Page 77 of Crying in the Rain

“Good.” Ade touched his lips to Kris’s—not quite a kiss. “I think so too.”

Kris reciprocated the brush of lips, lingering so that it became a kiss, allowing Ade to roll him onto his back. He closed his eyes, listening to the squeeze of the bottle, the brushing together of palms to distribute the oil, then focused on the sensation of Ade’s fingers tracing the line of his jaw, down his neck, to his chest,brushing over his nipples, continuing down for a few seconds before returning to his nipples.

“That’s better,” Ade murmured, sending a buzz through Kris’s sternum. At last, his body was responding to the touch in the right way, so he oiled his hands too, and they massaged each other, following their instincts, exploring with fingers, lips and tongues, pausing to tell each other places that elicited good feelings or bad, working together to begin the healing process. It would, of course, take more than one very short massage session, which ultimately proved to be a little too erotic and left them both in an oily, slightly tearful but satisfied mess.

26: Atrium Antics

Ade

Kris hadn’t beenexaggerating when he called the party venue a ‘mini mansion’. The three of them—Ade, Kris and Shaunna—were on foot, and to reach the house they had to crunch their way up a lengthy, though thankfully well-lit gravel drive that widened out at the top to accommodate an illuminated round stone pond with a tiered fountain at its centre, foregrounding the magnificent Victorian redbrick property.

Ade leaned in to Kris and stage-whispered, “You didn’t say you had rich friends.”

“They’re not. Dan runs a small haulage business with his brother, and they’re doing OK. All of this—” Kris indicated the house and the expensive cars parked outside “—is down to their mum’s fourth husband.”

Shaunna nodded conspiratorially. “He’s a gangster.”

Ade gasped.

Kris scoffed. “He is not!”

“He is! Ask Adele.”

“Oh, because she’s such a reliable source of information.”

“God!” Shaunna stretched the word to two syllables and affected a teenage huff. “You’re such a bitch.”

Ade couldn’t stop laughing at their faked argument, which carried them right up to the massive front door. Shaunna pushed the big, shiny brass button, and from somewhere inside they heard tubular bells chime a loudding-dong.

“What if they hate me?” Ade said, although it was really a thought escaping aloud.

“They won’t,” Shaunna assured him. “They’re nice people with excellent taste in friends.”

“Other than Jess,” Kris muttered.

Ade’s mouth dropped open. He looked to Shaunna to see what she thought. She weighed it up and shrugged.

“He’s got a point.”

The door was solid wood, so they had no idea if anyone was coming to let them in, but they’d been standing there long enough for a couple more cars to pull up and unload.

“And Ellie can be quite mean,” Kris added.

Ade’s eyebrows rose in alarm.

“Would ‘nice’ be the right word for Josh, even?” Kris rested his index finger on his chin in a thoughtful pose. Shaunna shoved him in the side, and he grinned.

“Don’t listen to any of it. He’s winding you up,” she told Ade.

He wasn’t convinced, but then Kris smiled and winked at him, and he realised the whole performance had been to put him at ease. Kris and Shaunna were good people; there was no reason for him to believe their friends weren’t good people too. Regardless, he planned on sticking close to Kris and Shaunna for the duration.

By the time the door opened, there were another eight guests waiting behind them, none of whom Kris or Shaunna knew. They shared a polite ‘hello’ and all trooped inside together, or rather, they stepped through the door and then drifted forward, gazing in wonder at the sight that greeted them.

“Well, you’re not the only one who doesn’t know anybody,” Shaunna said to Ade out of the side of her mouth.

He hardly heard her, totally bowled over by the grandeur of the enormous atrium in which they now stood. There were easily fifty people present, but the place was so big that they were scattered, with yards of chequered floor space in between, like the pieces of a vibrant chess game.

Wide twin staircases with ornate ironwork banisters ran up either side to the first floor, connected by a balcony extendingright across the atrium and currently cluttered with professional light and sound equipment. Moving-head lights swept across the expanse, reflecting off the gleaming black-and-white marble floor before chasing up the white marble walls and into the dome above, within which hung the biggest chandelier Ade had ever seen.

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