Page 64 of Crazy Spooky Love
“Don’t leave it so long next time,” she practically purrs. I can tell from her tinkle of girlish laughter that she’s had a couple of glasses of my grandmother’s champagne, which is all it takes to relax her defenses; she clearly gets her lightweight drinking genes from her father rather than her mother.
“Should I nip round and see if Melody’s home yet?” Leo asks, and I peel my lips back in an exaggerated cartoon grimace of horror. I can’t even breathe as I stare into the darkness at the end of the alley.
“We’d have heard her come back, I’m sure,” Mother says lightly. “I’ll make sure she gets in touch soon.”
I hear him murmur his good nights and then listen to his receding footsteps with my hand over my banging heart, ready to catch it ifit bursts out of my skin. When I hear the bell over the shop door jingle, I double over and let my breath out in one giant whoosh.
“I didn’t think it was possible to dislike Leo Dark more than I already did.” Fletch’s voice is hollow in the dark alleyway. “I was wrong.”
Chapter
Eighteen
“So how did the dinner party go?” I’m in my mother’s kitchen playing innocent devil’s advocate, if indeed there can be such a thing. Sunlight streams through the open window in front of her by the stove, highlighting her sleek silver hair as if she’s an angel, which she categorically is not. What kind of mother invites her daughter’s ex-boyfriend to dinner and doesn’t think to mention it in advance? She’s meddling, and I’m going to call her onit.
“The paella was an unmitigated success,” she says, placing a big plate of bacon and eggs on the table in front of me. “How was your date?”
I consider how to respond.I lied to you about having a date to get out of your dinner party.I’m fairly sure that would go down like a rancid oyster.I had an unplanned, thoroughly unexpected, filthy-hot date with Fletcher Gunn.And that one would have me wearing my breakfast. “He didn’t turn up,” I say, eventually.
“What?” Oh, she looks furious, but thankfully she’s furious with my imaginary boyfriend rather than me so I’ll take that as a win.
I shrug regretfully as I pick up my knife and fork. “I watched the movie anyway. It was okay.” I’m going straight to hell.
“But you should have come home,” she cries, waving the spatula at me. “You know perfectly well that I could have made room at the table.”
I burn to ask, “Where at the table? Next to Leo?” but I just chew on my bacon and try to make a “shucks, why didn’t I think of that” face.
“Yeah, I should have. Did you have a fun evening?”
She frowns. “Well, yes. A funny thing happened, actually…” She pauses and twists her mouth, the way she does when she’s thinking how to phrase something. “We had a surprise visitor arrive just before we sat down to eat.”
“You did?” I round my eyes and stop chewing, like a Disney princess about to be given vital news.
“Leo called by again.”
“Leo? Leo Dark?” I ask nonchalantly.
She nods. “He came hoping to see you, but he stayed for dinner anyway.”
“So you hadn’t invited him to the dinner party, he just happened to come at the exact moment that you were serving up paella?” I don’t know whether to believe her or not. She sounds convincing, and she looks convincing; but then, I am sitting here lying through my teeth, so what’s to say she isn’t too?
“You know I had an empty seat. He filled it. It was no trouble, but Melody, I really think you should talk to him.”
I frown and then huff a bit. “Wasn’t it only a few days ago that he was still in your bad book for the way he treated me?”
She looks torn and sits down opposite me at the table. “Well, yes, of course, he was. He still is,” she stresses. “It’s just that he’s taken on such a lot of responsibility, you know with the TV, and those girls as well.”
My ears prick up. “The twins?”
She nods. “Did you know that he pays all of their costs to be here—their rent, their food, everything?”
I mull on this for a second. “Yes, because they’re the founding members of his fan club?”
She nods. “He told me they switched their affections to him after Finbar Honeyman took out a restraining order against them. Tricky situation, from what I can gather.”
“Hold up a second.” I frown, thoroughly confused. Finbar Honeyman does a similar job to ours somewhere up near the Scottish border—I’ve come across him occasionally at conventions and events and he’s even more egotistical than Leo, if that’s possible.
“Nikki and Vikki were Honeybunnies before they were Darklings?” I think that might be one of the most bizarre sentences I’ve ever uttered but stay with me. Leo and Finbar Honeyman are self-styled rivals, both on X and in life, so I’m fascinated to hear that the twins switched allegiances from one to the other. Oh, hang on…
