‘Menopause?’ suggested Coco.
‘Cheeky sod,’ said Juliet. ‘I’m not worried. I must be due to start though because my boobs are really sore.’
Floz felt a blush creep across her face. Talking about boobs and periods with Guy in the room felt wrong. Not that he seemed to mind; he was obviously used to it. A Heathcliff who was in touch with his feminine side? Surely not.
Coco wasn’t comfortable with it though. ‘Oh purr-lease.’ He covered up his ears. ‘Just pick from the menu, will you, and let’s order. Starving as I am, you’re in danger of putting me off with your filthy period talk.’
‘You ever missed a period, Floz?’ asked Juliet, ignoring him.
Floz gulped. ‘It could be just excitement or stress,’ she said, staring hard at her takeaway menu. ‘Maybe if you stop thinking about it, it will . . . arrive.’
‘Okay,’ conceded Juliet. ‘I’ll try. Everyone got a menu? Good, then let’s order.’
The food arrived twenty minutes later, just as Coco had finished his monologue about Darren, who had now texted quite a few times hoping to be forgiven and allowed another chance. It was a tragic tale but he told it with such exaggerated gesturing that it made them all laugh. Plus Coco was happy with Gideon now and out of the dark place in which Darren had consigned him for a while. Guy was happy to sit back and let him take centre-stage. At least then he could enjoy just being in Floz’s gentle presence without opening his mouth and upsetting her. He knew he risked being thought of as dull for staying silent, but rather that than alienate her any more.
Juliet didn’t want to appear a party-pooper and forced some of the food down when it arrived but it didn’t sit well in her stomach.
‘What’s wrong with you two girls?’ noted Coco. ‘There’s nearly as much food on your plate as when you started. Your cheeks look well hollow, Floz. You’re losing even more weight, aren’t you? My bloody left eye weighs more than you at the moment, girl. Get some of that fried rice down you. That’s an order.’
‘Honestly, I’m stuffed,’ said Floz, aware that Guy’s attention was on her also.
‘Everything all right with you, lovely?’ Coco prodded, hoping that Floz would give up her secrets with a bit of light coaxing.
‘I’m fine, Coco.’
‘Not working too hard? You look a little tired. Doesn’t she, Guy?’ and he looked at Guy for affirmation.
Guy was scared to comment because his mouth did not behave in Floz’s presence. He nodded instead, which was equally as damning.
‘Oh, do I?’ Floz gulped. She thought she had done a good make-up job on the dark circles under her eyes. Obviously not.
‘You need a good massage. That’s what I always have when I’m stressed,’ said Coco.
‘Guy did a massage course once,’ put in Juliet.
‘A crash course in sports physiotherapy,’ Guy corrected her, worried where this was going.
‘Yes, but you did massage as part of it,’ Juliet corrected his correction. ‘Why don’t you—’
‘I’m fine!’ Floz jumped in. She didn’t want to imagine Guy Miller’s hands around her neck. He was more likely to strangle her than massage her.
‘Have you been sleeping okay?’ Coco pressed on.
Talk about laying it on with a trowel, thought Juliet, giving him a warning glance. He managed to make her look subtle.
‘Fine,’ nodded Floz. ‘I’m sleeping fine.’ She felt hot under the glare of everyone’s attention.
‘All night?’ said Coco.
‘For goodness sake,’ snapped Juliet. ‘Have you been recruited by MI5?’
‘I’m just concerned for my friend,’ said Coco. ‘Not man trouble, is it? Juliet said an old flame recently came back into your life.’
Juliet kicked Coco’s leg under the table.
‘We weren’t gossiping about you,’ Coco quickly added. ‘Ju just mentioned it to me, because . . . well, she tells me everything.’
Floz’s cheeks had gone through all the pink paint charts and were now in the neon reds. She stood up so quickly that she felt faint for a second. ‘Anyone fancy a coffee?’ she said breathlessly.
‘Shall I give you a hand?’ Guy asked.
‘No, thanks,’ Floz said, her tone clipped and self-defensive. ‘I think I can manage to put a kettle on.’
‘Well done, Coco,’ whispered Juliet when Floz was safely out of the way. ‘Talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.’
‘I handled that all wrong, didn’t I?’ sighed Coco, flapping at his face with his hand. ‘Will she hate me?’
‘I don’t think she’s capable,’ said Guy, a little too loudly. Floz heard him and wondered what she was not capable of. Getting a good sleep? Eating a full portion of rice? Finding someone to love her? She bet it was the last one. She wished she hadn’t mentioned anything about ‘the old flame’ because it was obvious that Juliet had blabbed her business. They had all clearly been gossiping together, wondering what was happening in her love-life, possibly why she never met up with ‘the old flame’, maybe even discussed if he existed – as they had joked about Gideon.
She pasted on a bright, brave smile and took the coffees through to find that the atmosphere at the table was thicker than Grainne’s gravy. Coco was worried he’d upset Floz, Guy just hoped the ground would rise up and swallow him, knowing that another chance to shine in Floz’s eyes had been totally bollocksed up, and Juliet just wanted to get to bed.
Juliet was awoken by a wave of nausea in the early hours of the morning. As she went to the bathroom, she noticed once again a sliver of light coming from the gap under the door of Floz’s room. She tiptoed over and pressed her ear to the door. Floz was definitely awake and typing on her laptop.
‘Floz, are you up?’ she called and tapped lightly on the door.
‘I’m just doing a bit of work,’ called Floz, with a sniffle in her voice that she tried to cover up by then coughing.
‘Want a coffee?’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks. I was just turning my PC off because I’m tired now. Goodnight, Ju.’
Juliet’s hand fell on the handle. She knew if she opened the door she would find that Floz had been crying. But it would have been mean to put her on the spot like that, especially as she obviously wanted to be left alone. And Juliet was feeling too delicate and tired to storm in like the SAS and blow apart whatever was going on.
‘Night then, Floz. Sleep well.’
Behind the door Floz turned off her printer. She had been cutting and pasting all her emails to and from Nick, changing the fonts to a nice script, so she could run them off onto ivory hammered paper, fold them and preserve them like proper letters rather than emails. They belonged in a keepsake box wrapped in ribbon, not on a memory stick.
She was dog-tired but knew she wouldn’t sleep without assistance. She took a half-bottle of brandy out of her desk drawer and drank a throatful directly from the neck.
Chapter 51
Juliet did feel better in the morning, though that quickly subsided when the text from Steve arrived.
Guess what? Going out with Chianti on Friday. Sorry can’t see you at the moment, working in the evenings.
A sudden fury reared and coursed wildly through Juliet. She opened up a reply note and stabbed in her own text.
No worries, v busy too so couldn’t see you anyway. I’m out to dinner with Piers WB on Thursday at Four Trees. Worked out well then. Good luck on your date. She didn’t put kisses on the end either.
She couldn’t believe there were hot tears in her eyes when she hit send. She felt stupidly all mixed-up and emotional.
‘Steve can’t see me this week,’ Juliet said, as matter-of-factly as she could to Coco when they were dress-hunting in Next. ‘He says he’s working and he’s going out with Chianti on Friday.’
‘Well, that’s a coincidence, isn’t it?’ oohed Coco, holding both a sober black dress and a bright red dress up against Juliet. ‘You both pulling your dream partners in the same week.’
/> ‘I can’t see what he sees in Chianti Parkin,’ said Juliet, snatching the red dress from Coco and heading off to the changing rooms. ‘She’s a vacuous, plastic Barbie.’
‘Not jealous, are you?’ smirked Coco.
‘About Chianti?’
‘About Steve pulling Chianti, I meant.’
‘Do me a favour,’ laughed Juliet, disappearing into the cubicle with the brave, scarlet frock. ‘Steve Feast is a knob. Haven’t I always said so?’
Chapter 52
Guy barged into his office and closed the door on the kitchen before he killed either Igor or Stanislav. They were both hungover and fit for nothing. And if that wasn’t enough, they had obviously been fighting someone else or each other from the evidence of the bruises and cuts on their faces. Just what he needed for front-of-house men when there was a corporate lunch of twenty-five people to serve.
He slumped at his desk and rested his head in his hands. What the frig had he taken on here? A run-down restaurant with idiot staff. He wasn’t sure he had the energy to make this dump into anything special. Another dream to add to those other two which were out of his reach: Hallow’s Cottage and Floz.
There was a timid knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ he barked, hoping it wasn’t anyone with a black eye, because they just might go away with another one.
‘Hi,’ said a cheery voice. Gina pushed open the door with her trim bottom because she had a mug in one hand and a handful of letters in the other.
‘I thought you might need this,’ she said with a big blue-eyed smile, putting a steaming strong coffee down in front of him.
‘Thanks, Gina,’ replied Guy. At least he could rely on someone in here.
‘I’ve rung the agency and they’re sending a couple of waitresses. Igor can work in the back with us. I’ll have to send Stanislav home. He’s just vomited on the back step.’
‘Thanks, Gina,’ Guy said wearily. He hadn’t the strength to think of anything more innovative.
‘Drink that coffee and have a break.’ Gina handed him the post. ‘You never know, there might be a big fat Premium Bond winner in there,’ she laughed.
‘I wish,’ said Guy. He smiled at her, genuinely grateful for her kind efficiency. ‘What would I do without you?’
Gina didn’t answer. She just went back into the hell of the kitchen and sighed. The first chance she got an ‘in’ with Guy Miller, she would make sure he never wanted to do without her again. Underneath her lake-calm exterior were deep whirling waters ready to suck him down. She’d make him hers and keep him hers if it was the last thing she ever did.
Guy opened the first letter. It was the solicitor advising that completion on the sale of the restaurant would be sooner than initially thought. Great, thought Guy. That was all he needed to know – that he would be wearing Kenny’s cast-off millstone around his neck in the very near future. The second was a large envelope containing a clutch of bound papers from an interior design company pitching for the job of transforming Burgerov from shit-hole to palace. They had obviously done their homework, taken secret photos at some point inside the restaurant and drawn up their vision of what they could do to it.
Guy’s jaw dropped open. If was as if they had peered into his brain and seen his ideal of that beautiful Florentine restaurant. Thick drapes at the windows, creams and tranquil greens, stucco walls, tall flowers in the centre of the tables – it was the Burgerov he had envisaged so many times. Their pictures were stunning. Especially as the waiters they had sketched into them were cleanshaven, scar-free and smiling.
Thanks to that coffee and those drawings, Guy was once again fortified. The Burgerov experience would soon be consigned to that part of his brain which imprisoned all his worst memories. One dream, at least, was within touching distance. Guy Miller was back in the game.
Chapter 53
That Thursday, Steve woke up early, having had a really rough night’s sleep. And doing easy plastering on a pub wall gave him too much time and opportunity to think about it being Juliet and Piers’s big day. It was lucky that he had an early finish because he was wrestling that night. He called in at Burgerov on his way home. He needed to let off steam before he went mad with all the possible outcomes of that date crashing around in his head.
‘I just don’t know what she sees in him,’ said Steve, sitting on a stool in the kitchen, as Guy magicked up some of his fabulous made-from-scratch mayonnaise with effortless turns of his whisk. ‘Well, apart from the big car, big house, brilliant job, Coutts chequebook and designer clothes. And I suppose good looks. And the fact that he’s taking her out to Four Trees. I mean, he would have to take her to the poshest sodding restaurant in the county.’
‘. . . Until very soon,’ amended Guy. ‘Then that place will be here.’ He sighed as he looked to the side and caught Varto making a right cock of a prawn cocktail.
‘Obviously I meant that,’ said Steve, who was looking very glum considering he had pulled the ultimate in leggy blondes – Chianti Parkin.
‘How did Juliet take the news about you and Chianti?’ asked Guy.
‘She wished me luck. She actually wished me luck!’ said Steve, throwing up his hands with an air of incredulity.
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? You’ve both moved on at the same time. I mean, how long have you been trying to get Chianti to notice you? And now she has. So why are obsessing about Juliet and her boss?’
‘I’m not!’ protested Steve. ‘I just can’t understand how she can fancy him. She loves him and thinks I’m a cretin.’
‘Steve, stop thinking about Juliet and go out with Chianti Parkin. How many litres of saliva have you dribbled over her? And now she’s interested.’
‘Yeah,’ said Steve, in a voice that suggested he’d just signed his own death warrant rather than witnessed six lottery numbers and the bonus ball coming up. ‘You’re right.’
‘I wish I had as much luck with women,’ Guy chuckled.
‘One woman, you mean,’ Steve amended.
‘One Floz equals all of my back catalogue and yours put together.’
‘Excuse me.’ Behind Guy, Gina coughed to alert him to her presence. He turned and she asked him if the fish order had arrived.
‘She fancies you,’ whispered Steve, when she went into the larder. ‘Something rotten as well.’
Guy changed the subject. ‘I went to see the cottage.’
‘And?’ said Steve, watching Gina leave the larder and cast her eyes over to Guy. She really did have it bad for him. He was no expert at body language, but blimey – even Tim Nice But Dim could have spotted her infatuation.
‘It’s a total wreck. And I’m going to have to forget it because I couldn’t nearly afford it.’
‘Have you tried asking the bank?’
‘No point,’ replied Guy.
‘I know a bank you could go to,’ said Steve.
‘Which? Bank of Toytown?’
‘Bank of Mum and Dad.’
Guy stopped whisking for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t ask them.’
‘They wanted to give you the money for the restaurant. If my son needed money and I had it . . .’
‘I don’t need it – the cottage is just something I want.’
‘You do need it,’ corrected Steve. ‘You need it to give you a kick up the arse to start living again. You need to start snogging women and dating and waking up with them again,’ he said, swinging his bag over his shoulder. ‘And if Floz really has got an old flame back in her life, you’d do far worse than asking out that Gina bird. It’s time to move on, Guy. Onwards and upwards.’
Chapter 54
‘Will I do?’ asked Juliet, twirling in her new harlot-red dress which made the best of her full figure and neat waist.
‘You look lovely,’ smiled Floz. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Great,’ said Juliet, feigning ecstasy, although if truth be told she didn’t feel half as excited as she should. And even though she had starved herself all day, she didn’t feel
in the slightest bit hungry.
Her head should have been full of thoughts of Piers Winstanley-Black snogging her, but it wasn’t. It was full of jealous feelings about Steve going out with Chianti the next night, and she hated that such negative vibes were eclipsing the excitement she’d anticipated. She knew it was unreasonable to feel like that. Nor was it logical. She was obviously in the grip of some bug and not well.
A car drew up outside – a Bentley. Floz looked out of the window and put a thumbs-up at Juliet.
‘He’s here,’ she said. ‘Have a lovely time, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will,’ said Juliet, sticking out her boobs and her chin. ‘How can I not?’
Piers Winstanley-Black’s eyes were on stalks when Juliet got into the back of the car with him. But despite the sharp-cut suit, the hand-made shoes, the big handsome smile, Juliet’s pupils refused to dilate.
Chapter 55
When Steve had finished his wrestling bout that evening, he noticed the old man messing about with his mobile in the reception area. He also noticed the bulky teenager knock into him accidentally and send him toppling over a stack of chairs. Steve rushed over to stop him hitting the ground.
‘You all right there, old lad?’ he said, giving the elderly gent his arm as support.
‘I’m fine,’ said the man, who had a very weird accent. Half-Arthur Scargill, half-John Wayne.
‘Can I get you anything? Glass of water or something?’
‘What’s your name, son?’ drawled the man.
‘Steve. Steve Feast.’
The man leaned on Steve’s arm as he stood.
‘I enjoyed watching you very much tonight. I was also here three weeks ago when you were the bad guy in that four-rounder. Impressive stuff.’
‘Oh, that night,’ chuckled Steve, remembering that was the night when Guy thought he had slept with Floz.
An Autumn Crush Page 20
