Page 21 of Brat on the Ball

“Tell me, tell me.” Finn bounced on his seat and downed what was left of his pint.

“I left a note for…for Ollie, at the club.”

“Down, boy. Are you trying to stop him from getting some action?”

I put my pint down with a bit more force than I’d meant to, and the beer spilled all over my hand and the bar. “No. I asked them to give him the note on the way out.”

“Ah. So you’re more pissed off that youdidn’tstop him from getting any action. I see. Very caveman.”

“Who are you calling caveman, Lurch?” I challenged. Finn was a Sasquatch if I’d ever seen one.

“Ooh, you wound me. But I’m not the one leaving notes for a guy I fucked in a club once.”

“Shut. Up. And we didn’t…”

“What, fuck? Jesus, George. You’ve got it bad.”

I picked up the dregs of my pint and knocked it back as quickly as I could, indicating to the bartender for another. The music was being turned up slowly with every song, and the dance floor was getting busier.

Callum pulled Rhys onto the dance floor, and I watched as they moved in sync with one another. Callum hadn’t been out when I first met him, and it was amazing to see how comfortable he was in such a short time, dancing with his boyfriend in front of all these people. I thought of Ollie, and the couple of female supermodels he’d been linked with in thePersonal Lifesection of his Wikipedia page. Would he ever want something like this?

I shook my head like I was clearing the thoughts out of it and grabbed my new pint from the bar. He was someone I’d…met. Twice. And I was just fantasising over the allure of him, and the things we hadn’t done yet. Nothing more. If I wanted to fuck a guy from here, I could. And I would. There was plenty of prime Scottish beef here to sample if I wanted to.

“Watch this,” I muttered to Finn. “I can get him off my mind. I can get anyone here.”

I took a swig from my glass and trained my eye on one guy who had just walked through the door. He was skinny, with a nice amount of neatly trimmed brown stubble. His shirt was unbuttoned, revealing an expanse of chest hair. I kept looking until he looked at me, and made his way over.

“Want something from me, handsome?” he asked. I did my best to smile back, but it didn’t come as easily as usual.

“Depends what you’re offering,” I said.

“Buy me a drink and I’ll decide what it’s worth offering.”

“What do you want to drink?” I asked.

“You look like the kind of man who wants to decide for me,” he quipped, one hand coming to rest on my thigh. “So let’s set the tone starting now.”

I gestured for the bartender. “He’ll have a glass of Shiraz,” I said automatically, then wanted to curse myself for asking for that. I had Ollie on the brain. My plan was to get him out of my head, and here I was already fucking up.

I passed the man his wine. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Call me Al,” he said.

“I’m George. You gonna be my long-lost pal?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“I could be your bodyguard…has no one ever made that joke to you before?”

Al’s stern expression cracked, and he laughed. “Every day of my life. Trust me to have a mother who named me a two-letter name. It’s not a shortening. My name is just…Al.”

“Well, it’s cute. And funny,” I said.

“You think?” he batted his eyelashes comically, and I laughed again. That hand on my thigh slid ever further up.

Normally, with a guy like him, in a place like this, I’d have been all over him. I’d already have him on the dance floor, my thumbs under his waistband and touching his arse so he knew who was in charge. We’d both be sporting semis on the dance floor, and a tipsy walk home would have resulted in him being bent over, clutching the headboard and screaming so loud he wouldn’t be able to look his neighbours in the eye for weeks.

But. And it was a big but. It was like I was locked in chastity. That hand on my thigh was doing absolutely nothing. Those lovely caramel brown eyes were just…nice, rather than seductive. I had Ollie Gunnerson on the brain, and I had no idea how to get him out of it.

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