Saving from Monkeys (4 page)

Like was not a word to be bandied about, so this was big news.

"I've never felt like this about anyone before," she ducked her head in embarrassment and then laughed hoarsely. "Listen to me, I'm talking in flat out clichés, please slap me if I say 'he's the one'."

"I promise I will," I said fervently, but at the same time I felt some of the weight on my chest lift. There was nothing like seeing those closest to you happy to make your own problems fade a little into the background.

That being said, as I shifted myself up, fully intending to settle into a proper girly debrief session, I was forcibly reminded that every single part of my body was still pulsing with pain, nausea and confusion from my significantly less romantic night.

"I'm really stoked about multiple nights man Joe," I assured her. "And we're going to go over every awesome detail a million times, but I think I need to have a shower, brush my teeth and become human again first so I can get to the appropriate levels of excitement for you."

"Oh, hey," she instantly looked contrite. "I'm sorry, we should really be talking about your night. Elliot Sinclair, I mean what the hell?"

"You know what?" I sighed.
"I'd rather not. I feel ick about it and, for now, I just want to get clean and then hear about what happened last night to make you all twinkly and shiny."

Our room had a little kitchenette behind a concertina door on the left and a similarly tiny bathroom on the right that contained just a sink, toilet and shower. Cocooned a few minutes later in the small shower cubicle, I leant back against the cold tiles and let the lukewarm water roll in sad little rivulets down my front.
OK, so the water didn't have much of a concept of 'hot' and the pressure was akin to a dribbling watering can, but it was private and I relished in the time to myself.

Not that I wanted to have found the like of my life the night before, I mused, or that I in any way begrudged Abi her joy, but it would have been nice to have even a smidgeon of her contentment so I didn't feel quite so discombobulated.

Looking down at my naked body I really tried to grasp that Elliot now numbered in the handful of people who had seen it in all its, not exactly supermodel, glory.

Everything I'd ever heard, both in rumour and from awkward interactions with Elliot's girlfriends as they tiptoed across the foyer (that I had usually just flippin' mopped) the morning after, indicated that he was a good lover. I ran my hands over my breasts and then down my sides and tried to imagine them as his, Elliot's, the guy who had given me far more Chinese burns than compliments. Was I really supposed to believe he'd
pleasured
me?

Ergh! I reached out of the shower and grabbed my toothbrush off the sink before beginning to scrub hard at my mouth.

I couldn't take what had happened back, but it was a small consolation to know that it wasn't as if I had to brace myself for any awkward 'after' conversations with Elliot.

To say that we didn't move in the same circles was like saying monsoon season was 'a bit wet'. I'd spent my life on the periphery of Elliot's fancy friends, not wanting to be one of them, but definitely resenting having to spend my time constantly cleaning up after them rather than hanging out with my own friends.
Since I'd been at uni, however, that’d all changed.

I was in my third year of a business degree
and, for the first time in my life, had a close circle of mates, and when I wasn't working at the uni refectory, my own time. I'd seen Elliot around, and my mum certainly kept me up to date with his activities, but he and his friends didn't live in the res hall, or eat at the ref, or basically have anything to do with me and my friends. This was clearly demonstrated by the fact that, despite hearing all about him, Abi wouldn't have been able to pick Elliot out of a line-up.

Yes, our lives had stayed blissfully separate and, sure, last night had been a pretty big blip in that, but there was nothing to say that we wouldn't merrily go back to how it had been before. I wasn't some silly, naïve twit who thought that sex with Elliot
meant
anything. I just had to pretend it had never happened (helpfully aided by the fact that I didn't actually know what
had
happened).

Right, it was settled. I spat out the toothpaste in a white frothy full stop. Things would just carry on as normal. From now on, as it was before, I was going to have absolutely
nothing
to do with Elliot Sinclair.

----------

It had been three weeks since he'd had sex with Rox.

Three weeks since she'd found out what he'd done and then promptly forgotten again.

Three weeks since she'd stolen his hoodie.

Elliot tried to focus on the history essay he was supposed to be writing. Somehow, though, despite the Battle of the Bulge being one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, it suddenly seemed a hell of a lot less interesting than thinking about what the daughter of his family's housekeeper was up to. Maybe it was because, from his perspective, all that
bloodshed would pale in comparison to the consequences when Rox clocked to what he'd done.

She couldn't have remembered, he knew that.
If she had, she would have come screaming through his door, like she had that night three weeks ago. Probably with a machete in her hand. So he should leave it; chalk what had happened up as just one of those nights where weird stuff goes down and move on. Rox certainly seemed to have. Every time he'd caught a glimpse of her around campus she'd steadfastly pretended not to see him, even one time to the point of carrying on an apparently lively conversation with a tree.

He smiled. Say what you like about Rox, and he usually did, but when she decided on something, she was nothing if not committed.

He tried again to concentrate on describing the battle lines through Belgium, but he'd barely gone two seconds when his door burst open and a large figure filled the doorway.

"You ready?" A voice
boomed, the sudden presence and menacing tone appearing more like the start of a home invasion than what it actually was, a mate dropping round.

"Ready for what?"
Elliot barely raised his head, but he flicked a few fingers up to acknowledge Jonah's arrival.

"You better
be bloody joking," the door was slammed shut and the red head marched over, his solid build blocking out the sun from the skylight.

"Oh right," Elliot closed his laptop and kept his voice deliberately vague just to hack his mate off, "I'm meeting the love of your life today, yeah?"

"Right," Jonah nodded and folded his arms across his barrel chest, "so get your stuff together and let's go."

No denial of the 'love of your life'
dig? Elliot raised his eyebrows slightly. That was interesting.

"Alright, alright
." He dumped the computer down next to him on the bed and kicked his way out of the circle of papers and books he'd been using.

"And I want to talk to you about the friend we're meeting today," Jonah said as Elliot went past him through into the bathroom.

"Yeah?" Elliot held a hand under the water from the tap and then ran it through his dark hair, shaking his head so it fell the way he wanted.

"Don't sleep with her."

Hidden from Jonah, Elliot made a face in the mirror.

"And don't make a face," Jonah barked. "Chicks look at you and they see this 'I'm so charming and rich, I'll take you on a hot air balloon ride into the sunset and we'll be together forever' bull. When it turns out you're more of a one night in paradise kind of guy, emphasis on the
one night
bit, they get pissed and I don't want the friend hating me because of you."

"One night in paradise?"
Elliot repeated. He emerged back out into the main room and stared in disbelief at his best mate whose grim expression didn't shift. Seeing he wasn't backing down, Elliot sighed and held up his hands in surrender. "Fine," he said, "alluring as you clearly think I am, I'll make a big effort to not have sex with your girl's friend. Now, can I change my shirt or will that make me too irresistible?"

Less than 15 minutes after that found them walking along outside the cafe where they'd agreed to meet Jonah's girlfriend and her bff.

Elliot took a break from having a go at his mate about how whipped he was, to peer through the window to see if he could catch a look at the famous owner of the aforementioned whip. His eyes landed pretty much straightaway on a couple of girls sitting near the window. The one facing him had short spiky black hair and bright red lipstick, and the other...

He felt a weird prickle along his scalp and then the girl turned her head slightly
, revealing more of her features. Elliot stopped abruptly and smacked a hand hard into Jonah's solar plexus, making him grunt in surprise and turn to look down at his mate accusingly.

"Hey
, what-?" he started to ask, but Elliot cut him off.

"The friend, what's her name?" He asked.

"I can't remember, Anna, Anne, something like that," Jonah said vaguely, having caught sight of his girl and immediately seeming to drop about 50 intelligence points.

"Anne, as in
Rox
anne?" Elliot suggested and his mate shrugged.

"
Maybe...oh..." He finally followed the line of Elliot's gaze and his face went slack with surprise.

"You remember that 'don't sleep with the friend' thing?" Elliot said slowly.

"Yeah," Jonah replied flatly.

Elliot clapped a hand on the rugby player's massive shoulder and grinned
. "My friend, I think you'll find the ship has already well and truly sailed on that voyage."

Chapter 3
– The Ducklings and the Whale with a new Name

"Hey, Cinders."

My shoulders automatically hunched at the sound of
an all-too-familiar voice coming from right behind me.

Oh
, monkeys!

There I was, excitedly waiting to meet famous multiple nights man Joe
, after what felt like years of hearing about him, and Sinclair's sidekick
had
to come along and spoil my mood. The small on-campus café in which Abi and I were seated was flooded with sunlight and decorated in that cheery, chintzy way cafés often were, but I felt a little shiver of unease regardless.

This was a voice, and moniker, that brought back nothing but bad memories of my time spent on the periphery of Elliot's band of merry rich friends. They
, who like evil reverse Robin Hoods, had seemed to believe in teasing the poor in order to entertain the rich.

"Hi
, Whale," I sighed, the cruel nickname slipping off my tongue before I could catch it.

Sure, Elliot's best friend had been the one to start calling me Cinders, but that was no excuse. Jonah was a big boy and, his name being what it
was, it hadn't taken my nasty 12 year old self two seconds to start calling him Whale. I'd started it and it'd stuck. Yep, I was a horrible person.

Feeling bad, I curled my shoulders up still further and mumbled, "Sorry, but we're actually waiting for-"

I didn't get to finish as Abi looked up, saw who was standing behind me and suddenly leapt from her chair, launching herself towards him.

"Hey
, baby!" She squealed and I whirled around so fast I felt something go 'ping' in my neck.

Clapping a hand against the twinged muscle I stared with wide eyes as Abi wrapped her long, pale arms around Jonah's ruddy neck and stood on tiptoes to catch his lips with hers.

What the…?

"Small world."

I think I actually fixed the crick in my neck as I shot my head round the other way and came face to face with Elliot, who had clearly slid into the chair next to me while I'd been distracted. I felt my heart give one big massive 'whump' of surprise and then it slunk, like a reprimanded dog, down into my stomach where it settled, heavy as a stone.

No
! I howled silently as all my carefully constructed 'never see Elliot again' plans fell through. OK, I'd known
never
seeing him again was going to be a difficult one to orchestrate, but I would at least have settled for never again being so close to him that I could smell his faint aftershave and see the little freckle up by his right eye.

"But I thought…" I mumbled faintly, looking back round at Abi and Jonah then reluctantly refocusing on Elliot. "She's
supposed
to be in like with some guy called Joe," I finished, something cross entering my tone at the way I felt I'd been deceived.

"Jonah's gone by Joe ever since he started uni." Elliot leant back in his chair, looking completed unfazed by the sudden reveal. "I think it was something about trying to drop the 'Whale'
nickname."

Was he seriously being pointed?
Him
?

Still, hypocritical as it was hearing the reproach coming from
Elliot of all people, I couldn't help but feel a little ashamed spike in my stomach at the way my mean nickname for Jonah had caught on with other people. He’d never been as bad as the rest of Elliot’s revolting posse and so I determined to make the ‘Whale' name dead in the water, pun intended.

That decided,
I shifted my chair slightly away from Elliot's, ignoring his small, amused snort as he saw what I was doing, and sat with folded arms waiting for Abi and Jonah to disentangle themselves. It took a while, but eventually, they re-emerged, both a little pinker than they'd started out and decidedly out of breath.

"Rox," Abi took a small step back from her boyfriend as if she thought she couldn't control herself if he was too close, "this is Joe."

No kidding.

I looked up at the mountain that was the guy formerly known as Jonah the Whale and an awkward silence descended.
It was weird being introduced to someone I knew so well or, at least, had seen just about every day from when I was about 12 to 18. What was I supposed to say? 'Nice to see you with pants on, my gag reflex still twinges every time I think about how I had to clean the banister you slid down naked that time'?

As if he could read my mind, Jonah crouched down so he was at eye level with me (yes, I was on a chair, he really was that huge).
"You and me, let's try that again." He held out his large, meaty hand and said bluntly, "Hi Rox, how's it going?"

I took the proffered hand and shook it graciously even as my internal monologue chanted 'weird, weird,
weird
'.

"I'm good, Jonah, yourself?"

"Fine, thanks."

I felt like we were in a Victorian play and I just knew Elliot was enjoying every stilted second.

"Right, that wasn't too bad, was it?" Jonah stood up and I knew that, despite his words, he would’ve liked the interaction to have gone better.

Throwing caution to the wind, I shrugged and said cheekily, "I suppose it helped that I wasn't cleaning up your vomit at the time."

Because, honestly, that had been the setting of most of our conversations in the past. Jonah might look like a bit tough nut, but boy, could he not hold his alcohol, and the unenviable task of cleaning up after one of his nights out had fallen to me more often than I liked to remember.

"Yeah, I could see how that would be the case," he said solemnly, but I could see from the light in his eyes that the ice had been broken, and I was glad. Through Elliot we
had a kind of crappy past, but through Abi, it looked like we had a future where we'd need to be all buddy-buddy, there was no pretending we didn't. Now I just had to remember not to call him Whale anymore…

"Ever get the feeling you're about 10 punch-lines behind the joke?" Abi slid back down into her chair and pulled Jonah down next to her before looking between us with a confused smile. "Because I have to say I was sort of hoping you'd meet each other and the word 'vomit' wouldn't come up."

Oh, bless her little cotton socks, she hadn't clocked.

I didn't look at Elliot, honestly I didn't know whether I could without 'vomit' entering the equation again, but with a flick of my eyes and a slight raise of my eyebrows I told my best friend all she needed to know.

"Oh! You're…? Shit!" She exclaimed, looking across at Elliot and then clapping a hand to her mouth as she realised she'd spoken out loud.

"You've probably picked that up from Rox here," Elliot nudged my knee as i
f there were a multitude of Roxs in the vicinity and he needed to indicate which one he meant. My leg gave a little twitch where he'd touched me and I crossed it away from him. "She might call me shit, but I usually go by Elliot."

His voice was dry, but not unfriendly. He was clearly on his best behaviour, which I guess I understood when your friend was a behemoth who could knock you ten ways to Tuesday if you upset his girlfriend.

"Right, of course." Abi was really gunning for a gold medal in the category of 'flustered'. "Hi, Elliot."

I felt bad for Abigail, I really did. I mean, there she was all nervously looking forward to meeting her boyfriend's best friend, hoping to make a good impression and be given the all important seal of approval, when in walked
her
best friend's nemesis.

"T
ough spot to be in, hey?" Elliot was speaking again and, dammit, he was verbalising my thoughts, I hated it when he did that.

Abi looked to me, as if for permission to agree with him, and then nodded.

Just then the waitress came by to take our orders and Abi and Jonah fell over themselves to effusively thank her for the service and comment on the menu. Taking the opportunity while they were occupied, I snatched a fork up off the table and prodded Elliot's arm with it.

"Did you do this on purpose?" I hissed as he rubbed at where I'd stabbed him and looked at me with his stupid 'your nuttiness vaguely horrifies and amuses me' expression.

"Do what?"

"Oh
, seriously." I rolled my eyes. "Do you really expect me to believe this is coincidence? What did you and Jonah do? Draw room numbers out of a hat that night and then determine that you were going to go out and sleep with the inhabitants?" I kept the fork pointed towards him as I questioned him, but it probably wasn't as threatening as I would've liked.

He seemed to consider this for a moment and then asked, "What if the room we'd picked had guys in it?"

I shrugged. "I guess that'd be something for you to investigate in your own time." My smirk at that pithy little reply faded away, however, as one side of his mouth quirked up and he leant in close to murmur,

"Rox, honey, you're the
last
person I need to defend my sexuality to."

And that, right there, was the problem when you slept with someone. Innuendo took on a life of its own and when your eyes accidentally flick down you know
exactly
what the clothing is covering. I went red, from anger I told myself crossly, and pulled away.

"So
you
say," I said blithely. "You could have spent the night reciting homoerotic poetry to me for all I know."

There was a highly charged silence and I realised I hadn't hushed my tone for that last bit, like I had for the rest of the conversation, and that Abi, Jonah, the waitress and about half the café were now staring at me.

Awkward
.

"So, decided what you're having?" I asked over-brightly, snatching up my own menu and burying my face down into it. Abi, good friend that she was, jumped into the breach and ordered, leaving me to take a few calming breaths behind my laminate shield.

When the waitress had all our choices jotted down on her little pad she turned to leave, and I stared after her somewhat longingly, wishing that I, too, could make such an easy escape. But no, I was doomed to look across the table and observe a significant player from my past cuddling someone so important from my present. Not that I had some horribly traumatic history I was trying to put behind me, exactly, but I'd definitely made a conscious decision years ago that my past would remain exactly that, my past. I certainly hadn't intended to go out to lunch with it, at any rate.

"I can't get over this," Abigail shook her head slightly in amazement, verbalising the overriding vibe around the table. "What are the odds?"

"Rox thinks we set it up on purpose," Elliot smirked and I tried to subtly kick him under the table. "And she just kicked me," he added, making me wish I'd taken the opportunity to kick him much, much harder.

"Set it up?" Jonah asked, leaning back and making his chair creak ominously. "What, like we both made a deal to go and sleep with the girls from room 314 that night or something?"

"Yeah, that's pretty much how she put it," Elliot nodded while I narrowed my eyes as something suddenly became blindingly clear to me.

"Wait a minute, you told him about...?" It was much too distasteful a sentence to finish, so the 'us having sex' bit hung unspoken in the air. It was to my eternal embarrassment that everyone
around the table still knew what I meant.

"You clearly told
her
." He gestured towards Abi who, to be fair, wasn't exactly at a loss as to what we were discussing.

"That's different!" I said hotly. "She's my best friend."

"And he's mine, so what's your point?"

"My
point
..." I faltered for a moment, not exactly sure what my point was, but sure that I was right and he was wrong, "...is that a gentleman isn't supposed to tell!" I was actually quite proud of that as a save, but needless to say, Elliot didn't share my opinion and scoffed before saying,

"Making you, what?
A lady? As far as I was aware, a lady isn't exactly supposed to get so hammered she-"

"
Mate
," Jonah cut him off warningly and there was a tense moment of silence. It was broken as Elliot and I let out heavy sighs at almost exactly the same time.

Forcing myself to look at him, I could see that he'd reached the same conclusion I had. Obnoxious as we clearly found each other, the lunch was supposed to be about Abi and Jonah.

"Truce?" Elliot held out his hand and I raised my eyebrows. What was with today and Jonah and Elliot suddenly wanting to shake my hand? They never had before and they'd had a good 10 years to get the urge. Still, it was the right thing to do, so I took it, although I couldn't help saying stiffly,

"I accept your capitulation."

"
Rox
," it was Abi's turn to chastise and I begrudgingly accepted it.

"Fine, truce," I said heavily and Elliot and I solemnly shook on it.

Although it was only a brief few moments when we were palm to palm, I found myself considering his hand with interest. This hand, I thought, has presumably touched other parts of my body. I tried to feel disgusted by this, but I couldn't fool myself. He had a good grasp, warm and firm; there was, irritatingly enough, nothing to be repulsed by.