Page 77

Adam cracks up as he pulls himself to his feet before yanking me up with him.

‘Oh look, a note,’ I say as I spy something on the floor underneath the broken pieces of lamp. ‘It says: Staying at Mum’s tonight. Si.’

The wonderfully silly drunken atmosphere is instantly obliterated.

‘Ah, he’s just being a baby, he’ll be fine,’ Adam reassures me. ‘Hey, can I ask you something?’

Adam takes a step towards me but falls over the broken lamp. I reach out to catch him but this just results in the lampshade falling off my head and hitting him in the face.

‘Ouch,’ I say, feeling his pain. Thankfully I don’t think he feels a thing, thanks to all the booze.

‘Get up,’ I practically cackle. ‘Let’s do this sitting down, shall we?’

We carefully make our way to the living room and sit on the sofa.

‘So, what were you going to ask me?’ I ask curiously.

‘Saved by the bulb,’ he jokes. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

I slap my hand over his mouth.

‘That was the worst joke I have ever heard in my life and I will only forgive you if you tell me exactly what you were going to say before, and I will know if you are lying. I’m going to take my hand away now. The next thing you say had better be what you were going to say before, okay?’

Adam looks puzzled, but I take my hand away because I’m not sure if he can breathe.

‘I only got, like, every fifth word of that, because you slurred it, but I will tell you what I was going to say.’

‘Go!’ I instruct.

‘I’m not sure I’d be saying this, if you hadn’t insisted I get so drunk,’ he jokes. I playfully slap his cheek because he was the one who was all matey with the barman, and insisting we get smashed to cheer ourselves up – which worked, by the way. ‘Anyway. Maybe it’s not a question, maybe it’s just a statement, but those nights you spent with Si, oh my God, it drove me crazy.’

‘I spent one night in his room, by accident, because we fell asleep watching a movie,’ I tell him. ‘But nothing happened.’

‘I guess, even when I couldn’t hear anything, or if I didn’t know which room you were in, I would imagine what you were doing and that was even worse,’ he admits.

I chew my lip thoughtfully.

‘You’re right… that wasn’t a question.’

‘Oh, no, I remember the question part,’ he says almost excitedly. ‘That night I brought that girl home.’

‘Becka,’ I remind him.

‘Yes, her. Did it not bother you at all?’

‘Why would it bother me?’ I ask, but as I see the look on Adam’s face fall, I know that it’s time to come clean.

‘Okay, I admit it, it did bother me a little at first, but then she told me that nothing happened between you two, so I knew I didn’t have anything to feel bothered about.’

‘But why did you feel bothered?’ he asks.

Obviously it’s because I’ve wanted him since the second I saw him, and because I was jealous, and because I knew he was chasing a girl at work too, so I really couldn’t have meant anything at all to him, if I was so far down the list…

‘I don’t know,’ I lie. ‘It’s just weird hearing other people have sex, isn’t it?’

‘Right,’ Adam replies. ‘Can I ask you something else?’

‘Only if it’s less awkward,’ I reply with a smile.