“Cheers, babe,” she says, and immediately the girls dip outside.
Today, Pi’s wearing a white T-shirt, a pair of beige shorts, and even though we’re edging into October, “thongs.” I cannot stop my gaze from sweeping over him.
“Damn, you look good,” I say to him as he leans across me to grab his beer from the bar. The clean, oceanic notes of his perfume flood my nostrils, and I’m having a Pavlovian response to it.
“Fuck off,” he replies with faux embarrassment.
“We should put our names down on the karaoke list and then sneak out to the bogs,” I say.
He reads my unspoken thoughts. Or he’s having them himself. “The stall in the men’s room is out of order.”
“In the trees behind the play park?”
Pi shakes his head. “Beer garden’s teeming. There’re loads of other people outside. Dan’s even brought his kids. They’re on the swings.”
“That’s a shame.” I really need to see more—or less—of that outfit. “I’ll think of something.”
“Alright, bellend,” Abs says, pulling Pi into a bro hug. He’s finished his set and one of Owen’s regulars is now on the stage.
“Yeah, how ya going, cunt?” Pi replies. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Gadget already assured me thathewouldn’t be here. Saidhe’sgone to Bruges for the weekend with Daisy and her girlfriend,” Abs says in reference to his now ex . . . boyfriend-person, Orlando.
“You’re on speaking terms with Gadget now, are you?” I ask.
Abs shrugs a single shoulder. “I found somebody to hate more.”
About a month ago, Abs and his situationship split up. Nobody knows what happened. He hasn’t even told his best buddy, Pi. All we know is that one day Harry and Orlando were sickeninglyin love, then they went on a romantic sunset boat trip, and the next day they were mortal enemies.
Abs refuses to talk about the twenty-one-year-old millionaire or even mention him by name. It’s always “him” or “it” or “evil personified.”
“So, what are you singing later?” he asks us.
“I dunno. ‘Killing in the Name of?’ Why not light tonight on fire with rage?” I suggest.
“Fuck yeah!” Okay, angry Harry is a lot more fun than dopey, lovesick Harry.
Pi and I add our names to the list. I’ve picked “Jar Of Hearts,” because why shouldn’t I treat everyone to my vocal acrobatics on this fine September evening? And after some serious nagging on my part, because my Australian friend isn’t feeling the limelight tonight, he’s agreed to sing Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own.”
We pop our heads out of the pub and ask the girls if they want to go on the list, but they wave us away. Then wave us back again for more drinks.
There are fourteen people ahead of us in the queue to perform. Pi explains that the average song is three minutes and fifteen seconds long.
“Which is very close to pi, in case you struggle to remember it.”
Multiply three point two five by fourteen singers and that equals forty-five and a half minutes until we’re needed on stage. Well, the upturned half barrel that acts as a makeshift stage.
We slip out of Bosley’s fine establishment on the pretence of needing fresh air, but instead of joining everyone at the back in the beer garden, we creep around to the side and cross the road. There’s an old chocolate box style cottage opposite the pub, and like the pub, it has a thatched roof, a sage-green front door, and a pair of climbing roses. It looks like an anglophile’s wet dream.
“That’s Gadget and Owen’s home,” Pi says.
“That makes sense.” Both Owen and Gadget were in the pub when we escaped, meaning the house should be empty. “Wonder if they’ve left their door unlocked.”
I jiggle the handle. They haven’t. It doesn’t budge.
“I could suck your cock right here behind these bushes,” I say, because I fucking need him and our forty-five minutes are depleting too quickly.
Pi punches me in the arm and launches into this odd, overloud fake laughter. “Fuck off!”
