I turn to look at him. His face is half illuminated by the nearly full moon, and it’s perfect. He’s so perfect. I’m on the vergeof ruining everything and saying something really stupid like, “Let’s run away together.”
Shit, imagine that.
Instead, I say, “Has Georgia said anything else to you since April?”
“No. I don’t know if she’s forgotten or given up. I feel . . .” He sighs. The weight of the world is relieved in his exhale. “Like I should feel guiltier for what we’re doing, but I just . . .” Pi closes his eyes and leans his head against the wall.
A moment later, two shiny orange orbs blink at me from the other side of Owen’s garden.
“Fox,” I whisper, tapping Pi’s leg.
We watch the creature until it vanishes into the night, and then we decide it’s high time we rejoined the party.
The girls are inside the pub when we get back. My stomach drops, but they’re standing beside the bar with full drinks, including pints of beer for Pi and me, so they couldn’t have been missing us for too long.
“Where have you been?” Megan greets us with a smile and hands me a pint of lager.
“Went for a piss and then we saw a fox.” The story isn’t completely false, and it tracks since the bathrooms are in an external building to the pub and you have to go outside for two seconds to get there.
“I love foxes,” she says. She knows. I see it in the way she smiles at me. It’s almost a congratulatory smile.
Georgia, however, is not smiling. She pulls a piece of fluff or lint from Pi’s hair. “Cobwebs? Owen needs to find a new cleaner if this is what the men’s loos are like.”
I don’t look at him. I can’t. I don’t look at Georgia either, and Megan is maintaining very firm eye contact with me. She’s attempting to communicate something with her eyes alone, but I have no idea what. Is she trying to tell me that Georgia knows?Or perhaps that Georgia doesn’t know? Or maybe it’s not even about that. Knowing Megs, it could be a completely random thought like how to layer the perfect puff pastry.
Or maybe she wants me to cause some kind of distraction.
“Would it surprise you to learn that cows are the most deadly animals in the UK?” I say, shrugging at Megan.
She laughs. Shrugs back. “Interesting.” Then she pinches the flesh on my hip with enough force to shock an inch of beer out of the top of my glass.
We find a table near the far wall, but there are only three chairs, so Megs sits on my lap, while Abs finishes yet another set. It appears he’s had an absolute skinful and this time he’s crooning out “Someone You Loved,” by Lewis Capaldi. It would be awkward as fuck if it weren’t for the following facts: one, he can actually sing, and two, absolutely nobody else in the room is paying him the slightest bit of attention.
Suddenly, the inside of my nose feels tickly, like I’m about to sneeze or cry. Damn it. I’d kinda forgotten this tiny ginger ball of irk is also a human being.
But he spoils it all at the end of his song with a, “Fuck you, Orlando Oakham-Fucking-Goodwin, you overinflated chess piece.”
“At least he’s over his Gadget grudge,” I say.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Pi adds.
“Why is your arm so scratched up?” Georgia says abruptly.
“Huh?” Pretty sure that came from all three of us.
Georgia extends Pi’s arm and twists it, revealing a crisscross of scratches along the softer part of his forearm, no doubt from a moment ago when I fucked his thighs against the ancient wall of our teammate’s cottage. “You’re bleeding.”
He doesn’t look at me, but I can almost feel the physical effort he puts into not looking at me. “Oh, I tripped and knocked itinto the wall . . . when we were outside . . . watching the fox . . . earlier.”
Megan pinches me again. It’s the exact spot she pinched before, and I’m sure she’s trying to curate an everlasting bruise.
“Eggs, you’re up!” Owen calls out.
“You owe me the full tea later,” Megan whispers into my ear as we stand and shuffle about so that I can do my set and she can sit down in my seat.
Abs bumbles over to our table, pulls a chair out of thin air, and plops it next to Pi. Not out of thin air . . .
Damn, I’ve only just got to the stage and people are already leaving the pub. Am I really that bad at singing?
