should have seen her.’
Rory screwed up his face, ‘Ah, damn Oman. I wish I’d been here.’
‘Yes, tell us about your job, Rory,’ said Eugene, before lowering his voice conspiratorially. ‘It sounds ever so important, but only if you’re allowed; you don’t have to tell us any state secrets or anything.’
‘No, no, not important,’ Rory replied, dazzling Eugene with his widest smile, ‘a mere cog in the wheels of government.’
Zach made a snorting noise which he turned into a cough. ‘And you want to be a Conservative MP, Florence says?’
‘I do,’ replied Rory. ‘Or at least I hope to be.’
‘I’d vote for you,’ interjected Eugene.
‘Zach…’ I warned.
‘What?’ he replied, all innocence. ‘Just asking.’
‘Not a fan?’ said Rory. He was still smiling but I saw a muscle in his cheek flex.
Zach shrugged. ‘My mum’s a teacher, so not really.’
‘In that case she should be grateful.’
‘Grateful?’
‘Absolutely. We’ve invested billions in the school system and increased teachers’ pay.’ Rory sounded cool, but I could still see that tiny muscle pulsing.
‘“We?” Rory, you’re not an MP yet,’ I joked, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
‘And what do you do?’ Rory asked, his eyes remaining on Zach. ‘Florence hasn’t mentioned you.’
‘I’m a photographer, just working here to help out for a bit,’ he replied. Zach, too, was trying to sound unruffled, but his stance – as upright as a candlestick, shoulders back – gave him away. It was like watching the gorilla enclosure at London Zoo. ‘But I’m also just a decent human being so I care about those less fortunate than us.’
‘As do I,’ said Rory, flashing another smile at him.
‘Enough,’ interrupted Norris, crossing his hands in the air in front of him. ‘No bickering. Come on, this is a celebration.’ He poured the remainder of the champagne into our mugs. Norris and Rory then talked politics while I watched Ruby flick her hair all over Zach as he showed her more of his photos.
‘Right, I’m off home,’ announced Norris, not long afterwards, draining his mug.
‘Pub?’ said Eugene hopefully, looking at the rest of us.
‘Sure,’ replied Zach.
‘I’m in,’ added Ruby.
I looked up at Rory. ‘Fancy it?’
He grimaced. ‘I’d love to but this situation in the Gulf is ongoing and I’ll need to be in early. You stay. You don’t have to come back with me.’
I weighed up my options. Go to the pub where Eugene would make us drink shots (tequila, it was always tequila) and watch Ruby flirt with Zach, or go back to Rory’s and sleep next to him.
‘Let’s go back to yours,’ I said. ‘Just hang on a second while I get my bag from downstairs?’
‘Course.’
I skipped downstairs and up again in less than a minute, not wanting to leave Zach and Rory unattended.
‘Come on, you,’ Rory said, reaching his hand out for me when I reappeared.
I took it and looked back at Zach. ‘You all right to lock up?’
He nodded and we were almost through the door, Rory holding it open for me, when Zach shouted behind us, ‘Best of luck with solving the Middle East.’
Rory hailed us a cab and I seethed the whole way to Pimlico, trying to work out who I disliked more: Percy or Zach. But once in Rory’s bedroom, he pushed me back on his bed and went down on me with such thorough focus and precise attention that I forgot about both of them and almost yelled ‘Cowabunga!’ myself.
‘FLORENCE, MY DARLING,’ shouted Eugene when I arrived at work the following morning. ‘HAVE YOU SEEN YOU’RE A ME ME?’
‘Eugene, what are you going on about?’
‘You’re a me me, LOOK!’ he said, thrusting his phone at me.
I looked and felt my stomach cartwheel. There was meme after meme on Twitter of Percy shagging my foot. ‘Was it good for you too, Percy?’ said one of the memes, on a shot of Percy wrapped around my calf while I snarled, red-faced, at the audience.
Eugene scrolled down his phone. Dozens of pictures and in every one I looked desperate, my mouth turned upwards in despair and my panicked expression suggesting I was being attacked by a lion instead of a small pug.
‘Leg humping, it’s what I do,’ said another meme.
‘Look at this one, it’s brilliant, and it’s been retweeted nearly three thousand times!’ said Eugene. This was a particularly bad shot of me, taken when I was trying to pull Percy away, bearing my teeth at him like an angry gargoyle. ‘Happy hump day!’ said the caption.
‘And there are videos,’ said Eugene, delightedly, showing me a GIF of Percy’s bottom