Glorious bullshit.
Nick left the massive Dorchester penthouse with plans to return, Freddie in tow, after their slate of meetings at Clarence House. With Mom and Dad off seeing something deliriously British on the West End, Lacey and I had plenty of time to primp for a night out with the princes. Meaning, I watched the worst TV I could find while Lacey took a bubble bath, and then she shoved a dress and a pair of heels into my hand and told me if I so much as tried to put on flats, wedges, or jeans, she’d throw them off the balcony.
“I mean, those aren’t even skinnies,” she said. “They’re straight leg.”
The dress was undeniably flattering: sleeveless and short with a lightly flared skirt, the plunging V-neck counterbalancing the relatively innocent silhouette, especially after Lacey accessorized it with a delicate lavaliere that rested right between my breasts. She tucked in my bra strap, then stood back to admire her work, rolling her eyes when I futilely tugged the fabric over whatever cleavage I had.
“For someone who has streaked as many places as you have,” she said, undoing what I’d just done, “you are so uptight.”
“I have to be careful,” I said. “It would be just my luck if Nick and I got caught on a night when my boob was hanging out. It’s Murphy’s Law.”
“Well, Murphy is a killjoy,” she grumbled, smoothing her stunning, snug leather mini.
The guys were twenty minutes late. Lacey spent that time wiping off her lipstick and trying different shades, then chucking her entire outfit and going through four other options. She was mid-change when I heard the suite door open and the sound of two male voices.
“Stall!” she whispered.
Freddie let out a low whistle when I walked into the living room.
“Nice legs, Killer!” he said, taking my hand and ogling me exaggeratedly. “I never figured you for a miniskirt kind of girl.”
I blushed. “Lacey is a bad influence.”
“I certainly hope so,” Freddie said.
“You look amazing,” Nick said, then pulled me in to whisper, “I’m dying to know where the pin is. Maybe we should stay in so I can conduct a thorough search.”
Nick made it difficult for me to behave sometimes.
“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked, tearing myself away.
“To Shoreditch, if you lovers can stop manhandling each other,” Freddie said. “This bird I’m sort of seeing wants to have a look at Tony’s new club.”
“Ask her name.” Nick nudged me.
“I don’t know what you find so amusing, Knickers,” Freddie said airily. “Fallopia is a beautiful name.”
I nearly choked. “Fallopia? Where did you meet her?”
Freddie’s lip twitched. “The Tube, of course.”
I burst into laughter. Freddie looked delighted. Even Nick giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Lacey asked, sauntering out from the bedroom doors.
I’d recognized her whole wardrobe-indecision gambit from high school—last one out of the bedroom makes the grandest entrance—and it worked just as she’d clearly imagined. She’d decided on a sleek black halter dress, which managed to seem classy while simultaneously leaving very little to the imagination; if Freddie had been a cartoon, his eyes would have dropped out of his skull and rolled along the floor until they landed at Lacey’s feet, looking up her skirt.
“Nothing is funny,” Freddie said, offering Lacey his arm. “There is absolutely nothing funny about the fact that Bex has selfishly kept a blond goddess to herself all this time.”
“Well, now we’ve fixed that,” Lacey said, never once betraying that she was flirting with a guy whose picture used to be tacked up on her wall, “let’s not waste any more time.”
Nick and I traded amused glances as Freddie escorted her to the elevator.
“I don’t like Fallopia’s chances too much, do you?” I said.
“Hurricane Freddie,” was all he said.
Plush, a pop-up offshoot of the original Club Theme, was not Tony’s best effort. Its fur-covered tables and chairs, damp from perspiration and sticky from spilled drinks, couldn’t be cleaned and were unpleasant to sit on, which may be why so many people opted to dance in the cages suspended from the ceiling. Clive and a very drunk Gaz immediately goaded me and Lacey into the two above the VIP section while they catcalled appreciatively—and, in Gaz’s case, clambered up to join us.
“This is brilliant!” Gaz shouted, jerking into a triumphant pose that had the cage swinging perilously (and Tony flinching).
“Yes, our Garamond is a font of bad ideas,” Cilla cracked from the floor beneath us, loudly enough for Gaz to hear and salute her comically.
“What’s the matter, Clivey, can’t lift yourself in there?” shouted Martin Fitzwilliam, whom Clive referred to as his stupidest brother. “Worried you’ll pull a journalism muscle?”
I saw Clive shake his head. Then he drained his drink and climbed in with me.
“If I can’t beat them, I’ll join you,” he quipped. “And if there’s one thing they’ve proven over the years, it’s that I can’t beat them. I broke a finger once punching Thick Trevor in the chest.”
“I thought Martin was the stupid one,” I said.
“He is,” Clive said. “And Trevor is thick. You’ll understand the difference if you see them together.”
I grinned. “All I know is, Martin must be stupid, or else he’d be the one up in a cage with a girl.”
Lacey always says club dancing looks like a seizure—as with Halloween, she’d rather look cute if she plans to be the center of attention—so she and Gaz started some deliberately exaggerated dirty dancing that eventually morphed into a facetious dance-off against me and Clive. He made a good partner in our pseudo-lambada—even his stupid brother Martin ended up cheering for us—although I did feel a twinge seeing Nick out of the corner of my eye and knowing he and I could never do this, even in jest. Freddie, however, seemed to be considering it. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Lacey’s cage.
“Isn’t she a dynamo,” Bea said to me during a break in our revelry. “What’s next for you two? A trapeze?”
I smiled sweetly. “Can’t,” I said. “I believe it’s currently jammed up your ass.”
“While I fetch it,” Bea said through a matching smile, “you might enjoy the view of Nick with his old flame. Don’t they look cozy?”
I peered around her at Nick, talking to a lithe, fair-skinned blonde who was positively overloaded with jewelry.
“He was devastated when Ceres cheated on him,” Bea continued.
At that moment Nick laughed loudly and put an arm around Ceres’s shoulder. A jealous pit blossomed in my stomach, but I ignored it. Insecurity had never been my style.
“I’m sure he’s just thrilled to hear about the cutting-edge world of party planning,” I said.
“Yes, well, it’s not so avant-garde as greeting-card design, but what is?” smirked Bea, drifting back to them.