Page 8 of Outlier
“Why arewe in another one of your swanky places?” I grumbled, and Felix rolled his eyes.
“Mike, this is hardlyswanky.”
My eyebrows went up. “Maybe not by your standards, but you don’t get bloody foliage on the tables at greasy spoons.” I prodded the plant in front of me. “Certainly not real stuff, anyway.”
“This area is not exactly teeming with greasy spoons, Mike. And there’s nothing you could get at one of those that you can’t order here.”
“Ha, right. They’ll bring me some thick-cut bacon and eggs swimming in grease with black pudding and beans on the side, will they?”
Felix wrinkled his nose at the mention of black pudding. “Your coronary arteries will thank you, Mike.”
I snorted. “And what the fuck is acai? Oh my God, is this their version of a cooked breakfast? Almond dukkah? Are we the girls fromSex and the Cityall of a sudden? Fucking brunch. God. Oh,here’s the Duke of Fuckingham. You two can get excited about your acai together now.”
Ollie was on the phone as he walked over to our table with an intent expression on his face. He jerked his chin at both of us as he sat down but didn’t hang up the call. Assuming he was doing his normalVery Important Businessthings, I looked back at the menu, but my head jerked back up when I heard her name.
“Isn’t there anything on the menu that Vics would consider?” he asked and then sighed at whatever was said in response. “Have you tried the café around the corner?” He paused. “But could you get them to make it up without the packaging? Maybe bring the Tupperware she likes to put it in, so she wouldn’t have to touch the paper?” He paused again for a moment, his head dropping forward as his frown deepened. His voice dropped so low that I had to strain to hear the next sentence. “She’s lost way too much weight, Lottie. Maybe you could try to ask her again today. If we knew the trigger, we could work on sorting her out. Tread carefully, okay.”
He paused, then his frown cleared as he smiled hisLottie smile. It was the sappiest, most pathetic expression I’d seen on my friend’s face, ever.
Lottie had turned the Duke of Fuckingham into a giant teddy bear. He would do anything for her and her little sister.
“Okay, darling,” he muttered and then rolled his eyes at me when I made a gagging gesture. “Gotta go. I’ve arrived at the restaurant, and Mike’s being Mike.” He paused and smiled that smile again. “Yeah, I’d like that, baby.” His voice was lowered, and it was my turn to roll my eyes when he finally hung up the phone.
“Gross,” I groaned. “Do we have to listen to you ear-fucking your girlfriend every time we go out now? Honestly, I think I just threw up in my mouth. Go home and bang her already if you can’t get through one meal without hearing her voice.”
“At least I’vegotsomeone to ear-fuck, you wanker,” Ollie muttered.
Felix chuckled but managed to choke it down when I shot him a dark look—from the moment he started shagging my sister, he wasn’t allowed to piss me off. He’d used up his pissing-me-off quota for the next decade, and the bastard knew it.
I gritted my teeth. Since my two best friends had gone all sappy, these meet-ups had become annoying. The bastards had started encouraging me tofind someone,which just pissed me off even more. Of course, I wanted to find someone. Did they think I was happy holed up on my own in Little Buckingham? Did they think I appreciated the smug tone they used when they told me to stop shagging about and settle down? It wasn’t as easy as that.
Yes, okay, the new barmaid at The Badger’s Sett had made it clear she was up for it, and she was undeniably hot, but for the last few months I just didn’t feel like flirting with women in general. I certainly didn’t want to take them to bed. The only woman I saw when I closed my eyes was the last one I would ever consider.
I was stuck.
Just briefly, a vision of her hand shaking as she pushed her hair behind her ear that day swam into my brain. Her shaking hand and her slight stutter had been haunting me ever since. They were both so completely incongruous with the cool, emotionless woman I knew her to be that I just couldn’t reconcile the two. Every time I thought about either, my chest would feel too tight, almost as if I couldn’t breathe.
When I wasn’t thinking about Dream Vicky, I was re-running the harsh words I’d said to real Vicky that day at her house, over and over again. Okay, so she’d pissed me off, but did I need to be that much of a prick about it?
When I thought I was dealing with the classic ice princess who just wanted to use me like a piece of meat, it hadn’t seemed that bad. But that barest hint of vulnerability she’d displayed had me questioning everything.
“You making poor Lottie run around after that sister of yours again?” I asked, forcing my voice to casual indifference.
She’s lost way too much weight.
That chest tightness was back again, and I frowned. Was Vicky on some sort of stupid rich-girl diet? I knew those types were prone to it—too wrapped up in their appearances to care about putting their health at risk by starving themselves. Christ, Vicky wouldn’t actually starve herself, would she? I remembered a girl at school with anorexia who nearly died when I was a teenager. I looked up at Ollie because the fucker was taking too long to answer. He was staring at me with a frown on his face.
“Lottie doesn’t ‘run round after Vicky’,” he said with an edge to his voice.
He’d always been protective of Vicky, even when we were kids. I hardly ever saw her back then, but the handful of times she did come to Mum’s cottage, she didn’t deign to speak to any of us. She’d barely even look at my little sister, who was a similar age, which just pissed me off, and she turned her nose up at my mum’s cooking, which was the final straw in my young mind. For some reason Mum had to make her special sandwiches instead, adding to her already heavy workload by having to cater for yet another rich, entitled brat.
Ollie had always been cagey about her. When I’d asked him why she was such a snob, he just told me she was “a bit different” and wouldn’t offer any further explanation. As I barely ever had contact with her anyway, I never brought it up again. I hadn’t even seen her for over a decade until she and Felix threw my sister out of their office last year.
I snorted. “She’s Vicky’s assistant. Isn’t that sort of the point?”
Ollie narrowed his eyes at me. “Lottie is Vicky’sexecutiveassistant, you dickhead. Not some sort of office gopher. Vicky needs Lottie for high-level stuff. Lottie’s invaluable with her ability to read people. Vics, well she… let’s just say reading people is not one of her strengths.”
“If Lottie’s sohigh-level,then why is she chasing around trying to get your sister the perfect lunch?”
