Page 26
She answered on the second ring. “Hey! Ciao, Hermano!”
“Ugh. What language are you attempting to speak?”
“Whichever, I’m not fussy.”
“Okay, well you’ve covered a few bases there.”
She snorted a laugh, and I felt instantly lighter. I leant my forearms on the breakfast counter. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“Nah, just doomscrolling.”
“Constructive. How’s the new term going?”
“All right. The homework is going to be more intense this year for sure, but I’m keeping up so far. How are you?”
“Okay. Tired.” I chugged some beer. “Bored.”
“Why don’t you go out?”
“Bingley’s away.”
“So, go out with someone else. You do know other people in London.”
“None who wouldn’t make me more tired and more bored.” Mostly it was business associates. My circle of close friends was deliberately small, and most of them were back home in Derbyshire.
“What about someone from work?”
I instantly thought of Elizabeth, and my conscience heaped a shovelful of guilt into my guts. I could hardly justify spending time with her myself while judging her for socialising with Billy and Kev. No matter how much I suspected I’d enjoy her company. I pushed away from the counter and stalked back into the living room, leaving my beer behind. I’d gone off the idea of drinking that too. I crossed the room to the window and looked out over the rooftops opposite.
“I was thinking of coming home this weekend.”
Georgiana went quiet.
“Is that a problem?” I asked.
“I’ve got some friends coming over.”
“Georgiana, we live in an eighty-four-room mansion. It’s entirely possible that I could come home and you’d not set eyes on me the whole weekend.”
“Not true, and you know it. Besides, I know you’re not making a three-hundred-mile round trip so you can sit on your own in a different house.”
She had a point.
“Who have you got coming over that you don’t want me to get in the way of?” I asked, resigned to another weekend in the flat.
“James,” Georgiana answered, adding quickly, “Please don’t start lecturing me. I’m eighteen, remember!”
I did remember, although that didn’t mean I had to like the fact that my baby sister was dating the obnoxious bassist of a teenaged nu metal band. I took a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll stay away. I need a lot more than eighty-four rooms between me and whatever you two are going to be doing anyway.”
“You know, you could do with some action yourself. You’re so uptight,” she said petulantly. After a pause, she ventured, “Hello? Are you still there?”
“I am.”
“You didn’t answer.”
“Well spotted.”
“Come on!” she said, laughing as though this conversation was fun all of a sudden. “It’s been—what? Two years since you and Emily broke up? She can’t have scarred you that badly.”
