Short Stack - Lily Morton Page 0,2

treasure the memory of the time that Dylan told him that talking about politics makes you lose weight. My smile dies suddenly, and my stomach gets tight because I don’t want to think about him.

I focus back on Fletcher. “Where aren’t you stopping? My house? No, you’re certainly not. Here’s a novel idea – why don’t you take Liam back to your house?” I pause. “And why don’t you leave your key to my house on the table?”

He stills. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Well, I’m hoping you think it means we’re finished and I won’t have to see you again.”

“Still uncomfortable,” Liam chimes in.

Fletcher sends him a fulminating glare before he turns back to me. “Fuck you!” he hisses. “Thank fucking God that I’ll be done with you, you boring wanker. When I first met you, you were interesting and a bit dangerous, and now look at you.”

“When you first met me, I hadn’t had a year under my belt of listening to you talk about Hollyoaks like it’s the fucking Bible.”

“Oh, and you’re so much better than me. You, the lonely, middle-aged fuck-up, who’s in love with his secretary and hasn’t got the fucking balls to do anything about it. I hope you try, and I hope Dylan fucking pisses on you. I hope you die miserable and fucking lonely.”

“If it means that I won’t have to listen to you again, I’m fine with that, because my hope at the moment is that you stop fucking talking,” I say sharply, and then jerk to avoid the glass he throws at me. It smashes into the mirror behind me, and I shake my head. “Well, that’s seven years’ bad luck. Jesus, I hope that doesn’t mean you’re staying.” I pause. “Never mind. I’ve now got a handy shard of glass to cut my wrists if that happens.”

Liam snorts.

“I’m going to get my stuff,” Fletcher says before slamming out of the room.

“That won’t take long,” I shout. “Because I never let you leave anything, and you don’t live here.”

Silence falls in the living room, and then Liam stirs. “So, you don’t want to fuck me?”

I look at him in disbelief.

“Worth a try,” he says, shrugging. “You’re hot for an old bloke.”

“I’m thirty-two,” I say indignantly. “I’m hardly Methuselah.”

He shakes his head and aims a crooked grin at me, which I ignore in favour of pouring another drink. I shake the bottle at him. “Want one?”

“Really?”

I shrug. “Why not?”

He settles down on the sofa, accepting the glass I hand him. He glances up at the ceiling, his eyebrows rising at the sound of pounding footsteps and drawers slamming open and shut. “If he hasn’t left anything, what’s he doing up there?”

“Taking the silver, I expect,” I say gloomily, and then shrug. “It’s worth it not to see him again.”

“He does seem a bit high-maintenance.”

I laugh. “Mariah Carey is high-maintenance. Fletcher is in a whole different league.”

“Why were you together?” he asks.

I smirk. “Sex and…” I pause and tap my lip. “No, it was just sex.”

He laughs and then looks at me curiously. “So, why aren’t you with this other bloke, then? Fletcher seems to think you’ve got a hard-on for him.”

“Fletcher doesn’t really think, as much as make wild stabs in the dark,” I say cautiously, and then sigh. “This night is so surreal. I don’t want a relationship with anyone, so there’s no point in discussing this any further.”

“Do you like him?”

I look at him searchingly, and he shrugs, giving me a crooked grin. Something about it reminds me of Dylan so much that I feel a pain in my chest. I rub it absently. “Yes, I do like him,” I say quietly. “He’s funny and clever and kind and…” I shrug, running out of words.

There’s an awkward pause while I take a sip of my drink and then Liam stirs. “I’d have a go if I were you, mate. My mum always used to say that men move mountains for sex when all they actually need to do is move their arse.”

I choke out a laugh. “That’s extraordinarily descriptive.”

He shakes his head. “That’s my mum.” He looks me up and down. “Seems a bit of a shame to me. A clever bloke like you in a nice, big house with everything at his fingertips, and still all alone.”

“That’s the way I like it,” I say firmly, ignoring the truth of his statement.

He looks as if he’s going to disagree, but at this point, Fletcher slams into the