‘I’d have gone for it and pulled each one off really slowly,’ said Bel, her eyes gleaming with mischievous malice.
‘Where do you find these men?’ I asked, laughing as Shelley took her disgust out on her ice cubes, poking at them with her straw.
‘There’s a special store with my name on it, Shelley Hilton Louses R Us, and they run the production line just for little ole me.’
‘Aw hon.’ I laid a hand on hers and gave it a quick squeeze. ‘That’s not true.’
‘You’ll find someone nice, one day,’ said Bel, with the comfortable conviction of someone who’d been shacked up with their man for eighteen months, three weeks and five days.
Shelley caught my eye and winked. ‘Who says I want nice? That’s my problem; I love a bad boy.’
Bel shook her head. Her boyfriend Dan had written the book on nice.
‘And,’ added Shelley, with a wry smile, ‘apparently I’m too indiscriminate. That’s what Mum says.’
I shook my head, loyalty coming to the fore rather than honesty.
Shelley laughed. ‘Come on, you know she’s right. You never have these problems.’
‘I never have any dates,’ I put in.
‘Because you always say no to everyone.’ Bel nudged me with her elbow.
‘You’re too discriminating,’ said Shelley rather proud of her clever observation. ‘A little bird told me that you got on rather well with a certain Mr Hottie from next door at Mum and Dad’s barbecue.’
I schooled my face into complete equanimity and shrugged.
‘Don’t give me that butter-wouldn’t-melt look.’ Shelley pulled a face. ‘Mum said Mr Hottie was taking a lot of interest. Sorry I ducked out on you. If I’d known what a complete and utter lard-arse of a bastarding bastard Sean would turn out to be, I’d have stayed home.’
‘It wouldn’t have done you any good. Mr Hottie is well and truly taken. Sadly.’ I pulled a jokey face of disappointment, which hid the raw hit of regret that punched me. ‘Although, funnily enough, I saw him yesterday.’ Both Shelley and Bel perked up and sat up in their seats, like a pair of cartoon villains smelling the scent of prey.
‘At the parkrun.’
‘Oh, bad luck.’ Shelley winced. Exercise was a dirty word where she was concerned. ‘That sucks. I bet you were all sweaty, weren’t you? Not a good look. That’s a nightmare.’
I gave a half-laugh. ‘Not really, when he has a girlfriend and he’s not interested.’ Despite all my good intentions, I couldn’t help the slight droop to my mouth which of course my eagle-eyed cousin spotted.
‘You like.’
I shrugged. ‘He’s very…’ utterly delicious, ‘nice, but like I said, he has a girlfriend.’
‘Ah, that’s a bloody shame.’ Shelley waved her gin glass in the air before halting suddenly, ‘Is it a serious, serious girlfriend? Do you know that? I mean, are they living together?’
‘Shelley!’ I warned.
‘What? All’s fair in love and war.’ She shrugged with a mutinous roll of her eyes. ‘Come on.’
Bel caught my eye. She understood. ‘No, it isn’t,’ I said quietly.
‘They’re not married,’ protested Shelley snatching up her drink. ‘They got kids?’
‘Neither, as far as I know, but it’s nothing to do with me because I’m not going there. As far as I’m concerned, he’s out of bounds.’
‘But you like him.’
‘It doesn’t matter if I like him. It’s wrong.’
Shelley scrutinised me in an over-obvious way before saying, ‘I’ve never known you even to “like” someone.’
I tried to play nonchalant. ‘He’s a nice guy. And this is a long-term girlfriend. It is serious.’ I knew that because I’d been doing a little investigation. ‘They’ve been going out for years.’
‘Aw, that’s a shame,’ said Bel in her soft voice, cottoning on straightaway ‘But you don’t want to get caught up with him. It’s so easy to start a flirtation and get carried away.’
Bel’s words stilled me, although I probably wouldn’t have confessed what I’d been doing since Saturday. I nibbled at my lip. It wasn’t as if I was doing any harm, was I? But I still felt a little grubby about it.
Facebook is the modern-day Pandora’s box. I kind of regretted clicking that Confirm Friends button. I couldn’t resist and it had done me no favours. I’d spent a good hour trawling through Sam’s posts, like an intrusive truffle hound sniffing out everything I could find out about him, including his surname, Weaverham … and her.
Every picture of him made me feel slightly gooey in the middle, but at the same time, I felt a touch guilty and voyeuristic, especially now I knew his girlfriend’s name and what she looked like. And then I’d made the fatal mistake of moving onto Instagram to check her out. Big mistake – to quote Pretty Woman – huge. Victoria Langley-Jones was an Instagram influencer with her own vlog and half a million followers. Eek! I’d half hoped she’d be sort of ordinary – not that I’m exactly anything in the looks stakes – but she was flipping gorgeous. Long, long dark hair with a slight curl in it, with a tall, shapely figure that went in and out according to enviable proportions and the sort of legs that looked perfect in the high ankle-strap sandals she seemed to favour.
Immaculately groomed, she had that slightly high-cheeked pouty expression reminiscent of a more approachable Victoria Beckham. I also discovered – from her many posts and a couple of sneaky peeps at her vlogs – that she came from quite a wealthy background; her pictures showed that she drove a Mercedes convertible, shopped at Harvey Nicks and Selfridges, loved oysters and champagne … and Sam. Really loved Sam. On her vlog she had features on shopping, dining and general opinion pieces which included: this season’s ten best little black dresses, tux shopping with your man (and yes, Sam looked exceptionally handsome in black tie at some fancy tailor’s in Jermyn Street), Marks and Spencer bra fittings versus Rigby and Peller, a parade of fashion faux pas at Ascot and what the best-dressed wore to a county cricket match.
‘Why is it all the good ones are taken?’ asked Shelley plaintively, bringing me back to the little pub terrace with a welcome bump. I knew Bel must have been shooting vicious behave-yourself looks at her while I’d been daydreaming.
All my Facebook spying had revealed was that Victoria wasn’t the sort of person I’d be friends with in a million years. And why was I even thinking like that? She was Sam’s sort of girl.
‘I mean, it’s not like…’ Shelley was off and, much as I loved my cousin, dear Shels could pontificate on the tragedy that all her friends had snaffled the best blokes and there were none left. Not single ones anyway.
When she finally came to the end of her diatribe and lurched away to the toilet, taking Bel with her, I picked up my phone and took an illicit shufty at Facebook, knowing I really shouldn’t. Sam had posted a picture of himself, looking particularly handsome in cricket clothes. Who knew? Even with the funny pads on his legs and leaning one-handed on his bat, the sight of him set a few butterflies fluttering low in my stomach. Above the picture the caption read, ‘Another century today – looks like I’ll be getting a jug in.’