AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey guys,” Huxley says, obviously guessing I’m there. “Vic and I hadn’t heard from you, so we wondered if you were coming tomorrow?”
Mack frowns. “Coming where?”
“To the club. The Twelfth Night Party?”
“Is there one?”
“Jesus. You didn’t get the email? I told Vic her mailout screwed up. Yeah, we’re having a do. I’m not sure about numbers now if nobody got the fucking memo. Can you come? Help me out?”
Mack looks at me and rolls his eyes. I smile and say loudly, “Yeah we’ll be there, Hux, don’t worry.”
“Cool, sweet as. Seven thirty p.m. Sorry about the late notice. See you then.”
“See ya.” Mack ends the call and props his feet back on the coffee table. “Unusual for Vic to fuck up the email.”
“Yeah.” I curl up beside him, heart hammering. Part one of the plan is in motion. I should be able to get him there. Keeping him there, though, is another matter…
“You okay?” he says. “You look nervous.”
“I’m fine.” I need to distract him. “I keep meaning to ask, do you think Huxley and Elizabeth will ever get together?”
He laughs. “Not in this lifetime.”
“I’m serious. Elizabeth told me he asks her out once a month without fail.”
“Yeah. He does it to wind her up.”
“Every month? Seems like a very long-winded joke.”
“I guess.”
“They flirt all the time.”
“Yeah. There’s a kind of merry war betwixt them.”
I chuckle. “Much Ado about Nothing? You think they’re like Benedick and Beatrice?”
“Kinda.”
“You know they end up together, right?”
“I think that ship has long sailed.”
“He doesn’t like her?”
“Eh… He’s crazy about her. But you know he has a daughter, right?”
My eyebrows rise. “No! Really? How old?”
“She’s eight. Her name’s Joanna.”
I’m stunned. “So he was only, what, twenty when he had her?”
He nods. “He got a girl pregnant at university. Brandy, her name was. Well, is. She lives not far away, in Herne Bay.” He names an affluent suburb in Auckland.
“Jesus. Wow. What happened? I’m guessing they’re not an item.”
“No. They were never a couple—it was a one-night stand, I think, and neither of them seemed interested in it being anything more. He didn’t tell us much about it at the time. He’s very private despite being the most gregarious guy I know. But he’s stood by her all these years. He bought them a house, and he pays for Joanna to go to a private school. He has Joanna every other weekend, and he always goes to parents’ evenings and dance recitals and stuff like that. He’s a great dad.”
