“Yes,” I say robustly. “Of course. Sex is just sex.”
“No, it’s not!” says Hannah with an incredulous laugh. “Not for you. Not with Ryan. He’ll mess you up somehow, I know it. You’ll end up weeping on my shoulder.”
“Well, maybe I don’t care,” I say defiantly.
“You’re saying the sex is so good, it’s worth it even if you do end up weeping on my shoulder?” says Hannah, who always likes to analyze everything into equations.
“Pretty much.” I have a sudden memory of Ryan’s L.A.-tanned body entwined with mine. “Yes.”
“Fine,” says Hannah, and I can hear the rueful eye roll in her voice. “I’ll buy the tissues.”
“He might not even come,” I point out. “This whole conversation might have been for nothing.”
“Well, I’ll see you later,” says Hannah. “With or without Ryan.”
I ring off and stare morosely out the window. Now I’ve said it, I realize of course that’s the most likely scenario. Ryan must have a million more-glamorous events to be at tonight than Mum’s party. He won’t turn up at all. I’ll have bought all these hair clips for nothing.
“Hi, Briony.” The guy across the table is answering his phone, and I glance round. “Oh, you’ve spoken to Tanya. Right. So— No, that’s not what—” He seems to be trying to get a word in. “Listen, Briony—” He breaks off, looking beleaguered. “Sweetheart, I’m not trying to ruin— No, we did not agree anything.”
Ha. Well, at least it’s not just me with the messed-up love life.
“Is that what you think!” he’s exclaiming now. “Can I remind you that this is my flat, for me to—” He lifts his eyes and suddenly seems to become aware that I’m listening. I quickly look away, but even so, he gets to his feet.
“Excuse me,” he says politely to me. “I’m just stepping out to take a phone call. Could you watch my laptop?”
“Sure.” I nod and watch him threading his way between the tables, already back on the phone, saying, “I never promised anything! It was your idea—”
I sip my mint tea and glance at the laptop a couple of times. It’s a MacBook. He’s left it closed, with a stack of glossy folders next to it. I tilt my head slightly and read the top one. ESIM: Forward-Looking Investment Opportunities. I’ve never heard of ESIM—not really my thing—but then, investment funds aren’t really my thing either.
People who invest money in funds and shares and all that are like a foreign country to me. In the Farr family there are three things you do with money. You spend it, you put it back into the business, or you start another business. You don’t trust a guy in a suit and a posh tie with a glossy folder that probably cost a tenner to produce.
There’s nothing else interesting about the guy’s laptop, so I sip my drink and run my mind over my outfit options for tonight. And I’m just wondering where my blue lace top has got to, when something in my mind tweaks. Alarm bells have started to ring. Something’s wrong.
Something’s happening.
Or something’s about to happen.
My brain can’t even articulate what it is properly, but my sixth sense is kicking in. I have to act. Now.
Quick, Fixie. Go.
Before I’ve even thought clearly what’s happening, I’m diving across the table, like a rugby champion scoring a try, cradling the guy’s laptop. And, a split second later, a whole section of the ceiling crashes down on top of me, in a gush of plaster and water.
“Argh!”
“Oh my God!”
“Help!”
“Is it an attack?”
“Help that girl!”
The screams around me are a din in my head. I can feel someone pulling at me, saying, “Get away from there!” But I’m so worried about the laptop getting wet that I won’t move from my rigid protective position until I feel paper towels being thrust at me. The water has finally stopped cascading, but plaster is still falling in bits from above, and as I raise my head at last, I see a freaked-out audience of customers watching me.
“I thought you were dead!” says a teenage girl so tearfully I can’t help laughing—and this seems to set off everyone else:
“I saw that water dripping! I knew this would happen.”
“You could have been killed, innit!”
“You need to sue. That’s not right, ceilings falling down.”
A moment ago we were all strangers in a coffee shop, studiously ignoring each other. Now it’s as though we’re best friends. An elderly guy holds out his hand and says, “I’ll hold