An Autumn Crush (20 page)

‘War-ning, war-ning . . .’
came the chant from a highly charged audience. Juliet was leading the mantra at her side of the hall.

‘You are dead, mate!’ promised Steve, climbing back into the ring, helped by a couple of little old grannies, grateful for a feel of his muscly leg.

‘Yeah, course I am!’ returned Guy, yelping as a lumpy woman ran at him and started battering him on the back with her handbag. He quickly sprang into the ring to avoid her.

Little Eric made a meal of giving Guy a warning, much to the pleasure of the crowd. They were baying as loudly as if they were in the Coliseum watching Christians take on lions.
Ding
ding!

Right, this is war, thought Steve to himself. If Guy wanted to fight properly, then he’d give him exactly what he wanted. He was going to make sure that Guy flaming Miller had a fourth and
final round that he’d never forget.

Ding ding!

The two men came at each other like mad bulls clashing in the epicentre of the ring. Equally matched in anger-fuelled strength, neither managing to push the other off or down or get purchase on
a head, an arm, a neck.

‘I’ll make you listen to me if it’s the last thing I do, you stupid, thick knobhead!’ yelled Steve.

‘What are you going to tell me? That you couldn’t help yourselves?’ Guy hurt inside. He wanted to go on fighting forever, because at least he could hold himself together when
he was doing so. He thought he just might crumble into pieces if he stopped.

‘Bloody hell! What’s he playing at?’ winced Juliet, realizing this fight
was
real.

‘That’s for not even having the guts to admit it,’ stormed Guy, hooking his leg around Steve’s and seeing him stumble to the canvas. ‘ “Slept with
Juliet”! Yeah, like I’m going to believe
that
!’

‘What’s he saying?’ asked Juliet, catching wind of the word ‘guts’.

‘I don’t know.’ Floz bit her lip. ‘But they’re arguing about something.’

‘I’ve never seen Guy act like this before, on-stage – or off,’ said Juliet, thinking, What on earth is up with him? In the past couple of weeks her brother had changed
from being a quiet, gentle man in the shadows to Mr Mean and Moody with cooking skills sinking to the level of their mother’s. She only hoped he wasn’t heading for another
breakdown.

‘That’s not acting,’ croaked Floz, seeing the black look in Guy’s eyes. Not even Laurence Olivier could fake fury like that.

‘Surely he can’t be that annoyed that Steve and I spent the night together?’

Floz shook her head. Lord. Guy really
was
possessive over his sister then. No wonder he didn’t think much to Floz, usurping his place as best friend. It explained a few things.

Guy draped his arms over the ropes, waiting for Steve to get up so he could clothesline him – ram him with his arms open and knock him to the deck. Then he could climb out of the ring and
go home.

‘Up, up, up, up,’
the crowd chanted, as Little Derek counted.
‘Five, six, seven . . .’

Steve stumbled to his feet. Guy launched himself forward, but Steve deftly leaped out of his path and stuck out his leg. Guy tripped but didn’t go down. As he righted himself, Steve locked
his arm around Guy’s neck, pulling his head down into his ribcage in a Grovit lock. It hurt like a bastard.

‘Gotcha. Now this, Guy Miller, is for thinking that I’d done the dirty on you.’ Steve rolled his hips, turning his wrist until Guy’s neck felt as if it was about to snap
and he yelped. ‘And the reason I couldn’t look you in the face in the kitchen this morning was because I’d just got out of your sister’s bed. Really and truly. Are you
listening to me, you arsehole?
Juliet’s
– not Floz’s – bed!’

‘Bollocks! Arrghghh! Ju hates yooouuu!’

‘Not any more she doesn’t. Ask her yourself

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘Bloody hell, how many more times? YES.’

‘Not you and—’

‘NO.’

‘Arrghghh!’

‘Submit, you thick bastard, and let’s go and have a pint.’

Guy submitted. Little Eric bent to hear the words and declared the match over. The crowd stood to cheer. Steve did a lap of honour whilst Guy lay limp in the ring.

‘Easy easy easy . . .’
yelled the applauding crowd.

Steve and Guy had never fought in their lives before that night. Not even when Guy was out of it a few years ago and would have fought a brick wall if it meant losing some of the pain that had
built up inside him. Steve’s meaty paw came out to help him up and Guy took it, and together they clambered out of the ring and went back to the changing rooms, signing some programmes on the
way.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Guy, when they were stripping off. ‘I thought . . .’

‘Yes, you told me what you thought.’

‘I just presumed . . . you get on so well with Floz and—’

‘And Juliet and I don’t – or rather didn’t,’ Steve finished for him. ‘Well, no one is more surprised by the change of events than me, you can trust me on that
one. Oh sorry, I forgot – you
don’t
trust me, do you?’

‘Don’t,’ cringed Guy, burying his head in his towel. ‘It’s just that you and Floz are actually quite well suited,’ he mumbled.

‘I wouldn’t do that to you, mate. Not even if I fancied the arse off her. Which I don’t,’ Steve added quickly for clarification purposes. ‘She’s lovely, but,
well . . . Juliet and I want the same things, I suppose.’

‘What?’

‘Some warmth, some fun. Somebody to wake up with, no promises, no regrets at the end. I’m not disrespecting her, Guy,’ Steve said quietly. ‘I like her a lot. I always
have.’

‘You never told me that.’

‘I never told anyone,’ said Steve. ‘I didn’t think I had a cat in hell’s chance with her.’

Juliet and Floz were waiting for them at the stage door.

‘Were you arguing for real out there?’ asked Juliet.

‘Don’t be daft,’ laughed Steve.

‘You know it’s all staged,’ said Guy, mirroring Steve’s amusement. ‘Little Derek told us to put it on a bit. Are you coming for a pint with us?’

As Juliet said yes, Floz declined. ‘I’ve got a bit of work to do,’ she explained.

Guy’s heart sank.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Steve – for Guy’s benefit. ‘Just one. It’s too late to write jokes.’

‘No really, I can’t. It’s a busy time for me and I have deadlines to meet.’

‘You take my car, I’ll get a lift home with Steve then,’ said Juliet, handing Floz her keys. She would have bet her life that Floz wasn’t going to work. So what was she
rushing off for? Something to do with that ‘old flame’, she bet.

Floz was glad to escape from Guy. He unsettled her. Those looks he had cast her from the stage during the bout were scary. She wondered again what it was in Guy’s past that had made him
need the staunch friendship of Steve – something which both Juliet and Coco had nearly let slip. She wouldn’t have put a mental illness past him.

None of them noticed the old man in the suit at the back of the hall. He had taken a few photographs on his phone and was sending them over to his son now. What a very
interesting night, he thought.

When Floz got home to the flat, she went straight to her PC, but there was no mail. A lump of heavy disappointment settled inside her. She made herself a coffee and warmed her
hands on the mug, but it couldn’t defrost the chill in her bones.

She sat at her keyboard and began to type.

By the time Floz had changed into her nightie and brushed her teeth there was a reply.

Floz screamed at the PC, ‘No, no, please don’t leave me!’ She didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want to be left in the
wilderness again, hunting in the dark for information. But he must tire so easily and it wasn’t fair of her to make him feel obliged to write. She had to let go – she knew it, but did
not feel it.

She tossed and turned in bed and was still awake long after Steve and Juliet stole into the flat, stifling their giggles as they retired to her bedroom to make each other feel warm and
wanted.

Steve awoke the next morning and immediately smiled at the sight of Juliet, fast asleep beside him and snoring ever so slightly. He’d never realized before how thick and
dark her eyelashes were or what a lovely shape her mouth was. Her eyelids were fluttering as if she was dreaming. He shifted across the bed and snuggled into her and, in sleep, she nestled against
him.

It was a delicious feeling and one which he savoured. He had slept with a lot of women in his time, hoping to find this sort of connection that would make him want to hang around the next
morning and share breakfast and conversation and plan future dates. He never had. He thought about the events of the previous night and how Guy had thought he had moved in on Floz. He loved Guy
like a brother and wished he could find some way to convince Floz that he was a great bloke. They could bring each other a lot of happiness if they got it together, he was convinced of that –
and the elder Millers thought she was lovely. The Millers had been the family he’d always craved, the sort of family he wanted for his own children one day. He knew he had a reputation as a
dog, but in his heart of hearts, more than anything Steve wanted a wife, children and a warm, safe home. And he wished the same for Guy – that he would settle down with someone who would
bring his heart peace at least. His friend had lost a big chunk of his life, but hopefully the opening of his new restaurant was the kick-start he needed to go for it and make up for all the time
he had lost after Lacey Robinson’s suicide.

Talking of which, he remembered that he had something to tell Guy that would really make his day. He had seen it whilst driving from his mum’s yesterday. He reached for his mobile, but his
fingers fell short of it and he didn’t want to dislodge Juliet from his embrace to get it.

He knew he would have to be careful because this was just sex to her and he’d lied and said it was just sex for him too. He’d get mashed one day because as soon as Juliet met someone
who would satisfy her emotional needs as well as her sexual ones, he would be toast. But for the moment, Steve Feast was happy existing in the here and now, pretending to himself that this was
forever.

He lay close to Juliet for the next twenty minutes until her alarm went off and totally forgot to ring Guy.

Floz knew there would not be another email waiting for her when she woke up, but she checked all the same. She had to trust that one of Nick’s sisters would let her know
‘when’. But a letter was bursting out of her and she wrote to him again.

She pressed send and knew that now she really had to let go. She had said everything she needed to. She gulped back the tears, dressed and prepared to
write jokes for the greetings-cards industry. But she waited until the giggling Juliet and Steve had left before emerging for her breakfast.

Guy rose and dressed and put some fresh coffee through the percolator. He hadn’t slept well. He was due at the bank this morning to dot the ‘i’s and cross the
‘t’s on a loan agreement. Whereas he had merely existed for a few years, breathed and eaten and worked, now he felt as if he was about to leave the plodding slip-road in life and rejoin
the motorway. A thought that both thrilled and terrified him.

Over the years he had spent little, saved his wages and invested wisely, and he had enough money to buy the restaurant almost outright. Kenny might have thought he was giving Guy a bargain, but
he had failed to take into account the massive refurbishing costs if Burgerov were to shed its cheap bistro image and become a centre of serious cuisine. Guy was a good, steady customer of his bank
and they had readily agreed to lend him the money he asked for after submitting estimates from reliable local builders.

Guy seriously needed to find somewhere else to live, a place big enough to spread out in, unlike this bolt-hole which had put him up for too long and for which he felt no affection. He wanted a
home, he wanted somewhere he could bring a woman back to and a kitchen where he could be creative. His mind strayed to buying somewhere like Hallow’s Cottage and living there – with
Gina – but that thought was quickly expelled. She might have been available to him, but she wasn’t the one he wanted. He dared to think of Floz snuggled next to him on a big sofa in a
refurbished Hallow’s Cottage, beams above their head, a baby in a bouncy chair at their side. It was so perfect a picture that it hurt, because Floz Cherrydale obviously didn’t feel the
same and so that was sure never to happen.