Her feet, bare as they were, couldn’t take the required bouncing for Kriss Kross’s Jump, so Bea made a swift exit, dance-floor right, claiming a seat at a table, empty but for general party detritus: paper plates with sandwich crusts and unwanted samosa triangles; discarded cardigans and handbags; the jagged skins of burst balloons. She tried to dust off the soles of her feet but they were smudged so grey she gave that up as a bad lot and sat back in the chair.
‘Are you alright there, child?’ A red-faced Eileen was there almost immediately, hovering at Bea’s elbow. She’d always mothered her far more than her real mum; Bea only pretended to mind. ‘Sure, you should go on home, if you’re tired. I’ll be off myself before too long now.’ The sherry must be finished, thought Bea with a smile.
‘I’m fine,’ Bea assured her godmother. ‘I’m just resting.’ She gestured at her well-danced-upon feet.
‘Ah, yes now, I’m the same. The dogs are barking.’ And with that Eileen lowered her stiff frame into the chair next to Bea’s and placed her cool hand over hers. ‘It’s a shame Hannah couldn’t make it tonight.’ Bea sighed in agreement. Her mother was currently living the ex-pat lifestyle in Portugal and seemed to have washed her hands of all motherly – and godmotherly – responsibilities as a result. Bea had only seen her twice in the last five years. With no dad ever in the picture, and no siblings, it had definitely left her a little adrift. And Eileen knew it. ‘Now, Nora tells me nothing these days, my girl. Has your special someone made an appearance, now? There’s nobody you thought to bring tonight?’
Bea’s mind flitted to Nice Guy Rob and to the three text messages he’d sent her before taking the hint. ‘Nobody special, no, not yet.’ Eileen had drummed the idea that there was one perfect someone in the world for each of the girls. Granted, it was to get them to consider no sex before marriage, but still, the concept had stuck.
‘Ah, he’ll be along. He’s a man, my girl, and they are all inconvenience, so it will be when you least expect it,’ Eileen informed her authoritatively, settling back in the chair. Bea braced herself for an indeterminable onslaught of unwarranted love-life advice from her widowed godmother.
‘Mammy, I’m going outside for a fag, do you want one?’ Nora’s brother Cillian called out as he made his way past the table, beautiful new girlfriend in tow. He winked at Bea; she shot him a grateful look.
‘Cillian, that’s a filthy habit,’ Eileen intoned mildly, as she got up to follow her son out into the darkened beer garden and indulge in said habit. Bea exhaled, left in peace as both her head and her feet pounded in time with the bass of the music.
‘Here.’ Eli thunked a dripping pint glass of tap water down on the table in front of her. Bea squeezed his forearm in thanks and drank deeply. Eli, holding his own glass, joined her at the little round table. ‘I don’t think Baz got enough drink in. Everyone’s been very much enjoying the open bar.’
‘That’s because an open bar is a thing of beauty,’ Bea pointed out.
‘It’s going to be one drunken wedding if the engagement party is anything to go by. It’s nice, isn’t it, how there’s no big bride/groom split, really? Harry and Nora have shared friends for so long, everybody knows everybody. It’s nice. It’s—’
‘Incestuous?’ Bea supplied, sullenly.
Eli just laughed, used to her occasional darkness. ‘Come on. I know you of old, Beatrice Milton, and you are no way near as prickly as you pretend to be.’ He glanced over wistfully to where Nora was chatting and dancing with Cleo, both holding over-full glasses of wine aloft, shining in the lights. ‘You wouldn’t like what they have? To fall in love with your best friend? You can’t tell me that Harry’s speech didn’t touch you deep in that hedgehog heart of yours.’
‘You’re drunk,’ Bea laughed.
‘Well, you’re a hedgehog,’ Eli repeated, matter-of-fact. ‘Let’s dance.’
* * *
There was a soft touch to the small of her back, a voice in her ear, pitched low to sound under the music. ‘There you are.’
Cleo immediately sloshed wine over the hand that had been holding her wine glass steady. ‘Gray, hi! Oh I forgot you might be coming,’ she lied. She’d religiously checked her phone from seven, until she’d given him up as a no-show sometime around nine.
‘That friend I was helping move house wanted to take me out for a few beers to thank me afterwards,’ Gray explained, still leaning into her to be heard. His breath was warm on her ear; she could smell the hops. ‘I couldn’t get rid of him! I’m so sorry, did you see my text?’
Cleo shook her head, gesturing over to where she’d discarded her handbag in a pile of belongings. ‘I couldn’t be bothered to keep my things on me when I was dancing,’ she explained.
Gray’s smile spread wider. ‘Oh, I know. I’ve been here for about half an hour, you know. I, er, didn’t want to interrupt.’ Cleo’s eyes fluttered closed momentarily as her brain supplied her with the memory of her dance-floor debauchery over the last thirty minutes or so. She’d split her tights trying to ‘get low, low, low’ to Flo Rida, but the next song had been too good to miss too, so she’d stripped them off right there on the dance floor, one hand on Claire’s shoulder to keep her balance, before throwing them onto the nearest table top and carrying on.
(Fuck.)
‘Looks like I’ve been missing one hell of a party,’ Gray continued, eyes full of amusement. ‘But I’m here now. So what are we drinking?’
Cleo belatedly remembered that one hand was dripping with wine and quickly wiped it against her dress before thinking it through. (Fuck!) Oh well, it was a dark dress and a dark room – hopefully nobody would be able to see the smear. And it was 10pm on a Saturday night and she was at her best friend’s engagement party, who cared if she was pissed? Gray had seen worse at the Christmas party, after all. Of course, back then, Cleo had not yet spent so much time studying the tilt of his nose and the curve of his mouth and overthinking them both.
(She’d used to think she had such great self-control … )
‘How many beers have you had?’
Gray grinned. ‘Three or four.’
Cleo shook her head. ‘You need to catch up.’ She moved to the other side of the bar and reached up on her bare tip toes to reach the padlock key before bending down to unlock the one secured store cupboard. Gray raised an eyebrow questioningly. Cleo shrugged her shoulders. ‘Call it a wedding-party perk.’ She pulled out the bottle of Disaronno Barlow had told her was there for her if she fancied it, and snapped the lock back in place before returning the key. ‘No ice left, I’m afraid,’ she admitted, waving the bottle at Gray. ‘But then, you are four hours late.’
‘Fair,’ Gray acknowledged as she poured for him. ‘But better late than never.’ He met her eyes over the rim of the glass as he took a deep drink and suddenly Cleo felt like they could be talking about something else. Over Gray’s shoulder she could see Nora, Claire and even Bea goggling at her from the centre of the dance floor. Daisy too paused in her drunken dance-floor make-out session with Darren to shoot her a grin and a thumbs-up.
She studied him for a moment. He was dressed too nicely, in expensive-looking dark jeans and a well-fitting shirt – he must have gone home to change after helping his friend lug boxes all day. She wished for a moment that he’d been able to see her as she’d been at the start of the evening: hair carefully in place, heels on and eyeliner expertly applied. She hadn’t looked in the mirror for a while but she knew, without needing to, that her bare feet were sticky and dirty, and that her skin was damp with sweat under her hair and where her dress cinched in at the waist.
Almost on cue, Gray spoke again. ‘You look amazing. Why don’t you dress like that for work?’ he teased.
Cleo couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Please, I have enough trouble with some of the older boys being creeps-in-training. You know those Year 11s are still all doing that thing where they drop their pens to try to get me to bend down and pick it up for them?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘That’s the future of our country, right there.’
‘Cheeky sods,’ Gray agreed, topping up his drink. (Cleo noticed just how hard he was having to concentrate at doing it smoothly and realised that it must have been much more than three or four beers … )
‘I bet you were a lot worse at their age,’ she managed, after a moment’s pause.
Gray shot her a look of disbelief. ‘Me? No way. I wouldn’t have known what to do if I’d had a teacher as hot as you. I would have failed maths because I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate, that’s for sure.’ He seemed to realise as he reached the end of his sentence what he’d said and gave an embarrassed smile, busying himself with taking a sip of his drink. ‘And then I wouldn’t have been able to qualify as a teacher and then where would we be?’ he joked weakly.
The mood in the room had changed. The pumping of The Killers had been followed by Ed Sheeran’s Kiss Me and the room seemed suddenly impossibly full of couples. Harry and Nora swayed together in the centre, he holding her head, his fingertips showing through her hair, her arms looped around his waist, as they looked into each other’s eyes and didn’t speak. Nearby Sarah had the side of her face pressed against Cole’s chest and her eyes closed as they moved easily together, one of his big hands on one of her hips, an uncharacteristic softness on his face. Even Daisy and Darren were dancing together over by the patio doors, mouths open in private laughter.
Cleo looked back to Gray, to the tilt of his nose, to the way his lips parted slightly as he sighed.
‘Sorry, Miss Adkins,’ he said lightly. ‘I’m being unprofessional again.’
Cleo nodded slowly. ‘It must be what Disaronno does to you,’ she said lightly.
‘Must be.’
‘Well, if we’ve already veered into unprofessional territory …’ Gray pushed his drink back, away from the edge of the bar; Cleo noticed how he was swallowing deeply, his Adam’s apple bouncing at his throat, and realised that he could in fact be nervous. ‘How about a dance?’
(And maybe it was down to the fact that in that moment she genuinely wanted nothing more, that Cleo paused, clinging by her fingernails to the very edge of her famed self-control.) She shook her head ruefully. ‘I would just show you up. My rhythm is appalling at the best of times, and I’m pretty damn drunk …’
Gray swallowed again. Undeterred he held out his hand to her and smiled. ‘But I love Drunk Cleo,’ he reminded her.