Page 7 of Glitterland
I met his eyes. “No, in bed they call me God.”
He laughed again, the same uninhibited cackle. “Like it,” he said, except he drew out the syllables until the two words were barely recognisable as themselves:lie-kit. “But, seriously, babes, what’s your name? My nan told me not to go wif a geeza what won’t tell you ’is name.”
“You’re going to…go with me?”
“I’m finking abaht it,” he admitted, a trifle coyly for a man negotiating a one-night stand.
And I, of course, had never been coy. “Well, all right. I suppose you can call me Ash.”
He told me his name but I didn’t bother to remember it.
“Come on then, Essex,” I said. “Get your coat. You’ve pulled.”
His grin flashed through the gloom. “I’m already wearing it.”
To my surprise, he reached up his hand, as though he expected me to jump the railing. “I’ll go round,” I said firmly.
“It’s ahwight, babes, I’ll catch you.”
“I’m not going to throw myself off a VIP balcony on the off chance a complete stranger won’t drop me.”
“We could’ve been ’ome, the amanta time you’ve spent talking abaht it.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “Fine.”
I leaned over the railing and took his hand. His nails were painted silver to match his epaulettes. This could only end badly. I scrambled gracelessly over the balcony and onto the speaker, which rocked under the impact of my landing and made me clutch at Essex like an utter fool. His laughter curled against my ear, the heat of his body enfolding me in an embrace. I shuddered. It was awful and lovely at the same time but before I could really begin to deal with the contradictions of my response, he had swung off the speaker and was pulling me down after him.
“There you go, babes. That was ahwight, wunit?”
I was beginning to think he had a vocabulary of about a hundred words, and fifty of them weren’t English. I must have been beyond hammered to be thinking about sleeping with him. Of course, it was possible he didn’t exist, but I doubted even the extremity of my psychosis could have conjured such a man.
He took my hand, actually took my hand, and led me outside.
I cast a glance over my shoulder, looking for Niall out of long habit. Putting aside the possibility Essex was a hallucination, there was always the serial killer option.
“I’m not really from arand ’ere,” he volunteered. No shit. Brighton was the gay capital of England. No one here was from around here. Besides, with the spray tan and the accent, he might as well have been wearing a sticker that readI’m from Essex, ask me how. “I’m staying wif a mate.”
He seemed to know where we were going, at least. We crossed the road and cut through a park, Brighton’s pale Georgian buildings gleaming on all sides.
“You don’t say a lot,” he observed.
“I have nothing to say.”
“Pity, you sahnd well nice.” Oh, that glottal stop. Pih-e.
“You said I sounded like the Queen ten minutes ago.”
“Yeah, but like”—a thoughtful pause—“sexy wif it.”
“Thank you.”
That should have been enough to quell any further exchanges but, somehow, he was still speaking. “I love talking, me. I’ll talk to anyone. I’ll even talk to myself. Oh no, that makes me sound like a right mental.”
“It’s fine.” I chose not to share the fact I actuallywasa right mental.
“I just run on and on. It’s ’ard to get me to shuh up, to be ’onest wif you.”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
