She loses all fight before my eyes and deflates. “You actually think Beau will accept my offer to be pampered all day? Have you ever met such an ungirly woman in your life?”
“True. But I have every faith in you.” I slam a kiss on her lips. “Make it work,” I say, nipping her lips.
“Yeah, yeah. What about Daniel?”
“He’s out for the day with Tank and Barney.”
She laughs. “Fucking hell, you really are desperate.”
“Rose,” I warn.
“Wait. Lennox agreed to let Barney hang out with Daniel? Even after the newspaper article?” Her eyes narrow. “What did you do to convince him, Danny?”
I smile on the inside. “I was as nice as pie.”
She snorts. “A British flavored pie?”
I don’t want to talk about Lennox Benson. I saw the way he looked at my wife. So I get up, ignoring her, and look down my front. My cock is jutting out. Gluttonous. I peek up at Rose, my eyebrow high.
“I have a spa day to get ready for and a few friends to convince to come with me.” She gets up and saunters off, leaving me with a raging erection. She stops when she gets to the door, looking back. Her playfulness has vanished.
“I’ll be careful,” I say before she can demand it.
A nod, a swallow, and she disappears into the bathroom.
By the time Brad, James, and I make it Hiatus, it’s past noon, a good thing because I could do with a drink. We enter from the back, and I wave to Mason who has a Scotch on the bar for me where Goldie, Otto, Nolan, and Ringo are lined up.
Mason doesn’t only have a Scotch for me, he has one for Brad too. And a vodka for James, who physically heaves and turns away from it. I smile as I take a sip. I should have sent him to the spa with the girls, because he doesn’t look like he’ll be of much use to us.
I take a stool and drag it away from the bar so I’m in front of the others. “What’s up?” I ask, detecting a bit of tension.
“Tell them,” Ringo says, his big, suited arms folded over his chest, his eyes on Nolan.
I look at Nolan.
“A cop staking out over the road,” he tells me. “She was there when I left last night and here this morning at seven when I took a delivery.”
Collins. James leaves us and walks to the entrance of the club, disappearing for a few moments before coming back, shaking his head. “The cameras?” he asks Otto.
“She left at ten.”
“She probably needed her morning poo,” Ringo mutters, and we all turn half amused half questioning looks onto him. “What?” he asks. “Women are like clockwork, aren’t they? Same time every morning?”
“And men aren’t?” Goldie looks at Ringo like he’s another species. I’m beginning to think he is.
“No, men shit in the evening.”
I laugh, looking at the others, hoping I’m not alone. They’re all looking at Ringo with expressions that basically say what the fuck? “You shit in the evening?” Otto asks him.
“Yeah, I shit in the evening. Don’t you?”
“No, I shit in the morning.”
“I shit every three days,” Nolan says, thoughtful. “Could be morning or evening. It’s a bit inconvenient, to be honest.” He looks at Goldie. “When do you shit?”
She gets up and walks away, increasing my laughter. She only wants to be a part of the gang when it suits her.
“Well shit,” Ringo sighs. “I always thought it was a man-woman thing.”
“What the fuck made you think that?” Brad asks him.
“When I was a kid, all my mates had a shit when they got home from school. Stanley, my best pal, he had a sister, and he told me she shat in the mornings, as did all her friends. So, yeah, men shit in the evenings, and women shit in the mornings. It’s because women are organized, you see. They think ahead. It starts when they’re girls. They don’t want to be shitting in the school toilets because they’re fucking grim. Boys don’t have that foresight. We would dash home from school to shit. Obviously, there were the odd few who got caught short and were forced to shit in the school toilets, hence they were grim.”
I look at Ringo, my mouth hanging open, as he shows the ceiling his palms. “You’ve thought way too much about shitting, Ringo.”
“That may be so, but apparently it’s been a waste.” He looks at Nolan. “Are you sure you only shit every three days?”
“Yeah.”
“You know what that means, don’t you?” I say, toasting Nolan’s shitting habits.
He looks worried. “What does it mean?”
“It means that more often than not, you’re full of shit.”
Everyone laughs, including James and Brad, which is an achievement on my part. “Anything on John Theodore Little?” I ask Otto, getting a shake of his head. “What about Higham?”
“Len’s bringing him here.”
I nod. Good. Let’s hear what he has to say about his coffee dates with the journalist. “I’ve heard from Amber.”
Not surprisingly, Ringo’s and Otto’s ear prick up, and I’m sure Goldie’s have too. I can’t see her to know. “Does she want to get back together?” Ringo asks.
I smile. Rose wouldn’t. She’d kill. “She mentioned a teddy bear.”
“Oh really?” Otto twiddles his beard, and Ringo’s lips straighten into a grim line.
“Really. I’m meeting her at the house at three.”
“Is that wise?”
Probably not. “All the girls are out for a pamper day.”
“Not true,” Ringo nods to Goldie, who gets herself back on the stool next to him, her lip curled in disgust. “Since you find me so repulsive,” he goes on, “why don’t you join the girls for a pamper day?”
“Why don’t you,” she retorts, looking down at her watch, “have a colonic, since you’re so full of shit too. It’s nearly time to evacuate.”
“Enough,” I say, smiling around the rim of my glass.
“I’ve got something,” Nolan says, raising his hand. “I need to replace one of the girls.”
Oh? I lower my glass, not liking his shifty persona.
“Which one?” Brad asks.
Nolan looks away, muttering something. “The one we found in the office with him,” James says, and Brad curses.
“Oh dear.” I give Brad a look that says, you hired him, you deal with it. “Did she get a bit of a handful?”
Nolan breathes out, his cheeks ballooning. “She’s got a bit attached, yes.”
I laugh. “And what lesson have we learned today, students?”
Nolan rolls his eyes and trudges off, and I ignore the looks of utter disbelief coming at me from everyone else. They can fuck off. Rose is different. Nolan stops and looks back. “Hey, what about those two girls you picked up?” He clicks his fingers constantly, thinking. “Pearl and Anya.”
My eyes automatically go to Brad, my lips pressed together around the rim of my glass. He seems to have frozen in place. Did he hear? I can’t be sure; he looks a bit vacant. So just in case . . . “He said—”