Page 64 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“You’re a little shit,” I tell his younger brother.
“The fucking disrespect!” He shakes his head, loving every minute of this. “Our future king—tripping balls on acid. That’s gotta be a first, ain’t it? Like, in all of history?”
I shrug. “Probably.”
Carter points to his brother then nods his chin towards me. “Some people call him a prick, I call him a legend.”
I’m laughing but I’m not sure at what, the fact that after all these years spent in the most prestigious boarding school in Switzerland he’s talking like he’s fresh off the set of Eastenders with a slight French twinge or just how similar he is to my best friend.
Connie fake laughs, his face dropping seconds later. He clips his brother round the back of his head and tells him to fuck off.
“You do know he’s cracking on with your sister, don’t you?” Connie frowns.
I pull a face. “No he ain’t.”
He holds his hands up, “Mums—he fucking is.”
I roll my eyes. “You can’t swear on your mum’s life if she’s dead.”
“Oh my god,” he mutters. “Stepmum’s life, then.”
“No offence, mate, but Ev wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot pole.”
Connie sips his gin and tonic, raises his eyebrows. “I think she would.”
“She’s not, so—”
He nudges me. “Imagine us, brothers?”
“That would never happen.”
“Would I get a title? I well wanna be a Lord.”
“No.”
“Could you make that happen, though?”
“No.”
“For me?”
“Fuck off.”
Connie smiles, sighs, twists around in his chair so he’s facing the crowd. Leans back, rests his arm on the table. “You and Phoebs have another falling out or something?”
I frown, my head spinning around to immediately seek her out. “No. Why would you say that?”
“Because you haven’t spoken more than two words to her. Bit unusual for the both of you.”
I find her, near the table where her parents and Cynthia are sitting. Digby’s got his arm around her shoulder—looks uncomfortable with it. Maybe he’s holding her too tightly? She looks like she’s struggling to breathe? Haven’t spoken to her since that night in Oxford.
Ruined me a bit, that night.
Meant every word, though,
I’ll be waiting for her with open arms in my grave.
Even if seeing her with Digby kills me bit by bit, I’ll still be here. I’m not leaving again. Even if I relapsed, went all the way back there, I wouldn’t leave because I know that’d wreck her more. All Phoebe wants is for me to be here—alive, dead, in love with her, not in love with her, with someone else, sleeping about—she doesn’t care in what capacity. She just wants to be able to find my eyes in a crowd of people she doesn’t know.
