Chapter Twenty-Seven- The Host’s Discussion

“Come on…”

I shook my head, grinning at him as I leant back against the wall. “No way. I can’t dance. You won’t make me.”

Danny adopted the most innocent expression he could manage, his eyes wide and his mouth pouting ever so slightly, “But it would make me happy…”

“It would make me happy not to.”

“Touché,” he allowed. “But, come on, Tom… Just one dance…”

I laughed, reaching out to loop an arm around his waist and pull him into me, “I know full well that once you get me on that floor, then you won’t let me off.”

His lips curved cockily, “And you’ll love every minute of it.” Then he inclined his head so that his mouth brushed over mine, before pressing down firmly. I hummed contently as he kissed me softly.

“Why do we need to dance when we can do this?” I murmured as he pulled back, making him chuckle.

“‘Scuse me, lovebirds,” Dougie trilled as he trotted past with an armload of empty glasses.

I eyed him dubiously, “Have you turned into a waiter or something?”

He stopped, and turned back to meet my gaze, “You may laugh, Thomas, but do you have any idea how much I have to keep an eye on this lot? Some idiot in the corner just lit up a whole box of matches for no bloody reason!”

I laughed at the irritation on his face, “Relax. It’s your birthday. We’ll sort it all out later. With the three of us, it shouldn’t take too long.” Then my eyes narrowed as Dougie bit his lip slightly, “What now?”

“Yeah…” He shifted the glasses in his arms so that they clinked against each other. “About that… Harry can’t make it…”

“What?!” Now the cleaning up seemed like a much bigger job… “Why?”

“His mum wants him home for something,” Dougie said dismissively, waving a hand. “But, yeah. We’re a musketeer down.”

I turned to Danny hopefully, “Can you help?”

He looked genuinely sorry as he shook his head, and there was a little bit of something else underneath, but I dismissed it. “Sorry. I can’t. Mum wants me back by midnight because we’re going relative visiting in the morning.”

“Fun,” Dougie quipped dryly. Then he smiled at me, “We’ll manage, though, right?”

“We’ll have to.”

Dougie jiggled the glasses again, “Right. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I sighed as he trotted off, “Damn.”

“You do know that you don’t have to help him if you don’t want to?” Danny checked, and I sighed.

“I know, but it’ll be quicker if I do. We’ll spend an hour or so cleaning… He’ll run around and look like he’s working while I’ll actually do most of the work… We’ll manage.”

*****

“I can’t believe you’re abandoning us,” I scolded Harry, punching him in the arm playfully. “It’s going to take us so much longer to clean up now!”

He hit me back, “Well, I’m sorry, but Mum claims that we all have to go to Danielle’s dance recital, which is at some obscene hour of the morning! She wants me home to sleep so she can drag me out to something that I don’t want to go to and Dani doesn’t care whether I’m there or not.”

“Aw, diddums…”

But he was suddenly too distracted to retort to my teasing. His brow knotted as his eyes fixed on something across the room. “I thought they hated each other…” he murmured.

“Who?” I asked blankly, turning to follow his gaze, then my jaw dropped. Danny and Dougie were out in the middle of the dance floor, moving together. But…that wasn’t it… They were talking to each other. Even as I watched, Danny leant down to say something into Dougie’s ear, making him giggle.

I felt a sense of unease in my stomach. I had nothing against my current boyfriend talking to my ex, but it just struck me as weird when they’d barely spoken since Danny had arrived, and both had made it perfectly clear that they didn’t think much of the other. Danny hadn’t said anything, but it had been obvious from the start that he didn’t really like Dougie. Dougie- of course- had been vocal about his dislike.

But now there they were, practically grinding up against each other on the dance floor, but seriousness in Danny’s eyes and amusement in Dougie’s. They were talking about something, and I was worried as to what it was. Harry leant closer to me, “What d’you think’s going on?”

I bit my lip, “They’re dancing.”

“They’re talking,” he murmured, and I knew that he’d picked up on the mood as well. “And I reckon there’s a big chance that you’re the topic of conversation.”

“Like how?”

He shrugged, “I’m not a mind reader. But, logically, what else would they actually talk about? It’s not like they have any other common interests.”

I noticed that a few people were watching me now. It made sense, really. My boyfriend was dancing with my ex- the school gossips would want to record my reaction so they could talk about how it made me feel. So I let my face slide into neutral and turned to Harry, “There’s nothing we can do about it, though, is there?”