Page 100 of Last Night

‘Are you in a mood with me?’ I say, from under a halo of blood-red fluff, after the fifth or sixth failure of an observation to spark conversation.

‘No.’

‘You’re very quiet?’

‘Maybe, all things considered today, I’m not feeling noisy.’

‘All things considered today?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Eve, of all the things I could mean today. I wonder?’

‘TowelGate?!’ I say.

Finlay glowers at me.

‘That’s hardly worth sulking over!’ I say.

He really cares about that? He was a model, aren’t they always waving it at anyone and everyone?

‘I’m not sulking, I’m just not in an high-spirited, chatty mood. If you had flashed me this morning, how would you feel?’

‘Er …’ I pause. ‘Embarrassed, I guess … but I’d—’

‘There you go. Embarrassed.’

‘OK. I didn’t think you’d be embarrassed.’

‘Of course you didn’t, because you don’t think I have normal emotions.’

‘I do,’ I frown.

‘You don’t. You think I’m some sort of cyborg war machine, sent from the past to attack my sister.’

‘Is that a reference toTerminator?’

‘Obviously.’

‘He was sent from the future. He was naked when he arrived though so …’

I grin and Fin slow-claps, with his leather-gloved hands.

‘Thanks.’

‘But why would you care?’

‘I’m SHY,’ Fin exclaims, ‘I’m a shy person, OK? About a lot of things. Why is that difficult for you to grasp?’

‘I didn’t realise.’

‘Evidently.’

Am I not allowed to be shy too, given last night featured a reasonably clear rejection of a fairly obvious advance?

‘Let’s talk about embarrassment, shall we,’ I say, about to vindicate but also embarrass myself, but needs must, can’t make an omelette without breaking an egg: ‘You’re acting like this is such a big deal, I didn’t even see your nob, not so much as stray pubic area …’

I pause as the question about whether I said that too loud is answered by a couple of bundled-up passersby, who are boggling. Fin is studying the middle distance in a silently furious way.

‘I saw, like, two inches of your very important VIP hip—’

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