‘Say.’
‘Oh, that hurts.’
‘No.’
‘I will! I did. I tried to.’
Another voice added to our fraught debate.
‘Is everything all right here?’
A middle-aged man in a blue uniform stood by the lift door.
I shot up and rubbed my bottom, hiding behind Dan.
‘Fine,’ he said.
‘You realise these premises are monitored by CCTV?’
‘Oh … no. We didn’t.’
‘So I gather. Perhaps you should go home, eh? These things are best kept private.’ He gave Dan a mortifying little wink.
Even worse, while this conversation was ongoing, one of Dan’s friends appeared, jingling his car keys.
‘You all right, Danno?’ he asked, looking after the concierge as he lumbered back off to his secret den of cameras.
‘Yeah, just found out Twinkletoes here is over the limit. Going to have to call a cab and pick the car up tomorrow.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ I hissed.
He always called me that in front of his friends. It drove me mad.
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ offered the friend. I think his name was Patrick. ‘Sears Corner, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. Would you?’
‘It’s on my way.’
‘You’re a star, mate. C’mon, Twink. Let’s make the best of a bad situation.’
I sat in the back seat, feeling the burn from the spanking, while Dan went in the front, beside his friend.
‘Designated driver forgot her designation, eh?’ said Patrick jovially, reversing out of the space.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ I muttered.
‘So what did the attendant guy want?’
‘Oh, nothing, just wondered why we were hanging around in the car park without getting into the car.’
‘Really?’ Patrick left a question mark in the air, as if he knew more.
‘What, do you think I’m lying?’ Dan sounded slightly aggressive, the beers returning in full effect.
‘Blimey, Dan, you sound like one of our suspects. I was just wondering if you realised that there’s a live stream to the car-park CCTV on Jim’s laptop.’
I saw Dan’s shoulders tense and I bit my lip, not daring to react. Had we been seen?