’ll get these.”

“When do you go back then?” I asked Holly.

She scooted over and sat on Brad’s chair, next to me as the DJ turned up the music.

“Not until October, so I have a long, boring summer here.”

Almost four months off! She didn’t know how damn lucky she was; I wish I got that much time off work. How the hell could universities charge so much money when you were hardly there?

“Where are your friends?”

“I didn’t have many friends in high school, and the ones I did have either settled down or moved away. I’m catching up with Amy when she’s back from Tenerife soon though.”

Do I know who Amy is? “Right,” I replied, not knowing what to say.

“Well your brother’s coming to my stepdad’s barbecue on Friday. Come too, if you want.”

“Yeah? He wouldn’t mind?”

“Nope.” Miles was too laid back to care if I brought an elephant along with me. My mum, however…

Mum would love Holly. In a way, Holly reminded me a little of Oakley – the shyness and how she looked almost as if she would shatter if you shouted boo at her.

“Thank you.”

I shrugged. “No worries.”

“So… do you want to talk about your wife issues?”

I arched my eyebrow. “You’re going to give me advice? Have you ever been in a relationship?”

Her cheeks reddened.

“Thought not.”

“I have a while ago, but it wasn’t really serious, we were together for eight months before school finished, and uni is really full on.”

“Of course it is. Holly, you don’t have to be embarrassed, you’re still really young.”

“I’m not embarrassed.” Then why did you go beetroot? “Anyway, if Brad tells me correctly, you’ve not exactly had any meaningful relationships apart from Abby.”

“What the hell has he told you?” I asked, smiling tightly.

“That you slept around and broke hearts.”

I held my finger up.

“Uh-uh. I may not have been a good boy, but I never promised anyone anything. They knew the score as well as I did. It was just sex.”

“Such class,” Ben said, shaking his head. I glared but let it go.

Now I wasn’t exactly proud of sleeping with as many women as I had – sixty-eight – but I wasn’t exactly ashamed either. Sure I would have preferred Abby to not have cheated on me when we were teens, ripped my heart out and left me an empty mess, but she did, and then I slept around. But that was in the past, and I had no desire to go back to that.

“I think it’s sweet that you changed so much for your wife,” Holly said, sipping her drink as if she was afraid it was the last one she would ever get.