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‘Even when you’re between men?’ Nell asked. Her diamond wedding band glinted as she fiddled with the buttons on her polka dot silk blouse, which came straight from the ‘glamorous teacher all the dads fancy’ pages of the Boden catalogue.
Tash tapped the package in her basket. ‘Meet my new boyfriend.’
Honey glanced away. Glittery red hearts dangled throughout the store like a love grotto, although the dummies clad in crotchless knickers and peephole bras made it more ‘sex den’ than ‘romantic arbour’.
‘What is all this stuff?’ Nell murmured, wide eyed as they passed through a heavy velvet curtain. She picked up a dark string of beads and wrapped them around her wrist. ‘I didn’t know they did jewellery.’ She twisted her arm to admire them. ‘These would be perfect with my new purple dress.’
Tash laughed. ‘Yes. How thoughtful of them to make their bum beads multi-purpose.’
Nell yanked them off, her cheeks a good match with the violet beads as she tossed them down. ‘That’s revolting.’
‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, girlfriend.’ Tash raised a knowing brow.
Nell sat down and crossed her ankles, the image of a prim school marm. ‘I think I’ll wait for you here.’
‘’Kay. But just so you know, you’re sitting on a sex couch,’ Tash winked.
‘Christ!’ Jumping up, Nell smoothed her hands down her navy pencil skirt. ‘Is nothing normal in this place?’
‘This is normal, Nell. Simon would probably love to see you in crotchless knickers.’
‘He most certainly would not. He’d tell me to return them because there was a bit missing.’
Tash shook her head and huffed. ‘You know, I think he probably would.’
Honey slid the handcuffs she’d been examining off her wrists and grinned. Simon and Nell were the perfect couple. Childhood sweethearts. Mr & Mrs Vanilla. He’d probably have a heart attack if Nell wore anything more risqué than M&S white cotton. ‘Come on, Nell, let’s get you out of here. Tash, we’ll meet you next door in five.’
‘So, Honey. About the orgasm thing,’ Tash said as she slid into the booth in the crowded bar ten minutes later. Honey sighed.
‘Jesus, Tash. Don’t start. I really don’t need to talk about this.’
‘Okay, okay, you’re right,’ Nell soothed. ‘But … when you said you don’t, you didn’t mean you never have … did you?’
Honey reached for her wine in resignation. ‘It really doesn’t bother me.’
‘Well, it should. It’s bad for your health, if nothing else.’
‘No, Tash. It would be bad for your health. I don’t miss what I’ve never had.’
‘Are you one hundred per cent bona fide certain that you never have?’ Nell asked.
‘Jesus, Nell. If she had one and missed it then there really is something wrong with her.’
Honey cleared her throat.
‘Err, I’m still here, remember?’
‘I just don’t get how you can’t once you’re in the heat of the moment, to be honest,’ Tash said, looking genuinely perplexed. ‘You must have been sleeping with the wrong men, Honey.’
‘It’s no one’s fault,’ Honey shrugged.
‘Do you think you’re getting too wound up about it and then that makes it impossible to relax enough for it to happen?’ Nell frowned.
Honey shook her head. ‘Please … just stop? I’m not wound up, and I’m perfectly relaxed. I don’t expect it to happen, and it doesn’t happen, so let’s just move on, okay?’
‘I can’t believe we’ve been friends for ten years and you’ve never mentioned this.’
‘That’s because it’s honestly no big deal.’
Nell and Tash reached for their own glasses with something dangerously close to pity on their faces.
Tash narrowed her eyes. ‘When did you last flirt with a man?’
Honey twisted her bangles around, a jumble of gold and bright-coloured metals. Men worth flirting with were thin on the ground in her day-to-day life. She briefly entertained the idea of flirting with Eric the Lech who occasionally came in to the charity shop she managed, but the idea turned her stomach. He already tried to squeeze her bum most days as it was. One flicker of encouragement from her and he’d have her round to view his ancient Y-fronts over an episode of Antiques Roadshow in his sheltered accommodation. No.
‘You can’t remember, can you?’
Honey shook her head and sighed. ‘I just don’t meet men I could flirt with. I spend all day serving old dears, and on the rare occasion I meet anyone fanciable they always turn out to be dickheads.’
‘You’ve just been with the wrong men,’ Nell soothed.
Honey couldn’t argue. The few men she’d slept with wouldn’t win any awards for technique, but deep down she knew it was more than that. She’d simply been born without the orgasm gene. Fact.
‘Let us pick someone for you,’ Tash said.
‘No way!’ Honey could just imagine the men her friends would come up with; jet-set playboys with perma-tans on one side, trainee teachers in jesus creepers on the other.
‘You know what you need?’ Tash swayed her glass in Honey’s direction. ‘A specific. Something to sort out the men from the boys.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘Well, take me. My specific is money. No money, no Tash.’
‘You are so shallow.’ Nell laughed.
Tash shrugged. ‘I prefer to say realistic.’
‘Well, I’m not fussed for rich.’
‘No, but there has to be something,’ Tash said.
‘Good father. That was my specific.’ A faraway smile kissed Nell’s lips, doubtless thinking of Simon and their year-old baby daughter. She’d never known her own father, so Simon was her lover, friend and hero all rolled into one.
Michael Bublé crooned something sentimental from the speaker behind Honey’s ear. ‘Reckon you can fix me up with Michael Bublé?’
‘Tall order, chick.’ Tash sat up straight in her chair. ‘But … that has just given me a great idea for your specific.’ She paused, sparkle eyed. ‘You need a pianist.’
Nell laughed. ‘Where the heck is she supposed to find a pianist around here?’
‘Hey, if you can rustle me up the Bublé or Robert Downey Jr, I’m all for it,’ Honey said.
‘Think about it. All those hours of practising scales would make a man talented with his hands.’ Tash warmed to her theme. ‘And only clever, sensitive men would bother to learn the piano.’ She sounded too certain for anyone to question her logic.
‘Tash’s right, Hon,’ Nell chimed in. ‘You need a pianist.’
‘Well I don’t know any.’
‘Not yet …’ Tash winked. ‘But you will.’
‘Er … how?’ Honey reached for the wine bottle.
‘No idea.’ Tash pushed her glass towards Honey.
Nell grinned. ‘We need to check out dating sites.’
‘No way!’ Honey sloshed wine onto the table in panic. ‘There’s no way I’m signing up for online dating.’
Tash and Nell eyed each other. ‘Of course not,’ Nell said. Tash coughed.
Honey narrowed her eyes. ‘Have you got your fingers crossed behind your back?’
Nell shook her head and uncrossed her fingers.
‘I can’t even think of any other famous pianists, let alone regular joes.’ Honey frowned.
‘Elton John?’ Tash suggested.
‘He’s gay. And married. I don’t want married. Or gay.’
‘Liberace?’
‘Great. Dead and gay.’
‘Right,’ Nell intervened. ‘So we’re looking for straight, breathing pianists with a thing for boho blondes.’
‘And gorgeous,’ Honey said. ‘He has to be gorgeous.’
‘Well, I think it’s genius,’ Tash said. ‘In one easy swipe you’ve managed to eliminate ninety-nine per cent of the male population, leaving only a small pool to fish in for the catch of the day.’
Honey laughed and shook her head to dislodge the image of herself in waders reeling in an unwilling Michael Bublé. ‘A fishy pianist. Every girl’s dream.’
Hal heard female laughter and doors slamming well after midnight in the shared hallway outside his flat and yanked the hard, unfamiliar pillow over his head.
Great. His new neighbour had a laugh like an alley cat as well as no respect for anyone else in the house. Had he been in a charitable mood, he might have acknowledged that she actually had no clue he’d moved in that afternoon, but her laughter annoyed him too much to be reasonable. Laughter annoyed him right now. As did people. Laughing people were a particular bugbear. He’d been here for less than a day, but he hated this house already.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_0d214359-f8b8-55a9-9453-793818009c7c)
Honey squinted like a gremlin against the glare of the morning sun. Or was it afternoon? After a morning spent lounging on the sofa, her hangover had been replaced with the dire need for a bacon sandwich and a bucket of coffee. Pan on and bacon in, she started to feel a little less deathly and ran to grab the ringing phone before it clicked to the machine.
‘Hello?’
‘You sound as rough as I feel,’ Tash grumbled. ‘What did we drink last night? Meths?’
‘The tequila was your idea.’ Honey grimaced. ‘Did you get home okay?’
‘Course. The taxi driver made me hang my head out of the bloody window in case I threw up, but yeah.’
Honey laughed at the image of Tash like a family dog on a road trip.
‘I wonder how Nell is?’
‘Fine, no doubt. She’ll have drunk two pints of water before bed, and have Simon on hand with Alka-Seltzer and a bowl of hand-mixed muesli. Lucky cow.’
Honey knew Tash well enough to detect fondness behind the grouch.
‘It’s our own fault,’ Honey laughed. ‘Nell didn’t have tequila. It’s the mixing that kills.’
‘Does she always have to be so friggin’ sensible?’
‘Yeah, but who would you rather be this morning?’
‘Er, waking up next to Simon, the dullest man on earth?’ Tash said. ‘I’ll stick to the tequila and the headaches, ta very much.’
Honey yelped as a screechy wail assaulted her ears.
‘What the fuck is that noise?’ Tash yelled.
‘Crap! The smoke alarm! Gotta go, Tash. Love you.’
Honey belted into the kitchen. Smoke and burnt bacon. Double crap. At least there were no flames yet. She hurled the pan in the sink, wincing as the high-pitched alarm battered her already thumping head. She scrabbled onto a chair and pressed reset, weak with relief as the noise stopped. Then she tilted her head. It hadn’t completely stopped. Triple crap. Wow, she’d done a thorough job. When she opened her front door the alarm out in the hallway was going full throttle, and the damn thing was too high for her to reach.
She clamped her hands over her ears, then jumped out of her skin when the door to the empty flat opposite hers flung wide open.
‘Is the fucking house on fire?’
Whoa. Where did he come from?
‘No, sorry. I burnt my bacon. Just give me a minute …’
Honey tried to hide her surprise at finding a dishevelled Johnny Depp type yelling at her in her own hallway. Well, strictly speaking it was a shared hallway, but as the flat opposite had been vacant for months she’d become kind of territorial.
She squinted at him. Dark glasses at lunchtime hinted at a fellow hangover sufferer. Maybe he was some famous rock star hiding out. She could dream. Whoever he was, the faded black t-shirt clung to his body in a way that suggested fit, and the tattoos inked down his arms suggested sexy. It was a shame then that his personality rendered him thoroughly repellent.
‘Just shut that fucking racket up, will you? I’m trying to sleep.’
‘Umm …’ Honey stared at the alarm in panic. Her head was thumping, and out here the noise was even louder than in her kitchen. ‘I would, but I can’t reach it. Could you possibly …?’
He was well over six foot; with a stretch he’d make it, no problem.
