They look between themselves and laugh at my ludicrousy.
“Charlie, you never change. Such a free spirit.”
“What about you Andrea, how long have you been going out with Tony?” Sarah excitedly leans into Andrea, hopeful for an extra number for her hen party.
“Six months,” Andrea replies shyly. “I guess it’s early days.”
“Six months! Mikey and I have moved in together after six months; we just knew it was right.”
Bernice nods in agreement. “Although I had to wait nearly a year for John to take the next step.”
“I think we’ll take it slowly,” Andrea gets in quickly before they invite themselves to her and Tony’s home-warming.
“Ben and I have no intention of moving in together any time soon,” I announced bluntly.
Bernice waves her hand dismissively at me. “You’ll change your mind soon. Just you wait.”
The talk teeters off to a discussion on Andrea’s blue shoes and what a good bargain they were but inevitably swung back to weddings.
“…so I said to her, are you having a laugh? Brown rolls with the goat’s cheese salad?”
“…. sometimes they just don’t appreciate how much work goes into a wedding. Do they think the corvettes just magically arrange themselves?”
“…. the chairs are going to be wrapped in white linen with gold rimming, and NONE of the legs can be seen.”
“…. waitresses can’t be too pretty.”
“…was I being mean when I told Shelley to lose some weight to be a bridesmaid?”
“…but bridesmaids can’t upstage the bride so she can’t lose too much weight.”
“…I think the priest actually fancied her a little.”
They babble on for a good hour and a half as I quietly get drunk by myself, nodding and murmuring at appropriate points. Andrea does the same at the other end of the table. I had a feeling Tony was going to be dumped after tonight.
I excuse myself to go to the bathrooms. If I time it right, they’ll have moved onto the digestives before I return.
I’m walking across the restaurant staring at my phone when my face crashes into a wall of warm hard muscle.
“Sorry!” I start, then stop abruptly as I meet the familiar cold stare.
“Charlie.” His eyes drop down to my ankles, then follow a path up my bare legs, over my waist and breasts to settle again on my face, a frown forming as he travels upwards.
“Danny,” I choke out, ignoring the somersaults in my stomach as he said my name.
He clears his throat. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“Likewise.” I fire back. “Why are you here?”
I glare at him. “I specifically asked Tristan if he was coming here tonight.”
“I’m not here with Tristan.”
I turn my head to see leggy Jen watching us. She flashes me a fake smile.
“Excuse me,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him. “Unless you’d like to tell me I need to move tables? Or restaurants if I’m too much of an inconvenience?”
We stare at each other, and I feel a current of tension flow between us.
Such a damn pity I want this jerk’s hard cock inside me.
I wrench my gaze from him and step around him.
“Wait” His hand engulfs my lower arm, and I visibly stiffen under his touch. “Can we start acting like adults? All this melodrama is giving me whiplash.”
I look at him flatly. “Maybe when you start treating me like one??”
“You omit to tell me you are buying over my company and plan to get rid of me. You had this planned for ages, didn’t you?”
His pause gives me my answer.
There’s the sound of a camera phone clicking to my left, and we both turn to see a Walkie groupie snapping pictures for the ‘gram.
“Don’t fucking start this here in the middle of the restaurant, Charlie.” He growls, his arm tightening around mine.
“Don’t you fucking start.” I yank my arm from his grip. “Don’t worry, Danny, I won’t embarrass you here. Or in the office or at Tristan’s parties. It was much nicer when we ignored each other.” I march off towards the toilet, not looking back.
“What’s he doing here?” Ben asks when I return to the table.
“Eating. Same as us,” I snap and instantly regret it as Ben’s brows furrow. “Sorry.” “I don’t like the way he looks at you.” “Like he’s going to kill me?” I mutter.
“No,” he scowls, “like he’s going to eat you.”
His scowl deepens as he stares over my shoulder. “He’s watching you right now.” I’ll give him something to watch.
“Ignore him,” I lean into Ben and scoot my legs between his. Then I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him in for what might be the longest, deepest kiss in our relationship as the rest of the table whoop at us.
Ben releases himself from my lock, grinning. “Let’s get the bill quickly.” He signals the waitress for the bill. She walks over, smiling.
“It’s your lucky night. It’s already been paid by the gentleman on the corner table.”
“As an olive branch to Charlie, he said?” She raises her eyebrows hoping we’ll understand what that means.
The others look confused then ecstatic.
I flip around in Danny Walker’s direction, and he raises his glass to me with a curt nod.
I stare incredulously back at him.
“Is that… Danny Walker?” Bernice gasps. “Danny Walker is buying our dinner?” “Prick.” Ben grimaces.
The waitress’s jaw drops. “The Danny Walker?”
There’s a barrage of questions about why Danny Walker is buying our 600 quid dinner.
“How do you know him?”
“What did we do to deserve this?”
“Aren’t we going to thank him?”
“No,” I reply through gritted teeth, restraining Andrea from running at him.