Saving from Monkeys (3 page)

"Great, and now you know where I live?" I demanded. "God, you just get creepier and creepier today."

"You knew where I live," he put the car into neutral and looked at me pointedly.

"Yeah, but that's only because mum always tells me to-" I stopped suddenly as I realised what I was about to divulge, but I needn't have bothered as he finished my sentence perfectly.

"Keep an eye on you? Yeah, snap."

I groaned, smacking my head back against the headrest.
I loved my mum, I really did, but in moments like this I seriously considered familial divorce.

For reasons I'd never been able to
fathom, Mum had taken a real shine to the pest beside me from the first day she'd started working at the Sinclair's. Whilst I’d struggled to concentrate on my homework in the afternoons after school, she had clucked and fussed around him, offering him snacks and cuddling him to her like a long lost son. Even more incomprehensible, she seemed to just assume that Elliot and I felt the same way about each other, I'm sure in her mind she thought we were brother and sister.

Ewgh! I was jerked from that line of thought as the implications of what that would mean about the previous night's activities made my stomach roll ominously.

"Don't vomit in my car," Elliot said suddenly, obviously seeing me go green, and my nausea receded to be replaced with anger.

"For the last time," I said, my voice rising as I threw open the passenger door, "this is
not
your car!"

As my feet hit the cement of the pavement
, the strange sort of bubble of unreality I'd been in ever since I’d woken up in Elliot’s bed popped with enough force to make me actually jerk in surprise. When we'd been sniping at each other and he'd clearly been enjoying making me mad it had felt like old times, we could’ve been 14 again. However, outside my residential hall, in the here and now, the ridiculousness of the whole situation became painfully clear again. I'd slept with Elliot Sinclair. It was a wonder the whole world hadn't shifted on its axis.

I slammed the door to the weird car shut and started to march away, forfeiting my manners in favour of getting the hell away from the whole horrible mess.
I stopped after only a few steps, however when Elliot called my name.

Turning slowly back around
, I saw that he had wound down the passenger window and was leaning across towards me. If he made the
slightest
comment out here in the open about us having had sex (
three times
, a little voice in my head reminded me unhelpfully), so help me I was going to…

"Have you heard from Nan recently?"

OK, not what I’d been expecting. A vision of Elliot's awesome grandma, her eyes twinkling in constant amusement and her mouth always open to deliver some outrageous comment, filled my mind and I couldn't help but smile. Boy, she would
love
to hear that we'd had a one night stand; she'd think it was hilarious.

"No," I answered honestly. "Why? Should I have?"

A shuttered look came over his expression and he shook his head. "No."

I got absolutely no further explanation as he
promptly pulled up the window and then pulled abruptly off the curb and back into traffic, leaving me to stare, dumbfounded, after him.

W
hat had
that
been about?

"Nice jumper, Rox."

I started and looked round to see one of the guys who shared a room downstairs from me grin and give me a thumbs up as he walked past. My heart sinking, I looked down to see that the black hoodie I was wearing had words written across it in a blinding slash of white. Tilting my head slightly I saw that I was proudly proclaiming that 'I do it like the animals do.'

Oh
,
monkeys
.

----------

Back in his flat, Elliot strode immediately across to his filing cabinet and grabbed out the piece of paper Rox had been so close to finding. With her hand poised to pull it out and ruin the reprieve he'd scored himself when he'd discovered she'd blanked out the previous night, he'd panicked. This was unusual for him, he considered himself pretty unflappable, and maybe it was this unfamiliarity with freaking out that had led to what he'd done to distract her. Yeah, he’d thrown his underwear at her, but it’d worked so he refused to feel embarrassed about it.

In
one sharp move he ripped the paper in half, then again, and again and again until all that was left was a little pile of tiny white squares in his palm. Not taking any chances, he went back downstairs and tipped the handful into the skip out the back of the building.

Yeah, not telling her what had happened last night made him feel like a major creep, but it was better than the
alternative. Because when Roxanne Mapley remembered what she'd discovered last night, and he knew with painful surety she eventually would, he was a dead man.

Chapter 2
– The Posh Conquests and the Ship Already Sailed

With my arms crossed tightly across my chest both to support my bra-less breasts and cover the inane slogan on Elliot's hoodie, I made my wretched way up the dingy stairs to my room.

The residential hall building, in all its 70's finery did nothing to lift my spirits and I could barely muster a smile for the couple of people who called out hellos to me. Without Elliot there to distract me with his incredibly irritating ways, I found I was free to sink down into the depths of despair and start to properly hate on myself for what had happened.

I was a good girl, a virtual teetotaller who 9 times out of 10 substituted a swear
word for ‘monkey', so whatever had happened last night had dealt a serious blow to my sense of self. I felt gross, both inside and out.

I stopped outside the door to the tiny room that Abigail and I shared (its dimensions in no way
representative of the exorbitant sum my mum had scraped together to allow me the privilege of living on campus). I'd just realised yet another thing to turn my morning sour. I didn't have my key.

Obviously
recognising that it had let me down in recent times, my brain popped up immediately with the answer to this quandary: knock, and then if Abigail wasn’t home, sink to the floor and have a massive hissy fit. Satisfied with this plan, I raised a hand and pressed my knuckles feebly against the cheap wood door. With the way the rest of the morning had gone, I fully expected there to be no answer, but my pessimism was knocked for six when the door was immediately flung open.

Abi took one look at me and then, accurately assessing my meltdown level in a way only a true friend
could, immediately ushered me inside, shutting the door firmly behind us.

"Um, Rox, are you
OK?" She asked in the tone of one who already knew the answer to the question, but needed to start the ball rolling somewhere. As for me, I threw myself face down on my bed and almost cried in relief at being home and back around familiar, safe things. Yay for the ratty old cream carpet! Hurrah for our ironic print of the Mona Lisa wearing a fedora and smoking a cigar! Three cheers for the girly scents of perfume and moisturiser!

Sure, Elliot's place was the height of modern sophistication, with all the mod cons and shiny surfaces.
Fine, whatever. Abi and I happened to like the massive crack that zig zagged down our wall, thanks very much, and only a true heathen couldn't appreciate that the mould in the corner near the bathroom was beginning to look a bit like a Monet. For me, in terms of comfort and most definitely company, my room prevailed over Elliot's any day of the week and I was so glad to be back within its four, slightly uneven, walls.

I felt the mattress dip down as I internally waxed lyrical about our shonky accommodation, and then Abigail pulled back some of my manky hair to look in concern down at me.

"I don't want to be rude, hon," she said, in a way that suggested she was about to be anyway, despite her preference, "but you look for all the world like you just did a walk of shame."

Never had an expression seemed more appropriate than in that moment. I groaned and grabbed at my pillow, pulling it over my head and bending the sides down to muffle out the world.

"I did," I said miserably. "A great big, fat, walk of shame. No bra, no socks, no dignity, that's me."

I felt a tug on the pillow and then Abigail, her husky voice faint through the padding, said, "Come on, Rox, you know it's rude to hold a conversation while trying to suffocate yourself."

Ever one to conform to etiquette, I lifted myself back up and turned over to face my best mate.

"Right, here's the thing," I said in a concerted effort to be brisk, "I got raging, black out drunk last night and had sex with Elliot Sinclair." I spoke clearly, enunciating each word as I knew it was something Abi was going to have difficulty in processing even without me mumbling.
Sure enough, her eyes widened and her jaw went slack.

"Three times," I added, wanting to just get the whole, horrible truth out there, but feeling a bit bad as I saw this additional information made Abi's head wobble a little bit like it was going to fall off.

Several long, awkward seconds passed and then she released her breath in a loud whoosh and flopped down beside me on the bed.

"Sorry," she said feebly. "I think I passed out for a second there, want to run that by me again?"

"Don't make me repeat it," I begged, accidentally catching the eye of our Mona Lisa poster and finding that, because of the whole 'her eyes follow you wherever you are' thing, I was unable to break free of her judgemental gaze. "I've already vomited this morning; I really don't want to go there again."

"
OK," Abi said slowly and I finally escaped eye contact with Mona to see her reach up and bury her fingers into her short dark hair. Seeing her manifesting my own freak out was somehow reassuring. "So, just so I've got this straight, you've spent the last two and a bit years I've known you going on about this spoilt rich kid who tormented you all through your adolescence, right? I mean, I've seen this pretty boy make you so mad you literally fell down a flight of stairs. And now you're telling me you
slept
with him?
Why
?"

My ankle throbbed a little at the reminder of the day I'd been so busy ranting about Elliot's stupid floppy hair I hadn't seen the steps rapidly approaching. Chalking that up to yet
another
part of my body that was currently hurting because of Elliot, I focused on Abi's aghast expression.

"I have no idea," I answered honestly. "Apparently I drank so much I have completely bl
otted out last night."

I shared a silent moment of 'yeah, I know,
me
getting that drunk. Weird, right?' with her before continuing. "The last thing I can remember is you going off to work yesterday afternoon and then-" I broke off as I suddenly realised something.

"You're still in your work clothes," I said in confusion, looking more closely and seeing that they were quite considerably rumpled. "Now who looks like they just did a walk of shame? Did you just get home?"

The vibe in the room abruptly shifted from 'WTF?' to some sort of 'squee' emoticon as a pink blush bloomed across Abi's, Judi Dench-worthy, cheekbones and she nodded.

"You were out all night?" I pressed even though it hurt to crease my forehead in surprise.

She nodded again.

"Alone?"

Her expression morphed into the sort you'd expect a kid to wear when caught with an empty biscuit wrapper and crumbs around his mouth, and she shook her head.

"Oh God," I gasped, "not you too?"

"Yeah, I got in from my own night of debauchery just before you." She smiled a cheeky smile as she added, "Guess something must be in the water."

"Who knew that one night stands were contagious?" I choked and then, seeing a strange look pass over her face I frowned at how that had sounded. "Gross, not like STIs or anything," I tried to explain, but she put a hand on my arm to forestall me.

"No, it's not that. It's just…" she trailed off and I noticed for the first time that her eyes were looking suspiciously starry. "I don't think mine is going to be just a one night stand."

And, now that she mentioned it, I saw that she was practically
glowing
. Nice that she'd come out of the previous night looking like she was lit from within by some sort of beatific light, while I ended up tinged a sickly green colour.

"Oooooh
," I said, intrigued and more than happy to have the spotlight taken off me; anything to get that judgemental cow Mona to stop looking at me like I was a slut. "Multiple nights are on the cards? Who is this gentleman who has ensnared you so?"

Abi bit her lip, but was unable to stop her smile, two little dimples appearing to frame it. I loved these dimples. When coupled with Abi's spiky black hair and deep husky voice they seemed as
incongruous as a teddy bear at a rave, but they were spot on because Abi really was Shirley Temple levels of sweet.

"His name's Joe," she said all in a rush, as if unable to hold the words in anymore. "And, oh my God
, Rox, he's so
not
my type."

My smile faltered slightly. Huh?
"So
not
your type?" I repeated, wanting to make sure I hadn't misheard.

"Yeah," she fiddled with the jumble of silver bracelets that always adorned her right wrist, the metallic jangling they made perfectly accompanying her almost manic happiness. "You know how I always go for the dark, brooding, sensitive, artistic types?"

"Read: narcissistic twerps whose 'art' invariably means they can't be monogamous?" I asked darkly. I'd lost count of how many breakups with these egomaniacs I'd nursed Abigail through. "Yeah, I know."

"Well
, Joe's nothing like that." Abi clasped her pale hands and her voice came out on a sort of a sigh as she finished, "He's a bloodnut, doing engineering and he plays
rugby
."

"Ha!" I couldn't help
it, I let out a sharp peal of laughter before immediately being glad I was lying down as my head swam at the noise.

"Even more than that," she smiled, obviously enjoying my response, "he calls it 'rugger' and his eyes fill with tears when he remembers the final try that secured his school the championship."

I blinked rapidly and, for a moment, I was speechless. Seriously, had I fallen into a parallel universe last night and not noticed? As if it wasn't bad enough that I'd had it off with Elliot, it sounded like Abi had hooked up with a private school knob. We'd spent so much time mocking those types, but now her eyes seemed to be shining, not with amusement, but with
fondness
.

"His school rugger team had a song, didn't it?" I asked, pretty sure I already knew the answer.

"And the words are printed on his heart," she confirmed.

Woah
.

"So, basically, last night we both went out and slept with the kind of posh boys we've done nothing but ridicule since we met each other?"

"Seems that way," Abi agreed, but then she let out a whoosh of breath and snatched up the pillow I'd recently put aside. Clinging to it she continued, "Seriously, Rox, he's
amazing
. He came in to pick up takeaway, but there was like this
buzz
when we looked at each other and he decided to eat in instead."

Knowing the restaurant Abi worked at as well as I did, I thought this showed more of a foolhardy disregard for his health rather than demonstrating how 'amazing' he was. Bless
her, though, she looked as if he'd cured poverty for her rather than simply demonstrated that his stomach was lead-lined.

"He kept ordering more food just so he could keep the table and
talk to me more," she didn't seem to have noticed my amusement, in fact this fellow Joe's entire school rugby team could probably have steamed through our room naked and she wouldn't have noticed. She was utterly and totally rapt.

"The idiot actually looked pretty ill by the end, but he just kept eating and saying how good it was,
like I'd cooked it or something," she continued. "When my shift ended he walked me back to my car and we sat in it and talked for ages before going back to his place." She stopped for a moment, clearly reliving the moment privately, before finishing, "I think I'm seriously in like."

"Really?"
I squeaked, honestly not sure how to react to this new, sappy Abi. "After one night?"

Abi and I were very serious about who we fell in like with.

When we'd first been put in a room together in first year uni it had looked like the guy assigning roommates had been high at the time. There she was with her skin-tight jeans that seemed to be more rips than actual denim and her heavy makeup, and there I'd been with my neat little plait and inability to swear beyond squeaking 'monkey' when
really
riled. It had looked like the start of a bad buddy cop movie, but thankfully, we'd bonded almost immediately as a girl ran past in the corridor squealing about how much in love she was. We'd both grimaced and that, as they say, had been the start of a beautiful friendship.

We'd promised each other then and there that, since it was uni and a time for just seeing what was out there, we'd only fall in
like
while we were roommates, and only when we were serious about someone.

In the intervening two a bit years we'd naturally ended up shifting a bit more towards the middle from our polar opposites. Abi had discovered the wonders of comfy clothes and the 'less is mor
e' approach to makeup, whilst I'd enjoyed moderate success with a cuter, lighter haircut and worked my way up to the occasional 'bitch' when needed.

During this period I'd only been in like once, with a guy
called Jason from my second year accounting tute who had turned out to have more annoying habits than a gremlin. Abi, despite her string of artistic arses, had only admitted to like twice.