Page 37 of On Circus Lane

“Hot Gossip? What was that?”

I shrug. “Some sort of dance troupe. Fuck knows. It seemed like a load of women dancing around in their leotards to me, but I’m sure there was a lot of artistic genius in there, too.”

“Your childhood sounds nice,” he says almost wistfully.

I wonder at his. He seems to love his dad, but there doesn’t seem to be the loving, interfering closeness that I grew up with.

“Do you have any sisters or brothers?” I ask.

He laughs. “No. God, no, which is good because my dad barely coped with me. If I’d had a sibling, he’d have probably lost it down the back of the sofa or something.”

I chuckle. “God, I’d have loved to have done that with Arlo or Sal. Once, Sal and I locked Arlo in the boot of my dad’s MGB.”

“Oh my god.”

“We let him out before my parents got back,” I say quickly in case he thinks I’m a brother-torturing maniac. If he knew Arlo, he’d be a lot more sympathetic towards me and Sal. “He’d gone to sleep in there and was really cross that we woke him up.”

He starts to laugh, but that wistfulness is there again, making my stomach clench. Then he shifts awkwardly, so confidence time is obviously over.

I look back at the TV and change the subject. “There’s always a point where I think Bob’s fucked it up,” I say conversationally.

He stares at me as if surprised. “Oh, me too. It can get a bit tense.” He hesitates and then says in a rush, “I like that if you screw up, you can change it easily.”

I wonder why that idea has such resonance with him. “Well, not much in life can’t be changed by painting over our mistakes.”

He absentmindedly takes another piece of toast, his clever brain running busily. “But what if it makes it worse?” He pointsat the screen where Bob is busy. “What if that flower hadn’t worked, and everyone who looked at the painting saw that red flower and knew it should have been a barn?”

“Or they looked at it and thought how great it was that something so pretty was in the picture?” I say gently. “Mistakes are part of life, aren’t they? And art is just life.”

Silence falls for a second, then his eyes light up as if I’ve solved the most complex mathematical question in the world for him. It makes me feel funny to see admiration in the eyes of such a clever man. Like I could hold up the world.

He turns back to the screen. “He makes me think I could paint. That’s his genius.”

I shrug. “I don’t think he’d manage with me. If Bob Ross sellotaped himself to me, I couldn’t paint that picture.”

“That’s a fairly disturbing image,” he says faintly. We look at each other and break into laughter.

When we sober, he looks at me contemplatively, and I see the exact moment he decides to push me away, keep me at a distance. “I expect you have other talents,” he says throatily. He gives me a sultry glance, his dark eyelashes fanning his cheeks. He wields that potent charm like a fucking sword, and I’m sure he’s slayed many men.

It’s amazing what you can learn when you’re interested in a bloke, and he’s sitting in the back seat of your car talking to his best friend while pretending you don’t exist. I’d learnt a lot about Bee Bannister on the drive here, beginning with how he doesn’t like any form of commitment and gets antsy if his partners haven’t left his bed by the time clean-up is finished.

I know if I cocked my head towards the bedroom, we’d be in there and fucking within minutes. I could be in that tight, lithe body, burying myself in his heat. But then this fascinating man would move on without a backward glance.

I don’t judge him for that at all. I’ve had my share of meaningless sex with men and women. If I’m honest, I’ve probably had three people’s share. But I also like relationships. I like knowing someone for longer than twenty minutes. And I likethisman. I want to learn more about him. Unpeeling his layers is proving to be a surprisingly entertaining exercise, and since I’d like to keep doing it, I’m not going to let him use sex to keep my interest at bay.

He’s watching me, his clever eyes busy behind those sexy frames. Even though I want him fiercely, and even now my cock is twitching and filling, I give him a sunny smile and offer him my plate. “More toast?” I say like the vicar at a tea party.

He cocks his head to one side, his eyes alight with curiosity. Then he adjusts his frames, and we go back to watching Bob Ross paint another masterpiece.

BEE

It’s lovely to sit with Tom in the quiet, sunlit apartment, but the others have begun moving around in their rooms, getting ready to interrupt us. I twiddle a lock of my hair, feeling unaccountably nervous. Tom’s eyes are bright when I meet his gaze, and he gives me a crooked smile that charms me—so much that when Jack and Steven’s door opens, I’m prepared to shove them back into their bedroom.

Instead, I smile. “Morning. Sleep well?”

This holiday is turning me into something from a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel.

Steven huffs. “Apart from Jack’s insistence on sleeping with the window open, I suppose it was fine.”

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