The Bad Boy Wants Me(12)

‘This one here is Erika,’ Cora explains. ‘She’s the richest of them all. The rest of the housewives are all secretly jealous of her. They don’t own private planes, but both Erica and her husband each own one.’

The next shot cuts to what seems to be an enormous argument.

‘They’ve got all this money and they’re always fighting about stupid things,’ Cora says disgustedly. ‘Sometimes I just want to shake them and knock their silly heads together.’

I hide a smile at her passion. While the shit is still flying around the screen, the show is over and Cora shakes her head with exasperation and gets up. She goes to the oven and peers through the glass door. Nodding with satisfaction, she opens the door and pulls out a tray of hot scones. Cora has asbestos hands so she peels the scones from the parchment with her bare hands and arranges them on a cooling rack.

From the fridge she fetches the container of clotted cream and puts it on the island table together with a jar of homemade strawberry jam. I have to say, Cora makes the best jam in the world, every spoonful will have at least one chunk of strawberry in it.

I start laying the island surface with two plates, a couple of knives and two spoons. I tear off four pieces of kitchen paper and lay them besides the plates.

Britney, who has been to Mrs. Ottilia Flutie’s finishing school where she has learnt how to eat oranges with a knife and fork, says that there is a very clear etiquette involved in eating a scone. As a matter of fact, there are only two approved ways to eat scones properly.

First you have to cut it horizontally. That then is the last time you can use the knife on the scone. The scone must then be eaten open faced. The jam and the cream added bite by bite, or one half scone at a time. Basically, don’t ever turn it into a damn sandwich.

I spread enough jam and cream on my warm scone to leave long teeth marks and do the one-half-scone-at-a-time thing, and Cora employs the bite-by-bite method. The scones are so good we do not even speak. Mrs. Ottilia Flutie would have a heart attack if she saw me pick up every last crumb with my fingers and suck it off.

‘What are you making tomorrow?’ I ask as I clear the table.

‘Apple pie,’ Cora says, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

I put the dirty plates and utensils into the dishwasher. ‘With custard?’

‘You can have yours with custard if you like, I’ll be having mine with rum and raisin ice cream. Scrummy combination.’

I think about it for an instant. It does actually sound good. ‘I think I’ll join you.’

‘You won’t regret it.’

‘Same time tomorrow?’

‘All right, love.’

As I leave, Cora increases the volume on the TV. I trudge upstairs, open my laptop, and see that Leah is already awake. I Skype her and she answers holding a bowl of cereal in her hand.

‘Hmmm … let me guess? You met the singing sensation.’

‘Yeah,’ I say with a small laugh. She knows me so well.

‘And,’ she prompts.

‘And he kissed me.’

‘On the cheek? On the forehead? On the hand?’

‘On the lips.’

‘Oh sweet Jesus. You fell at the first hurdle.’

‘Well, I didn’t fall exactly. It was just a kiss. I was taken by surprise. It won’t happen again.’

‘Just a kiss? Then why is your face red?’

‘It’s hot here.’

She shakes her head disapprovingly. ‘You know what I think?’

‘What?’

‘I think you should skip all preliminaries and move on to plan B. Get it over with, draw a line in the fucking sand, and then let’s go on our vacay.’

‘No way. I’m not throwing in the towel yet.’

‘You’ve already thrown in the towel.’

‘Look. I have more self-control than you think. I just … need a bit of time to adjust. This is not easy for me.’

‘I’ve got news for you, Tori. It’s not going to get any easier.’

‘I’m not moving on to Plan B,’ I say stubbornly. ‘Well, not yet, anyway. I don’t think I need to.’

She puts down her bowl of cereal and sighs. ‘Before I do some straight talking, you know that I love you, right?’

‘Right,’ I say slowly. A lecture is coming my way.

‘Stop being delusional. You’re wasting your time trying to resist him. The more you resist temptation the stronger and more potent it becomes. The longer you keep spending time with the guy the more entrenched your feelings will become.’

Of course, she is right.

‘The man is well and truly unavailable to you, long term anyway, but if you play hard to get you will only make him chase you which will make you fall even harder. You need to say yes, sleep with the guy once or twice, and put an end to your girlish crush once and for all. I mean, a guy who looks that good has probably got a small dick.’