Page 76 of Two Wrongs
‘He wasn’t being nice. Seriously, he looked like he’d eat her, if you know what I mean.’
‘So he’s bi, then?’ Nat pipes up, excitedly.
‘Hush!’ Fin responds, unable to conceal her laughter.
‘Bi. Fancy that.’ Nat’s eyes all but glaze over with smutty daydreams before she comes back to us. ‘No, really, I fancy that. You’d still need to make them wear name tags, though.’
‘Yeah, like I have any intention of a threesome with the man I love’s brother.’
‘Why not? I would. Though I’d still need some way to tell them apart.’
‘It’s easy,’ Fin responds, ignoring my rolling eyes—hard rolling eyes—and cheesed off tone. ‘Roryisthe more handsome of the two.’
This time, we turn to examine the brothers simultaneously.
‘They look the bloody same,’ grumbles Nat.
‘Well, I suppose,’ Fin replies airily, ‘you could just ask them to take off their shirts.’
‘Now, you’re just teasing.’ Nat pauses for a beat before asking, ‘So Kit has no ink at all?’
‘I guess you’d have to find that out for yourself.’
‘Mute.’ At my interjection, both women turn to me in confusion. But I can feel my cheeks physically reddening, my concern for nearby flapping ear-lugs real. ‘What? It’s amute point,because he doesn’t have enough facial fuzz for her.’
‘Moot, y’bampot.’ Nat shakes her head just as Kit’s deep baritone rings across the room.
‘Ladies and gentlemen.’
‘Ladies, gentlemen,andNatasha.’ I cackle. Just a little. And quietly.
‘Shut it, tubby,’ Nat whisper-hisses over me.
My giggling instantaneously halts, morphing into a sharp intake of breath.
‘You... you absolute cow!’ As well as crying so much I no longer perspire, hormones have induced what Nat calls mytemper coaster.Apparently,mood swingdoesn’t cover my ups and downs, which can be so fast and fleeting, she’s likened my state of mind to a roller coaster ride.Yes, a ride.
‘Ooooh! Better not let June hear you swearing,’ crows Nat. It’s okay to say cock in her granny’s earshot, but heaven forbid anyone utter the most terrible of Scottish female insults. Shock—horror—I called her a cow!
‘I asked you if I looked like a pig at a festival in this dress—a fat pig with flowers in my hair—and you said no!’
I almost didn’t come today; I couldn’t find anything to wear and had a mini breakdown at the thought of buying maternity clothes. Big knickers are one thing but tents? Then I’d remembered this dress; hanging on the back of my bedroom door, covered by all the stuff I don’t have hanging space for. It’s a bit tooCoachella—Bardot shoulders, shortish, swishy, and white with embroidered flowers—but I thought it’d do. And in for a penny, in for a pound, I’d gone the whole hog and woven a few meadow flowers from the gardens into my heavy braid. ‘Call yourself a friend?’
‘I do. And you’re not fat. You’re pregnant,’ Nat retorts.
‘Like I need a reminder because I’m having areallygood time sipping on orange juice while you’re on the wine.’
‘Face the facts, Ivy; there comes a time in a girl’s life when only big knickers will do.’
My knickers are a little bigger, granted, but it’s not like they come up to my boobs!
‘I’ll give you big knickers,’ I spit back. ‘Next time you ask me to colour your hair, I’m stripping it back to ginger!’
‘For the love of—will you two justshut the eff up? I’m trying to listen,’ says a clearly exasperated Fin.
‘What for?’ we both ask at once.
‘Because some of us aren’t here for the free bubbles’—Fin looks at Nat pointedly—‘or canapes.’
