“Me too.” I nuzzle into him. “You taste like E-Cover cleaner wipes.”
“Right. Okay, sweetheart.” He chuckles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. So cute.
“But in this really, really good way.”
“You’re talking like an addict. I should know.”
I grin up at him. “So I think Gwen’s full of shit.”
“What?” He loosens his grip on me a bit. “Come…again, now?”
“Nothing. Why haven’t you cut me?”
Word vomit. I has it. Cocktails make you like a sad cat meme. Who knew?
“Leo, back—back up a minute. What’s up with Gwen?”
“Her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. That arsehole on the phone call we shouldn’t have listened to, but we did, because we’re kind of arseholes as well, aren’t we?”
“What about him?” he presses, frustrated.
“He sounds…” I shrug. “I mean, I didn’t always think she was full of shit. Just since the call. I should clarify that because otherwise, it looks kind of bad.”
“Leo. For fuck’s sake.” He gives me a drunken shake. “Spit it out.”
I wasn’t planning on telling him this. It does make me look bad. And it could be wrong. We have so much in our heads right now that could be wrong. “His voice sounds familiar.”
“The boyfriend’s? W—what do you mean?”
“I don’t know what I mean,” I say forlornly. “I can’t work out who it is.” I listen to the damn thing about three times a day on my iPad, but I can’t…quite…put my finger on it. It’s not somebody close. I’d recognize that.
“Okay.” Aeron rolls his eyes, almost comically slow. “That helps.”
Then I start tapping my index finger on Aeron’s erect nipple, all pebbled through his t-shirt in the cool air. Start giggling to myself again.
I researched Gwen, checked her so many times, indulged my every paranoid whim over each one of the applicants for that job.
“Why won’t you cut me?”
“Leo…Jesus.”
“It’s weird. You’re being weird. I bought one-pieces especially, might as well just do your worst.”
“Shut up.” He runs his hands down to my buttocks and yanks me against himself with blunt force. “I’ve had stuff on…on my mind, is all.”
I talk into his chest. “Like what? Hmm?”
“Like the picture,” he says gruffly. “The second me.”
“You think maybe you have an evil twin? Think of the threesome potential.” I can’t stop this crap pouring out. And I’m trembling. Or he’s trembling. Maybe it’s just the whole room. “Or maybe he’s a creep with a load of plastic surgery. Always wondered what you’d look like, Botoxed up to the eyeballs.”
He exhales into my hair. Warmth spreads across my scalp in ribbons. “You’re never having vodka again. Won’t allow it.”
“You sound funny. I love you.”
Silence. Even the crultures outside must’ve paused to listen.
He says nothing. Can’t bring himself to lie to me, even though we’re both full of slippery truth tonight, and the reality of it is like a knife between my shoulder blades.
“Figures,” I manage, trying to stagger back.
Aeron’s arms are strangely loose around me. They fall like bags of cold meat, and then he’s falling too. Down on to the floor, a heap of skin and clothes and eyes wide open, rolled back, can’t see.
“Aeron?” I croak, trembling harder.
He twists, his fists coming up to his face, and then he begins to jerk and groan. The floorboards beneath him rattle, his low moans alien.
“Aeron! Oh God.” I don’t remember falling, but my knees hit the floor beside him and I hover, hands up, because what the hell am I supposed to do? I can’t even see straight. My brain’s all slow, thoughts are like roots that won’t spring yet, and I don’t know whether to wait with him or go for help, or…
“Over here,” says a voice behind me in a harsh whisper.
I want to turn.
My body won’t turn.
“She didn’t have enough. You’ll have to hit her,” says the voice. “Quick.”
“Harvey…?” I whimper. “Is—is that you?”
Footsteps.