CHAPTER 22
All I saw at first was a large silhouette. The light of tens of torches created a halo around him. He loomed there, like a dark shadow, for a few moments, and then he took a step forward and I shielded my eyes from the light that rushed towards me as he moved.
“God!” I squinted into the light. Why was he always backlit? Why? Was this some kind of movie? Seriously? No one walked around in real life being backlit. No one but him.
“Becca?” Mike said, and I let out a long, loud sigh, because now I could see all of him. And he was standing there in his uniform, looking hot and sexy, and very much like the man that had left me standing in a parking lot with a pack of condoms in my hand.Non XL!
“What are you doing here?” he asked. He looked as surprised as I felt. As if he’d hoped he would never see me again. I bet I was the last person in this ridiculous town that he wanted to see.
“This woman broke into the estate and she disturbed the nesting birds,” the ringleader yelled.
“I didn’t break in,” I objected loudly.
“Then how did you get in?” the man asked.
“I came to look at a house. An estate agent let me in,” I said defensively.
“You’re looking to buy here?” someone else asked, with an incredulous and somewhat patronizing tone to their voice.
“Yes.”
“Well, as head of the eco committee, I can tell you now that, as someone who has just ruined the natural nesting place of the black-crested night budgie, we would not welcome you here.”
“Oh my God, do you know how made up that sounds?” I asked. “And they were pigeons!”
More gasps, and now I was just feeling very indignant.
“Well, for your information,” I started, “I would not want to live in this shitty, birdy, stuck-up, cow-dung-floored place, anyway. And you know what else? My Porsche uses petrol and the fuel consumption is BAD! I mean, really, really bad. Like, shocking. My fuel consumption is probably responsible for melting at least one ice cap a year.” Okay, maybe that was taking it too far, but the desire to throw it back in their faces was just too great.
Even more gasps. What was with these people and their shocked gasps? They sounded like a recorded sound-effect that was played on sitcoms, like laughter or clapping.
“Okay, okay, everyone, let’s just all calm down.” Mike stepped forward in an authoritative way.
“It’s illegal to trespass! Arrest her!” one of the residents shouted.
“Oh, please,” I said, and chuckled. But then I looked at Mike and stopped chuckling. He raised a rather serious-looking eyebrow at me.Come on.There was no way he was arresting me. For what? Disturbing some birds’ sexy time?
“I’m afraid I am going to have to take you in,” Mike said.
“Take mein!? HA! And now you want to ‘take me in.’ ” I gestured air quotes. “Now you want to commit to something like that. Are you going to use handcuffs?” I teased.
Mike approached me quickly and lowered his voice. “Let’s not do this here; we can talk about that later.”
“Doit here? Oh, if I know anything about you, I don’t think we’ll be ‘doing it’—here or anywhere, actually.” I was really throwing around the old air quotes now.
“That is seriously uncalled for,” he whispered under his breath.
“Is it?” I asked sarcastically. “I could name a few other things that might be considered uncalled for, like—oh, I don’t know—standing someone up in a parking lot with—”
“SHHH! Okay, okay . . .” He turned and looked at everyone. “Nothing to see here, folks. I will deal with this and you can all go back home.” Nobody moved. And then he turned to me and looked very, very serious. “You’re going to have to come with me now, Becca.”
“What? Are you being serious?” It hadn’t really occurred to me that I actually might get arrested over something as silly as trespassing and disturbing a . . .What was it . . . ?Blacky-crested budgie-majiggy!? I put my hands on my hips defiantly.
“Look, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,” he said.
“The hard way?” I mocked. “Interesting that you should mentionhardways.”
“Becccaaa . . .” he hissed. “Please. You’re being very inappropriate.”
