One Night: Denied Read Free Page A

control, as opposed to Del’s heavy-handed massacre. ‘Done,’ he declares calmly, no sweat and no heavy breathing, which belies his overweight frame.
    Looking down at the stopwatch, I mentally smile. ‘Six seconds.’
    ‘Get out of town!’ Del shouts, marching over to me and snatching the watch from my hand. ‘You must’ve cocked up.’
    ‘I did not!’ I actually laugh. ‘And, anyway, Paul sliced, you hacked.’
    He gasps and Paul laughs with me, giving me an endearing wink. ‘So now I have the pepper, the onion, the lettuce and the cucumber.’ He takes a marker pen and puts a big tick through a basic picture of a cucumber on the wall.
    ‘Bullshit,’ Del grumbles. ‘If it wasn’t for the Tuna Crunch, you’d be history, buster.’ Del’s moodiness only increases our laughter, both of us chuckling as our boss stomps off. ‘Clean up!’ he shouts back to us.
    ‘Boys,’ I muse.
    Paul smiles fondly. ‘It’s good to see some spirit, darling.’ He gives me an affectionate rub of the arm, not making too big a deal of it, before strolling off and shaking a pan of something on the stove. Watching him whistle happily to himself, I realise my earlier bubbling anger has completely subsided. Distraction. I need distraction.
     
    It’s the longest afternoon ever, which isn’t a good sign of things to come. I’m left to lock up the bistro with Paul, Sylvie having got off early to get to her local boozer to nab a front-row seat in time for her favourite band that’s playing tonight. She nagged me for a solid half-hour, trying to entice me to go, but by the sounds of things, the band is in the heavy metal genre, and my head is banging enough already.
    Paul gives my shoulder another friendly rub, the big man clearly uncomfortable with emotional women, before he heads off towards the Tube, leaving me to go in the other direction.
    ‘Baby girl!’ Gregory’s worried call hits me from behind, and I turn to see him jogging towards me in his combats and T-shirt, looking all muddy and grubby.
    ‘Hey.’ I fight against my body’s desire to fold in on itself at the prospect of another pep talk.
    He catches me up and we start strolling to the bus stop together. ‘I’ve tried calling you a million times, Livy,’ he says, worried but annoyed.
    ‘My phone’s kaput.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter. You okay?’
    ‘No, I’m not.’ He scowls down at me. ‘I’m worried about you.’
    ‘Don’t be,’ I mutter, not giving anything else away. Just like Sylvie, he knows nothing of male escorts and hotel rooms, and he doesn’t need to. My best friend already hates Miller enough. There’s really no need to give him more ammunition. ‘I’m fine.’
    ‘Cocksucker!’ he spits.
    I don’t humour him and instead change the subject. ‘Have you spoken to Benjamin yet?’
    Gregory takes a long, weary breath. ‘Briefly. He took one of my calls to tell me to stay away. Your cocksucking coffee-hater has put the fear of God in him.’
    ‘Well, whose fault is that? You said you wouldn’t let anything happen to me that night, but when I needed you, you’d skulked off with Benjamin.’
    ‘I know,’ he mutters. ‘I wasn’t thinking, was I?’
    ‘No, you weren’t,’ I confirm, mentally scolding myself for my cheek.
    ‘And now Ben’s closed off from me completely,’ he says.
    I look up to Gregory and see a hurt I don’t like. He’s falling for a man who’s pretending to be someone he’s not . . . a bit like Miller. Or was he pretending the whole time he was with me? ‘Completely?’ I ask. ‘No contact?’
    Gregory sighs deeply. ‘He took a woman home that Saturday night and took great delight in telling me so.’
    ‘Oh,’ I breathe. ‘You never mentioned it before.’
    He shrugs, playing it easy. ‘Kinda bruised my ego,’ he says, his forced indifferent expression turning to mine. ‘You look a little red-faced.’
    Still? ‘I went to the gym this morning.’ I reach up and feel my brow. I’ve