Short Stack - Lily Morton Page 0,43

you on set?”

He chases my mouth for a second, and then realisation dawns and I watch as he chuckles. “Not really. He’s being disembowelled in a few weeks.”

“I’m cross at him,” I say faintly. “But there’s no need to go to extremes.”

He laughs and hugs me, resting his face on my hair for a second. “In book three, he dies. Hayden’s problem is that he doesn’t read enough.”

“Luckily that’s not a problem of mine,” I say, and he nods happily. “Who kills him?” I say lightly. “It’s been a while since I’ve read the books. Was it an ex-lover’s boyfriend?”

He hums. “Someone with a bit of the old green eye.”

I push back indignantly. “Hey now, you were just as bad.”

He laughs and throws his arm over my shoulder. “I definitely was.” He smiles. “I used to say that I wasn’t possessive and never got jealous.” He pauses and laughs again. “I think that’s because I never meet anyone worth settling down with until I met you.”

“I’m glad I’m an exception,” I say happily.

He flags a taxi and pushes me into the warmth. “You’ll always be my exception. You’re irreplaceable.”

Jude’s Christmas

This is set after the end of Deal Maker and before the epilogue. It’s the first Christmas that Asa and Jude spend together.

Jude

I stumble into the kitchen, rubbing my eyes and yawning. “Jesus, it’s bright in here,” I protest.

Asa looks up from his seat at the kitchen table. Papers and folders are piled in front of him. He grins. “Aww, is it too bright for your hungover arse?”

“Don’t take the piss out of me,” I say pitifully, wandering over and throwing myself into his lap. He grunts but his arms come up and hug me tight. I nestle my face into his neck, inhaling his warm scent. “I’m ill,” I say in a sad voice.

He laughs. “Jude, you had a staff Christmas party. That really shouldn’t mean incipient death.” He pauses. “Although I have to say you trainee teachers are wild.”

I shake my head. “I know. What den of iniquity have I fallen into?” I sit up. “Was I that bad?”

He bites his lip. “When I picked you up, you were lying on the pavement outside the pub singing a song about a little worm in a garden.”

“That bloody song. I sang it once with my class, and now it’s in my fucking brain forever,” I say fretfully. “All those concerts I went to over the years with brilliant musicians, and the only thing that’s stuck is about a shitty worm that lives at the end of the motherfucking garden.”

“I hope that isn’t the verse you taught your reception class,” he says primly.

“Maybe.” I look at his face and tap his reading glasses. “I like these. They make you look intelligent.”

Laughter dances in his eyes. “Maybe I should keep them on at all times.”

“Oh, Asa, men aren’t attracted to clever men. It’s a proven fact.”

He laughs, and I get off his lap to open the fridge door where I hang for a while, staring at the contents.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to work up the energy to make something to eat,” I say disconsolately. “If you were a proper partner, you’d help me.”

“Well, unfortunately, I have my clever spectacles on, so I’m unavailable to break away from running the country to make your breakfast.”

“I don’t know who told you that you were funny, but I’d get a second opinion.” He snorts, but I exclaim in triumph and retrieve a Tupperware box from the back of the fridge. “Yes! Result!”

“What have you found?”

“Peggy’s chocolate mousse,” I say in a reverent tone. “How is it that this is still here?”

“Because you hid it there yesterday in a Tupperware container that you labelled liver and onions,” he says patiently.

“Ah, yes. I remember. I don’t need to borrow your glasses, Asa, because I am obviously at genius level already.”

I peel the lid back and fish a spoon out from the drawer and take my first mouthful. “Umm,” I say throatily, licking the spoon and looking at him out of the corner of my eye. “Sooo good,” I groan.

He shifts in his chair. “Fuck off starting something you can’t finish, hangover boy.”

“Them’s fighting words,” I say, licking the spoon again in a very lascivious fashion.

He grins at me, his whole face lighting and warming and making my stomach clench. “I love you,” he says affectionately.

I open my mouth to reply, but there’s the pattering of footsteps and Billy appears in the door dressed in Star Wars pyjamas