Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn (17 page)

‘Yeah, sorry about that. The usual trouble with Paige.’

‘Never mind, I’m just glad you’re here.’ Linda pulled Bonnie into the house and dragged her wrap from around her shoulders, slinging it into a pile of coats behind a doorway in the hall, and then leading her down to the kitchen where most of the noise seemed to be coming from.

In the kitchen there were about twenty people. Many of them Bonnie had met before at previous parties at Linda’s house, two she had never seen before and were introduced as work colleagues of John’s. They were so unremarkable that almost immediately after they had been introduced, Bonnie had forgotten their names. John bounded forward and gave Bonnie a hug, and then shoved a glass of wine into her hand, making Bonnie giggle.

‘Not trying to get me drunk, I hope?’ she asked.

‘Absolutely. If I don’t succeed, Linda will kill me.’

Bonnie laughed. She had always liked John. He and Linda were cut from the same cloth – down-to-earth, good-humoured, generous and kind. Ten years older than Linda, he had been handsome once, though a heart attack at forty-five followed by a subsequent battle with throat cancer had taken their toll on his looks. He made the most of life, though, and his eyes were permanently crinkled into a smile.

Bonnie scanned the small crowd, nodding recognition and greeting people as she did, and then her gaze settled on Max, propped up against the kitchen counter with a bottle of beer. He had been watching her, it seemed, for some time. He smiled warmly as he caught her attention and she made a beeline straight for him.

‘Thank God you’ve come,’ he whispered. ‘I thought I was going to be the only person here who had come alone. Awkward much?’

Bonnie laughed. ‘I’m used to it by now. Henri wasn’t much for going out, even when we lived together.’

‘Well,’ he said as he looked her up and down approvingly, ‘if it was me, I wouldn’t let you go to any parties alone. You look gorgeous and I’d be terrified that some other bloke was going to run off with you.’

Bonnie felt herself blush and fiddled with her hair self-consciously. ‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’

‘Only when I have my beer goggles on.’

‘Like now?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘Right now I’m stone cold sober.’

Bonnie coloured even more under his intense gaze. Embarrassed, she smacked him on the arm playfully. ‘You’re such an idiot.’

He suddenly seemed to shake himself. ‘Thanks,’ he grinned.

Bonnie glanced across and saw that Linda was hovering, watching them closely. Sensing that she’d been rumbled, she came over.

‘Thanks so much for the gorgeous flowers, by the way, they arrived this morning,’ Linda said, kissing Bonnie on the cheek. ‘I told you not to get anything though.’

‘I’m hard up but not a skinflint,’ she laughed.

‘I put them in the living room, next to Max’s.’ Linda smiled at Max who put on a look of mock innocence.

‘I didn’t send flowers, Lind. It must be your secret admirer.’

Bonnie laughed. ‘I bet it was Stavros.’

‘It’s funny, because the card said Max,’ Linda frowned, playing along.

‘It must be another Max. I got you a sack of parsnips; they’re in the car right now.’

Bonnie giggled but Linda looked with disapproval at Bonnie’s wine glass. ‘You don’t seem to be doing much damage to that. Get it down you so I can fill you up.’

‘Why is everyone determined to get me drunk tonight?’ Bonnie asked, rolling her eyes.

‘Because nobody leaves one of my parties sober, you know that.’

Bonnie took a large gulp of her wine.

‘All of it,’ Linda chided.

‘You’ll be carrying me home at this rate,’ Bonnie said.

‘No carrying anyone home tonight. I have a perfectly good spare bed for you and…
anyone else
who might be in need of it,’ Linda replied mischievously with a quick glance at Max.

‘Don’t look at me,’ Max said. ‘I turn into a pumpkin at midnight so I have to be home.’

‘Everybody must be steaming drunk tonight, so drunk that they wake on my floor in the morning with no recollection of their own name, let alone where they live, otherwise I will consider my birthday party a complete failure,’ Linda said sternly. ‘So no rushing home at midnight for either of you.’

Bonnie was about to reply when the stereo was whacked up to a volume loud enough to loosen the roof tiles of houses across the estate, the first bars of
Disco Inferno
blasting out.

‘Lucky we invited the neighbours,’ Linda shouted over the music, ‘that way they can’t complain. Good eh?’ She gave Max a cheeky wink and he grinned.

‘I knew there was a reason I liked you, Lind.’

Linda grabbed a nearby opened bottle of wine and tipped some into Bonnie’s glass. ‘Get that down you, girl.’

***

An hour later, Linda was wearing neon legwarmers, star-shaped glittery deely boppers and a satin basque over her dress. John had a pink wig gradually sliding down his bald head and sunglasses, and the whole party had done the conga at least twice around Linda’s garden, resulting in Bonnie getting a heel stuck in the flowerbed, Max gallantly yanking her leg out as she giggled drunkenly, and carrying her back to the house.

Inside, Bonnie flopped down on the bottom stair as the rest of the guests continued their outdoor celebrations. Max grinned down at her as she kicked off her muddy shoes.

‘I’m so glad you came tonight,’ Bonnie said, looking up at him. ‘I didn’t think you would. I love Linda to bits, but she’d be too busy playing hostess and I would have been sat like a right lemon by myself.’

‘Nah,’ Max said, nudging her over and squeezing next to her. ‘Linda would never have let that happen, she cares too much about you.’

Bonnie nodded in agreement and they both became quiet. Sitting so close together in their companionable silence, Bonnie was now acutely aware of how good he smelt, of the heat of his body pressed against hers. Whether it was the drink, or whether she just wasn’t thinking straight after her very weird few weeks, she couldn’t tell, but it stirred something, deep inside her. She suddenly wanted to grab him and kiss him until her lips bled. Fighting the urge, she let her head rest on his shoulder. He reached over to absently stroke a hair from her forehead and his gentle touch set her nerve ends on fire.

‘Bonnie,’ he said quietly.

‘Hmmm?’

‘I need to say something. If I don’t say it now, I’ll kick myself every time I think about this moment and how I wasted it.’

‘Don’t...’

‘You don’t know what it is,’ he replied, a note of surprise in his voice.

‘I do. Because I’m thinking the same thing. It’s the drink talking, Max, and we’ll regret it tomorrow.’

‘I’m not drunk.’

‘I am.’

He swung an arm around her and rubbed his thumb gently across her shoulder as he pulled her in to nestle against him. ‘You look amazing tonight, better than I’ve ever seen you look.’

‘That’s because you only see me in my tabard hauling sacks of carrots usually,’ she said, forcing a self-conscious laugh.

They were silent again. The muffled sounds of shouting and singing reached them from outside in the back garden. Someone mentioned fireworks.

‘Do you still love Henri?’ Max asked suddenly.

Bonnie didn’t reply straight away. Finally, she shrugged. ‘I think I do.’

Max took his arm from around her. ‘Sorry,’ he said, standing up.

‘For what?’ Bonnie asked, confusion colouring her features.

‘You’re right, I’m drunk and this is a bad idea.’ He ran a hand through his hair and smiled awkwardly. ‘We’ll miss those fireworks if we don’t go back out.’

***

When Bonnie woke, she was in Linda’s spare bed, just as Linda had predicted. The winter sun washed the room in a pale light through Linda’s pastel curtains. She had absolutely no idea what time it was, or who else had stayed over that night. There were flashbacks, snippets of conversations that made her cheeks burn as she recalled them. While she had been very drunk, she hadn’t been so plastered to have forgotten one particular bit of the night. She only hoped that Max had been.

Pushing herself up, she got out of bed and went downstairs to find out.

The sofa was taken up by a snoring John, who didn’t appear to have even made it up to bed. Linda was nowhere to be seen so Bonnie presumed she had. Balloons, streamers, bits of fancy dress, food and half-empty glasses littered the living room and kitchen, the sour smell of old alcohol turning Bonnie’s already delicate stomach as she crept around trying to find her shoes and see who else was still there.

Other than John, the rest of the ground floor was empty. Being unsuccessful at locating her shoes, she went back upstairs to look for them. Putting her head around Linda’s bedroom door, she saw Linda stir slightly as she slept on top of the bedclothes, still in her party outfit too. A female guest that Bonnie vaguely recognised as one of Linda’s old school friends was wrapped in a blanket on the floor beside the bed, her husband a few feet away with his mouth hanging open making a
curious clicking noise as he slept. Bonnie couldn’t help a quick grin. This sort of thing was not unusual at one of Linda’s dos – there were few teenage parties that could compete with them, despite the fact that Linda’s guests were much older. On reflection, it was a very good job that Bonnie hadn’t made Paige come after all.

A search of the rest of the top floor revealed Bonnie’s shoes in an airing cupboard (she had no idea how they had got there) but no Max. So, he had gone home. Bonnie wondered when – she couldn’t remember him saying goodbye. Had he stayed over and sneaked out early, or had he left last night?

As she crept along the landing, she met Linda coming out of her bedroom.

‘Morning,’ Linda said blearily.

Bonnie grinned. ‘How’s your head?’

‘Like it’s got an illegal rave going on in there. How’s yours?’

‘Pretty much the same.’

‘Good night, though, wasn’t it?’

‘It was. We’re going to pay for it today, though.’

Linda waved a hand vaguely. ‘That’s why Sundays were invented.’

Bonnie followed her downstairs and into the kitchen, pulling up a high stool at the breakfast bar and hauling herself onto it.

‘Want a coffee?’ Linda asked, going to fill the kettle.

Bonnie nodded. ‘And a paracetamol if you have one.’

‘Hair of the dog works much better,’ Linda said, sloshing the dregs of wine in a bottle.

‘Ugh,’ Bonnie said, ‘coffee is just fine.’

Linda grinned and dropped the bottle into her recycling tub. ‘You and Max seemed cosy last night,’ she said carelessly.

‘We were the only singletons at the party.’

‘Seemed like more than that from where I was standing.’

‘When were you standing?’ Bonnie quipped. ‘I can only remember you crawling and falling down quite a lot.’

‘Don’t change the subject, lady.’

‘I’m not. There’s nothing to tell.’

Linda threw her hands in the air. ‘That’s it! I despair of you two!

‘Then stop trying to pair us off. There will never be a Max and me, and the sooner you get that into your head, the better.’

‘Ok, ok. Consider last night my swan song. I officially retire as Bonnie Cartwright’s chief match maker.’

‘Good. Now where’s that coffee?’

***

Dear Bonnie,

As you didn’t phone my PA, I decided to get her to book tickets anyway. I know you work in the week, so I got a Sunday flight with a same day return. They should be enclosed with this note.

You have to meet me; I’m going crazy without you.

Holden x

Bonnie let out a frustrated little squeal as she ripped up the letter, along with the plane tickets. What the hell had she seen in that man? He was nothing but a spoilt kid who was throwing his toys out of his cot because he couldn’t get what he wanted.

Bonnie tossed her coat over the back of a chair and put the kettle on. What was it about her that attracted the most disastrous relationships? She didn’t want money, or a posh house, or wardrobes full of clothes, or to be worshipped… she just wanted a man who would treat her as an equal, someone with whom she could enjoy life, someone she could rely on. Instead, she had Henri, missing somewhere or other until he ‘sorted his head out’, an obsessive pop star, and Max… what, exactly, was Max?

He had turned up as usual this morning at the shop acting as if nothing had happened between them over the weekend, full of jokes about the various drunken states of Linda’s other guests. Even the bluntest of hints from Linda seemed to pass him by. He hadn’t seemed that drunk to Bonnie, despite the fact that she was in a pretty bad state herself. Did he really have no recollection of the things he had whispered in hot breaths in her ear, or the way he had stroked his hand across the bare skin of her shoulder, how he had gently lifted the hair from her face? Bonnie should have been relieved to be off the hook – it meant no awkward moments at work, of course – but something about it made her feel empty.

Paige interrupted her thoughts as she wandered into the kitchen.

‘What’s for tea?’

‘Hello to you too, Paige.’

‘Whatever. You still have a hangover?’

Bonnie rolled her eyes. ‘How to win friends and influence people. Does your charm know no bounds?’

‘What?’

‘Never mind. Sausages for tea. Just let me get a drink first, it’s been a hell of a day.’

‘All you’ve done is shove apples in bags for old ladies,’ Paige said carelessly as she went to the cupboard to rifle through the snacks.

‘Is that so?’ Bonnie fired back. ‘In that case you can do my shift tomorrow.’

‘I would, but you won’t let me get a job.’

‘I’ve never stopped you.’

‘You put me off.’

‘If only you were so easy to put off with everything else.’

‘Ooooh,’ Paige tore the wrapper from a chocolate biscuit, ‘someone’s hormonal today.’

‘For God’s sake, Paige, just once in your life, show something that approaches respect for me. I’m your mother, not some slag at school that you think it’s ok to gang up on!’

Paige’s mouth dropped open comically.

‘You know what?’ Bonnie added, grabbing her coat from the chair, ‘you can get your own tea, I’m going out for a walk.’