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‘Last night,’ he replies with a smile.
That smile of his has this way of putting me at ease. As Rocco sits back down on the bed, I allow myself to sit on the chaise at the end of it.
‘You were adamant that you weren’t going home,’ he reminds me.
Even if that didn’t sound familiar, it’s not exactly hard to believe.
‘We all went to the bar, next door to the bowling alley,’ he continues.
‘The karaoke bar?’ I reply. It comes out like a question, but it isn’t taking much to jog my memory.
‘Don’t tell me you don’t remember doing karaoke?’ Rocco replies, astonished.
‘No! Tell me I didn’t…’
‘You didn’t,’ he chuckles. ‘We just sat and laughed at the people who did.’
‘So we got absolutely destroyed at bowling, obviously…’
‘Obviously,’ he echoes.
‘And then we went to the karaoke bar, had more to drink…’
‘You had quite a bit at bowling,’ he tells me. ‘You were addicted to the boozy slushies. You bought a few rounds.’
‘So, in the end I spiked myself?’ I reply. ‘No man required.’
‘Something like that,’ he laughs. ‘You’re a good feminist. At the end of the night, when I tried to book you a taxi home, you said you couldn’t go home.’
I remember that now. I remember all of it, now that he’s triggered my memory. I also remember…
‘No!’
‘What?’ he asks.
I look down at the hotel-branded dressing gown.
‘I didn’t do that,’ he quickly insists. ‘I gave you the dressing gown, but I didn’t undress you.’
‘No, I know,I did,’ I reply.
I remember feeling tired, wanting to go to sleep, and trying to wrestle off my dress. I don’t remember waiting for Rocco to leave the room before I did this.
‘Well, I never would have reminded you, if you hadn’t remembered, but I just chucked you a dressing gown and then went to bed. You didn’t have an audience.’
I sigh a huge gust of relief.
‘Is everything okay?’ he asks me seriously. ‘You really didn’t want to go home.’
‘I don’t know what got into me,’ I insist with a smile. ‘Just being drunk and daft.’
A couple of things are abundantly clear to me, and one doesn’t seem to sit right with the other. The first is that Rocco is only in town to spend Christmas with his family and will be taking off soon after so, despite being on a dating app, he’s only looking for a good time, for a short time. If that’s true, then you would think that something casual would be a welcome distraction to him, but last night Rocco didn’t so much as touch a hair on my head.
I suppose I should be grateful – no, I am grateful – but there’s something kind of tragic about not making the cut for a casual fling. It’s good, though, because while Rocco is looking for a Mrs All Right for the Night at these Mingle All the Way events, he can be my Mr Right Hand Man, someone to buddy up with, someone fun to hang out at all these stupid events… if he’ll have me.
‘Are you going to the cooking thing this evening?’ he asks me, reading my mind.
I glance down at his body before dragging my eyes back up to his – stop it, Billie!
