Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [77]
Natalie was affronted, which brought her up short. She didn’t like it one bit, and that surprised her.
But as she stood in her corner, watching, she liked Tom’s response even less. He was doing a bit of it back. Quite a lot, actually. She waited for him to turn round and make sure she was watching – it was bound to be part of the game, wasn’t it? But he didn’t and he didn’t, and he carried on, leaning into the bar and talking to the girl with all the hair and the perfect cleavage.
She was shocked to recognise a flash of jealousy. The kind she used to have when she saw Simon talking to pretty nurses, or girls at parties. That had come from left field. Natalie realised Casper was by her side.
‘You okay, Nat?’
She smiled at him, the kind of smile that was more of a rictus. Casper had watched her watch Tom. The same Tom who, three hours earlier in the pub, had confessed to him that he was mad about her, and terrified of blowing it again, and afraid that nothing was ever going to happen between them. Not that Casper knew whether this flirting with the waitress stuff was part of Tom’s masterplan (which seemed a little flawed) or genuine attraction. She was a bit of a knockout. Casper, who was actually a bit simple, in the way that terribly well-educated public-school boys can be, didn’t know what to say for the best.
‘Fine. Great party. Wish I had a picture phone.’
‘They’d haul you out if you used it. Celebs value their privacy, you know.’
‘I can see that!’ Natalie gesticulated towards the medical actor and his macramé girlfriend, who were by now engaging in their very own form of dirty dancing. ‘Very private people!’
‘Oh, him – I know him of old. He was at drama school with me. He’ll hump anyone who stands still long enough. Want to meet him?!’
‘I do not.’ Natalie smiled. ‘Besides, I’m a little overdressed for him. I’m wearing knickers.’
‘Sure he’d find a way round that.’
‘I’m sure he would. Still not interested, thanks, Cas.’
‘Spoken for, are we?’
Natalie nudged him in the ribs. ‘Stop fishing, brother-in-law. It’s not so much that I’m spoken for as that I enjoy being spoken to, rather than just rogered…’
‘Ah, hard work, then. Not sure he’d go for that.’
But Natalie wasn’t really listening any more. She was watching Tom and the waitress, who were still talking.
He did come back, eventually. Susannah had caught up with them by then, and the three of them had found a free banquette. Tom handed Natalie her drink. She had an almost irresistible urge to throw it at him but she took it, ungraciously, and stuck the straw into her mouth like a petulant child, without saying thank you.
Susannah threw her a questioning glance. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she hissed, when Tom was talking to Casper.
‘Tom was all over that waitress for about ten minutes!’ She sounded indignant.
‘Which one?’
‘That one with all the bloody hair, at the bar.’
Susannah looked. ‘She’s pretty!’
‘Thanks, Suze.’
‘You mean he was kissing her?’
‘No. He just looked like he wished he was.’
‘Really?’ Natalie couldn’t read her sister’s tone.
‘What, really?’
‘Do you think he’s trying to make you jealous?’
‘No, I think he’s trying to make the waitress.’
Susannah laughed at her sulky tone. ‘Well, honey, sounds to me like a bad case of “I don’t want him but I’m darned if anybody else is going to have him.” ’
Natalie hated it when Susannah was right.
‘And I’m afraid that unless you’re expecting him to enter a seminary or join the French Foreign Legion, which I’m not even sure you can do any more, you might have to get over it.’
Natalie wasn’t sure about that.
Later, on the way home, where