Amy can’t hide her disappointment as I suggest we cab it home for the rest of the evening. It surprises me when she takes my hand and implores we stay out awhile. Suggests we live a little.
I’m happy to indulge her.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been out amidst the general populous on a Saturday night. There’s a thrum in the air as we step into a busy little tavern just down the road from the venue.
Amy orders a wine as I contemplate my options.
I should go for a mineral water, but she squeezes my arm before I can.
“Live a little, right?” she calls over the humdrum, and she’s right.
I really should live a little.
So I do. I order the finest whisky they have, then trail happily behind my sparkling Amy as she leads us to an empty table in the corner.
The humdrum pales for me the moment she disappears to the bathroom. Tonight isn’t about London, or having a few drinks in spite of my own self-imposed abstinence. It’s not even about our private performance from the world’s greatest band.
Tonight is all about her and this insane connection we share.
The insane connection that has me hoping I can navigate this terrible fucking mess of my life and come out the other side unscathed.
With her.
I want to come out the other side with her.
I tell her so when she returns. My voice is just a ghost in her ear. The hand I’ve placed against her spine registers her intake of breath when I say the words.
“Come away with me.”
“Come away with you where?”
“Wherever I have to go,” I answer, and her eyes flash with fear.
I really shouldn’t have said anything. That’s champagne and whisky for you.
“Where will you have to go?!”
I shrug. “Out of the city, certainly. Out of the country, maybe.”
“What about your boys?”
My gut twists. “My boys have a new life now. A better life.” I take a breath. “I’ll be at the end of the phone whenever they need me. I’ll arrange transport whenever they want to come.”
Her stare is uncertain. “You want me to come with you? Like… with you? Is this…”
“You know what this is,” I tell her. “Unless I’m very, very much mistaken, we both do.”
She shakes her head. “You’re not. I’m just… surprised…”
“You’re surprised?”
“Yeah. I just… I thought I must just be a… because you pay me and I don’t…”
I kiss her temple. “I’ve paid for a lot of sex in the past few years, but I can assure this is the first time I’ve ever paid half a million to take a girl to see her favourite band.”
She doesn’t have any words, just the hugest blue eyes. And I laugh.
It feels so fucking good to laugh.
She laughs too. She laughs the delicious kind of laugh of someone high on life.
“Just as well we have the same favourite band,” she says. Her eyes sparkle as the laughter fades, and her hand snakes up my thigh under the table. “Let’s finish the night with a bang,” she whispers. “It’s a night for favourites, right? How about we look for another?”
“Another what?”
“Another fantasy to fulfil,” she tells me, and my cock twitches.
I know what she’s angling for. I know exactly what filthy thoughts are flitting behind those innocent eyes.
I know full well the meaning of the fucking pang in my gut, too.
Maybe it won’t feel the same with her there.
Maybe she will really make it… different.
“You want me to fuck another man?” My voice is just breath in her ear, but she shudders.
“Yes,” she whispers. “Please… if that’s what you… if you want to as well…”
I hate how much I want to, but that’s nothing new.
“I could make some calls,” I tell her. “Maybe Claude can hook me up at short notice.”
Her eyes sparkle. “Or I could go and have a word with the guy who’s been staring at you from the bar for the last twenty minutes straight.”
I scan the crowd, suddenly well aware that I’ve been totally oblivious to every other person in this building. And there he is.
He’s young. Way too fucking young.
Short cropped hair and piercing eyes. Casual, but not too casual. Jeans and a shirt.
He doesn’t look away when I meet his eyes.
“You like him?” I ask her and she nods.
“He’s cute, right?”
“Cute for me or cute for you?”
She squeezes my thigh. “You’re the only man I’m interested in.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
She nods. “That’s so.”
I hold the guy’s stare until he looks away with a smile. Yeah, he’s fucking up for it.
“He’s young,” I say.
“Legal though. I saw them take his ID at the bar.”
She’s an observant little minx. Law school really would suit her well.
“You want me to go ask him?” She’s smiling, squirming in her seat, and this is a whole new side of her, one that makes my balls fucking tighten.