Page 58 of Consider Yourself Kissed

Humbled, Coralie and Adam held hands too.

“How did you manage the flight to Australia?” Adam asked.

“Drugged to my fuckin’ gills.”

“Speaking of…” Dan murmured.

Coralie pulled her phone out of her pocket. Well past ten. They’d told Miss Camilla they’d be back no later than eleven. “Oh, we should—”

“I’ve made something lovely and special,” Dan said.

“You’lllovethis,” Barbie said.

Dan went over to the drinks cabinet and returned carrying a silver salver with ten perfect chocolate balls balanced on top. “I’m still experimenting…” he started to say.

The little poodle, who’d been snoozing on a kilim cushion, trembled, arched her back, sprang to her feet, whined, and spun in a circle. “Ah,” Barbie said. “Madonna needs to cut a record. I’ll take her out the back. Don’t wait for me. Come on, luvvie. Come on.” Madonna followed him into the hall. They could hear the bolts on the back door click and slide.

“Dan,” Adam said. “I mean, what a triumph. The meal, the house, the love story. But we still don’t know how you met?”

“He kept coming into the restaurant and asking for the chef’s table. That’s when you sit in the kitchen with me, and I feed you bits and bobs. After a while, I said it might be easier, and cheaper, just to ask me on a date. So he did.”

“You’re a great cook, it must be said.” With a single fluid motion, Adam flipped a chocolate into his mouth.

Daniel started to speak but his words were drowned out by a horrifying cry, a guttural roar of fear and outrage. They all leaped to their feet. “Barbie!” Dan cried.

At the back of the hall, they were confronted by a ghastly sight.Barbie was cradling a shivering Madonna in his arms, blood pouring down his face and even into his eyes from a long, deep scratch on his bald head. “She’s okay,” Barbie said. “She’s okay.”

Daniel burst into tears.

Barbie lowered Madonna to the floor. She put her nose down and ran back toward her kilim. “A fuckin’ fox in the garden. Got the dog in his jaws, right around her neck. I had to prize them open like…” He wildly mimed pulling them apart. “She’s okay, she’s okay, that’s my blood, not hers.”

“Did it bite you? Barbie!” Coralie said. “You’ll get rabies.”

Barbie leaned over with his hands on his knees. “It’s all from my head. The fox ran away, then I stood up and scalped myself on a fuckin’ tree. Jesus Christ. Oh, hey.” Daniel fell into his embrace. “Hey.”

“I’m going to make tea.” Coralie took Adam by the elbow. “Come on, we’ll make the tea.”

“We’ll go upstairs and clean up. Won’t we?” Barbie said gently to Dan, who nodded.

In the kitchen, Adam brought the chocs over to where Coralie was boiling the kettle. He leaned back against the bench and ate another one with a groan of intense pleasure. “Have some,” he said. “Your brother’s amazing.”

Coralie bit into one. It was hard on the outside but soft inside. There was a strange quality to the taste. “Remember when we bought that coffee blend from Climpsons? The weird one?”

“The tasting notes saidvegetal,” Adam said. “It was like drinking the canal.”

“That’s what this tastes like, but in a nice way. Is it bad to have another one?”

“I don’t think so? There were ten, and four of us?”

She popped another choc in her mouth and pushed the silver tray away. “That blood was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in a private home.”

“I never want to hear a scream like that for the rest of my days.”

“I kept trying to see how deep the scalping had been. Was it a flap?”

“It wasn’t aflap,” Adam said. “A flap!” he suddenly operatically sang. “Head wounds bleed like mad. I found that out at school when I walked into a fence.”

Coralie poured hot water over the leaves in the teapot. They made a crinkling sound, then were drowned. Weird, she felt a bit sorry for them. “Poor Barbie’s the injured one, and he’s up there looking after Dan,” she said. “He should be in hospital, getting stitches and a tetanus shot.”

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