Queenie(95)

“Shall we?” he said, holding open the door of the busy bar I’d been looking at nervously for the last hour.

Balding Alpha ordered a bottle of wine and we drank it quickly, speaking nonstop. We laughed about our families, moaned about living in London, compared dream holidays, our hands occasionally touching and our legs constantly pressed together under the table. He ordered another bottle, and before I could realize how much I was drinking, we’d made our way through a glass of it each, when he leaned over the table and said, “How about I ask them to cork this and we walk back to mine?”

“Maybe,” I said, standing up to go to the loo. I had to hold on to a stool to steady myself as it hit me how much I’d had to drink, and in such a short amount of time. I made it to the bathroom and opened my bag, retrieving my phone with unusually clumsy hands.

I called Darcy with some difficulty, looking in the mirror above the sink, staring at myself in some weak attempt to sober up purely through focusing my eyes on my own reflection.

“Are you okay? Are you safe? Is he a psycho? Are you having a wobble? Do you need me to come and get you?” Darcy asked, her voice high. “Simon, get my coat!”

“No! But shall I go home with him, Darc? I’ve, I’ve had I think the equivalent of, like, a bottle of wine and so, Darcyyyyy, I am feeling quite loose and free!” I leaned on the sink to balance myself. “Fuck it. Did you see that he snogged me when he saw me? He is so confident. It’s ’mazin’. And his bald head is quite sexy.”

“No. You aren’t doing it. Think of your grandmother,” Darcy warned. “Be careful, please, I don’t want you to jump back into a pattern that made you ill in the first place. Remember why you’re going on a date and not just meeting him at his house, because you want something long-last—”

“Darcy! He is an adult, I am an adult. Sort of. Yes! I am less of an adult than him but he is an adult grown man and I’m a grown woman like Beyoncé sings and he surely will respect me enough to continue things if he so wants to. Both adults—”

I stopped talking when a man walked into the bathroom. “?’Scuse me, sir!” I slurred, looking around for another woman to back me up and chase this pervert out. I only saw urinals.

“Sssssorry.” I walked out of the men’s toilets and put my phone back in my bag, managing to walk in a straight line to the table. Balding Alpha was tapping on his phone. He looked up as I sat back down, placing it facedown on the table.

“Ready?” He smiled, standing up and grabbing the bottle of wine. We left the bar and crossed the road. Balding Alpha slipped his hand in mine, and I wondered if it took me more than five seconds to pull my hand out of his because I was drunk, or because the counseling had worked.

As we walked back to his house, he spoke, at length, about himself. I didn’t mind, because I wasn’t entirely sure that anything that came out of my mouth was going to make any sense.

“Here we are!” he said, as we got to one of those ex–council houses that have in recent years been bought either by property developers or by young people whose parents are happy to “help with the deposit.”

“Come in.”

A wall of heat hit me as I stumbled in. I looked around and familiarized myself with his house; if I knew where everything was, I’d be able to keep my anxiety at bay.

“I’m going to hang my suit up, but let me just—” He bent down and kissed me, me having to crane my neck ninety degrees to work with his height.

He left the kitchen so swiftly that I was left standing there, pouting as though kissing the Invisible Man. I was thirsty and thought it might be weird to look for a cup, so I stuck my head under the tap and turned on the cold faucet.

“You could have asked for a glass,” Courtney said, walking back into the kitchen in nothing but a pair of sweatpants.

“But you might have laced all of your glasses with drugs,” I said, wiping water from my mouth with the back of my hand.

“What?” he said, going to the cupboard and retrieving two wineglasses. I watched his body, openmouthed.

“Nothing.” I gulped as I took in the muscles that rippled down his back. “Do you go to the gym a lot?”

“Jujitsu. The torso ain’t what it was ten years ago, though.” He turned to face me and patted his six-pack.

“What was it ten years ago?” I marveled. “Are you sure you’d want to see me naked? I don’t go to the gym at all, and the thing that I eat most is chocolate. I mean it. Like family-size bars.”

“Don’t be silly,” Balding Alpha said, leading me into the living room “. . . you have a beautiful face.”



* * *



“Wait here, I’m just gonna go and get a condom,” Balding Alpha said presumptuously, as he stood up and turned to look at me. Wait—at what point had he decided that we were going to have sex? He bent and pulled the shoulder of my dress down, licking the skin underneath. “Tastes like chocolate,” he said as he left the living room. Why was I surprised?

When he came back into the room, I was getting my coat on. “Where are you going so soon?” he asked, flopping onto the sofa and pulling me down with him.

“Ah, I think I should go. I’m not feeling so good.”

“Nah, you’re fine, sit down,” he said, stroking my thigh. That did actually make me feel not so good.