Not OK Cupid: A sparkling rom-com you won't want to put down! Page 8

  ‘Watching your figure?’

  ‘I think you’ve watched it enough for both of us.’ Ally was surprised at herself. She hardly ever snapped and couldn’t blame him for staring at her in that dress. But she also couldn’t bring herself to apologise.

  He went red, and they sat in silence until it was time to leave.

  ‘Well, I won’t be going back there again,’ said Oliver, as they stood up. He darted around the table to hold Ally’s jacket while she slipped into it. As he smoothed it down her body, he smiled in what he apparently thought was an enticing way. It was about as sexy as watching a nurse approach for a smear test.

  Sam and Brendan, clearly not ready to say goodnight, made plans to go on to a club. Ally debated going home, but she’d been strangely unsettled and bored in the evenings. She wished she had more portrait sittings to keep her occupied. Marcus’s painting was taking for ever to dry.

  In the club, she checked her bag and jacket and went straight to the dance floor. Oliver appeared in front of her and she let him take her hips. Perhaps he’d be sexier when he wasn’t talking. Like her.

  The thought upset her. Why couldn’t she find someone who liked her infuriating quirks?

  Definitely not Oliver. When he pressed his erection against her back, she snapped. Shaking him off, she slipped through the crowd to an Oliver-free part of the dance floor. She was happy dancing on her own, but when she opened her eyes someone was a few feet away, watching her. Not Oliver. She was about to brush him off when he smiled, and his brown eyes creased at the corners. His skin was sun-browned, too, and he had large hands.

  ‘Hi,’ he mouthed, and pointed to himself. ‘Tim.’

  ‘Ally.’ The music snatched her voice away.

  ‘Dance?’

  She moved closer to him, and let the music sway her body. He smelled of good-quality cologne, and in the packed club it was mingled with just a hint of clean, musky sweat.

  By the second song she was an inch from him, her nose brushing his jaw as she breathed in with her eyes closed. On her exhale she felt his sharp intake of breath, and fingers on her waist. When she didn’t move away, he pressed his fingertips in and laid his palms on her hips.

  His hands were as strong as she’d suspected, and her breath quickened as she thought of those fingers curling around tough weed stems and tugging them out of the dry soil with one flick of his wrist.

  The song changed to a dance track with a deep, pulsing beat. A warm shiver swept up Ally’s spine, and he responded by moving his hands down so his fingertips spread over her buttocks. The nerves sparked, and an ache throbbed between her legs that needed those fingers to work it out.

  She closed the gap between them, laying her hands on the shirt over his flat stomach. Firm, muscled. His body heat mixed with the close atmosphere, and Ally took deep, long breaths. When her head started to feel light she turned around. His hands slid to the front of her hips, little fingers brushing the tops of her thighs, and her buttocks rested on a hard lump at his groin.

  She closed her eyes as he pressed his lips on her neck, and it was easy to pretend they were the only two people in the room. Easy to imagine those large, strong hands sliding down her thighs and hitching up her dress. Dexterous fingers stroking the soft, sensitive skin on the insides of her legs, higher and higher until they pushed aside the flimsy material of her thong.

  Warm breath hit the sweat on her neck. ‘Want to get out of here?’ he said into her ear, close enough that he didn’t have to shout.

  A voice somewhere reminded her he was off-limits, but it was drowned out by the buzzing in her nerves.

  ‘Yes,’ she meant to say, but as she drew back to look at him, it died on her lips.

  The face was a shock. Deep brown eyes, sure, but everything else was wrong. The heat in her limbs turned to cold, and her treacherous eyes sought out Sam. He was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Fuck, I’ve got to go. Sorry.’

  She pushed away from the guy, whatever his name was, and elbowed her way through the couples in heat on the dance floor.

  Sam was in a dark corner, making out with Brendan. She tapped him on the shoulder and mouthed that she was going, busying herself with straightening her dress so she didn’t have to look him in the eye. Judging by his hazy look, he wouldn’t have noticed if she’d grown another head. Brendan smiled at her before gluing himself back to Sam’s face, and she hoped she’d be seeing him around in the future. Sam deserved a break.

  And he deserved better friends.

  She waited impatiently at the cloakroom for her bag and coat, then hurried outside and sucked in cool air. That poor guy. Tom? Tim? She was no better than Oliver, using him as a humping surface. As some kind of prop in her screwed up fantasy.

  She took out her phone and saw the envelope icon flashing. An email. From Marcus Kinsell.

  Linseed oil is commonly used to thin oil paints. Yes/No?

  She came to a halt in the street. What kind of question was that? She read it again with narrowed eyes, trying to work out the trick, but couldn’t see it. Maybe he was at a pub quiz or something. The time stamp said it had been sent two hours ago, but she shrugged and replied: Yes, told you that on Tues.

  Hmph. Not only had he failed to notice her body but he hadn’t even been listening to her. There really was no hope of finding a man who did both.

  She lost signal once she descended into the Tube station, and when she emerged in Acton there was a reply from Marcus.

  Great! See you then.

  She halted again, dumbfounded. See her when? What?

  Scrolling down the email trail, she saw he’d changed his original question to: You’re getting the 11:52 train on Saturday to come and see Harry, aren’t you?

  ‘Oh, for god’s sake,’ she muttered, shook her head at his deviousness, and called him.

  ‘I did not agree to that,’ she said, when he answered. ‘You’re sneaky.’

  ‘I have it in writing.’ His voice was gruffer than usual. Ally looked at the phone’s time display and grimaced. Just past midnight.

  ‘Did I wake you up?’ she asked. The email had distracted her, but thinking of him in bed reminded her of Tim/Tom, and she grimaced.

  ‘Yes, thank god,’ he said. ‘I was dreaming about health and safety inspections. Look, it’s in writing. You’re contractually obliged to be here on the 11:52 on Saturday.’

  Ally sat on a bench outside the station. ‘I watch Judge Rinder. That so wouldn’t stand up in a court of law.’

  ‘Judge Rinder runs a magistrate’s court.’

  ‘A what? What’s the difference?’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Marcus sighed. ‘You’ll be taken to the cleaners by a proper judge. Don’t make me do that to you.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Hey,’ he interrupted. ‘You said you wanted to go to the Caribbean. Did you know they call Essex the Barbados of England?’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He yawned. ‘People who’ve never been to Barbados? Look, I’ll make it worth your time. I’ll cook something Caribbean for lunch and we’ll listen to reggae.’

  ‘Do you even know how to cook Caribbean food?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you own a reggae album?’

  ‘No.’

  Ally rolled her eyes. ‘Then no.’

  ‘Ally.’ He said her name like a sigh, the syllables drawn out and his voice soft. Persuasive. Seductive. She closed her eyes and crossed her ankles tight. ‘Please, Ally. Harry needs you. I can’t bear seeing him so miserable, and he keeps making me play “All By Myself” on repeat while he eats ice cream.’

  Ally burst into laughter. As exasperating as he was, she was content for the first time that evening listening to his voice. And she’d smiled more in two minutes talking to him than in four hours with Oliver.

  ‘Fine,’ she said, trying to sound reluctant. ‘But I’m head chef and I’ll bring the spices.’

  ‘OK, Chef.’ He sounded delighted. Ally hung up, and looked
at the phone on her lap. She wished he was happy at the prospect of seeing her, not the idea of tricking Sam’s secrets from her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Harry did have the blanket in his mouth when Ally arrived at the station. It trailed on the floor with white patches of dried saliva all over it. She tried to concentrate on Harry, not Marcus dressed in dark jeans and a white T-shirt that showed off his tanned skin and curved biceps.

  Her cream skirt and orange strappy top didn’t leave much to the imagination either. Not that he noticed. The git.

  Harry dropped the blanket at Ally’s feet, pushed his wet muzzle between her knees, and wagged his tail so hard his whole butt shook.

  ‘Did you make him carry that?’ she asked, looking hard at Marcus.

  He handed her Harry’s lead then tried to take the blanket. Harry sprang for it, growled, and shook his head until Marcus dropped it.

  Marcus smirked, then handed her a carrier bag.

  ‘What’s this?’ She extracted a can of Ting and a bag of plantain chips.

  ‘It’s just like being in the Caribbean,’ Marcus said with a satisfied smile. ‘You know what else they have in the Caribbean? Trees and grass. There’s a park down the road with trees and grass. But we’re walking, not running. I’m sure I slipped a disc on Tuesday, thanks to you.’

  He picked Debbie up in one fluid movement, the T-shirt rippling as his back curved and straightened smoothly.

  ‘Liar,’ she said, falling into step beside him with one hand on Harry’s head. She waited for a breeze and took a deep sniff. Yes, different cologne again. Sandalwood. Saffron. Something sweet, subtle . . . vanilla. Even nicer than Tim/Tom’s.

  Best not to think about that.

  ‘Ally?’

  His voice was distant. She’d stopped walking, frozen at the entrance with Harry gazing at her in adoration. They must have looked like a weird art exhibition. She hurried to catch up. ‘Uh, sorry. What?’

  ‘I said maybe, maybe I don’t have a slipped disc. But something in my back hurts.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The bit that’s not the front.’

  Ally sighed, but his smile was too infectious to be exasperated. ‘Fine, I won’t nurse you. And I’m not talking about Sam, before you start. I’m here for Harry and because you tricked me, but I’m not talking about Sam no matter how many types of courts you threaten me with.’

  They turned through a green metal gate into the park. A concrete path wound through freshly cut grass, the scent strong and sweet among the sounds of birds chirping and shouts from the children’s playground.

  Ally opened the plantain chips and offered him one.

  ‘Thanks. Look, Ally, I’m worried about Harry. The guilt of being in love with his brother’s fiancée is killing him. Just look at that face.’

  Ally looked. Harry’s panting gave him a huge grin, and when she made eye contact he wagged his tail and shuffled his massive feet in joy.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘He’s a tortured soul.’

  Marcus nodded, his expression solemn. ‘If he knew you weren’t really his sister-in-law, it would ease his conscience.’

  ‘Even if I wasn’t his sister-in-law, it wouldn’t work out. Inter-species relationships are tricky.’

  ‘He knows that. He’s seen King Kong. He still feels guilty about maybe betraying Sam.’

  Ally prodded Marcus’s arm, mostly from frustration but also because it looked delicious in the white T-shirt. ‘Why doesn’t he just ask Sam? I mean,’ she frowned, ‘why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘Because if I’m wrong I’ll look like a lunatic.’

  ‘But you don’t think you’re wrong.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why are you so sure? Do you believe in damaging homophobic stereotypes?’ She glared, and tried to sound offended. ‘Because he wasn’t out shagging loads of girls throughout his teens, he must be gay?’

  ‘Because instead of going out shagging girls, he got an evening job so he could sit at the kitchen table every afternoon and watch the postman come up the path.’

  Oh. The Italianate postman they’d nicknamed Luigi, because Sam was too shy to ever speak to him, even to ask his name.

  ‘Well. OK. But why now? That was a decade ago.’

  He was silent for a long moment, his eyes staring somewhere over her right shoulder, unfocused.

  ‘Because I know what it’s like to live a lie, and how it feels when you’re finally honest with yourself. And I don’t want Sam to wait as long as I did.’

  Oh dear god, she’d been such a fool. It all made sense in a flash: Marcus was gay, too. It explained everything – the divorce, why he was so sympathetic about Sam’s predicament, why he’d jumped to the conclusion that the engagement was fake.

  It’d also make her feel a lot better about his complete lack of interest in her body.

  ‘Oh, so you have a secret too, huh? Fine. You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine. And if you tell anyone what I tell you, I’ll tell yours to anyone who’ll listen.’

  ‘Did you just invent a tongue twister?’

  ‘I have a very dexterous tongue.’

  He grinned, and Ally hoped to Cthulhu he wasn’t gay. In her head, she was very much his type as she licked his skin, hot and hard, and felt those strong hands in her hair . . .

  ‘Probably Hawaiian,’ Marcus said.

  Ally blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘We were just talking about favourite pizza toppings. I like pepperoni but I’d say Hawaiian’s my ultimate favourite.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ally thought about it. ‘I usually go for—Hang on! We were not talking about pizza.’ She crossed her arms, heard a yelp, and loosened Harry’s lead hurriedly. She scratched his ears in apology and he went back to sniffing lamp-posts. ‘We were talking about your secret.’

  She was even more confident now that he wouldn’t trade.

  ‘I don’t have a secret,’ Marcus said. ‘The most interesting thing about me is how utterly boring I am.’

  ‘Fine, then tell me your deepest regret. It’s got to be something I can use against you. A security deposit.’

  ‘Can’t I just give you money?’

  ‘No. Well, yes, if you want. But it won’t get you anything in return.’

  ‘I don’t have any regrets. I don’t get myself in awkward positions that could end in my humiliation and exposure as a liar.’

  Ally threw a plantain chip at him. Harry ate it before she could pick it up. Then he whined and bounced on his paws, looking longingly into the trees. ‘Don’t you try and guilt me, Marcus Kinsell. You got me here under false pretences and you’re trying to make me betray my best friend—’

  She stopped abruptly. It was hardly fair to lay that accusation on him, with her filthy mind.

  ‘I’m not budging,’ she said. ‘A trade is a trade. And I think we’d better walk Harry before he self-combusts.’

  Marcus was silent as they walked along the path. Debbie snoozed in his arms and Harry sniffed at the grass, benches and lamp-posts, his tail wagging all the time. Marcus’s face was serious, his eyes not focused on the concrete, and Ally let herself watch the way his arms flexed as he walked.

  When he stopped abruptly, she nearly ran into him, and grabbed his arm to stop herself.

  ‘It’s not really a secret,’ he said. ‘Although I don’t want Sam to know, so it counts as leverage, right?’

  ‘Right, sure.’ She needed to remove her hand, but his skin was warm and firm and he didn’t seem to notice her touching him.

  ‘My marriage has been over for years. Even when Sam was little, his mother and I only played at happy families. I lied to him, and Gavin, and everybody, including myself. I wasted the best years of my life, and now it’s too late to have the things I really want. I don’t want that for Sam. Not for anybody. Screw social pressure, social expectations. Everybody deserves to be happy. He deserves to find somebody he loves and who makes him happy and to enjoy that, openly, without worrying what other people will think o
f him.’

  A flash of white over Marcus’s shoulder sent a frisson of fear down Ally’s spine. Filled with dread, she leaned a few inches to the left and let out a gasp. She’d been so captivated with Marcus that she hadn’t realised where they were.

  Beside the lake.

  And they’d seen her.

  A swan crept menacingly across the grass, evil black eyes fixed to Ally’s right as if it hadn’t even noticed her.

  Ally knew better and backed away. She was dimly aware of Marcus falling silent, then asking her a question, but all she could think about was the advancing bird.

  A high pitched ee-ee sounded behind her, the shrill warning of a whistling kettle about to boil over.

  She whipped around to find another swan on the grass, closing in. They’d ganged up on her. It was like that movie Rachel had made them watch, the one with Samuel L. Jackson where sharks learned to hunt in packs.

  Samuel L. Jackson got eaten. And that was Samuel L. Jackson, for goodness’ sake.

  Ally turned away from the pond and ran, but the other one had circled around Marcus. She was trapped between the evil birds and the pond where the rest of the pack lay in wait.

  ‘We don’t have any bread,’ Marcus said, waving at the swans. ‘Shoo.’

  A flood of adrenaline sent Ally’s heart racing. ‘Don’t anger them!’ she cried out. ‘Just stay still!’

  Trying to keep both swans in sight, she saw Marcus move from the corner of her eye.

  ‘Are you scared of them?’ he asked, his voice full of concern. ‘They’re only swans.’

  Oh my god. He had no idea what danger they were in. ‘You don’t understand! You’re going to get us killed if you don’t stop moving.’

  ‘Killed? Ally—’

  Harry bounded over from the patch of reeds he’d been sniffing. He looked between Ally, Marcus and the swans, crouched low to the ground and growled at the birds.

  Thank god. Bears were stronger than swans. Even swans who’d evolved into pack hunters. ‘Harry, you little hero. Get them!’

  ‘Ally, don’t encourage him.’ Marcus threw a stick towards the lake, sending Harry bounding away, then waved his arms at one of the swans. It fell back, hissing a warning, and stretched its wings. Showing him how big it was. Strong enough to break human bones.