You Can't Hurry Love

Chapter Forty

'Honestly Ben, you were so good,' I enthuse, beaming when I catch his face breaking out into a proud grin.

'I know,' he says unashamedly and after catching me rolling my eyes, he gives me a little nudge, letting me know he was only joking. (Although I was pretty sure he wasn't. Ben never jokes when it comes to self-adoration.)

'Ever the modest, aren't you babe?' Isaac laughs and we both join in, the three of us walking in happy unison up the street towards home.

We'd just gotten off the night bus after collectively agreeing we couldn't face the tube so late in the evening and were all recounting our favourite moments from the show. Isaac's had been when Ben had first appeared on stage and we were finally able to see him in his full costume; white frilly bloomers, stripy tights and all. (He'd kept it well hidden before tonight.)

Mine, however, had been when Ben's wig had accidentally fallen off during a squabble with his fellow ugly sister. (Not that I was going to tell him that though!) It had been whipped clean off his head when it got caught on their sleeve and I'm ashamed to say I screeched like a little girl.

Luckily for Ben though, he'd acted like a complete pro and managed to style it out without too much fuss. He'd even earned a raucous cheer from the audience for his efforts too which, unsurprisingly, he'd been able to slip into the conversation more than once already on the bus ride home.

'Does this mean you're glad we made you stick at it?' I ask him with a sly smile, and he shrugs his shoulders casually.

'I might be.'

'Did you hear that, Isaac?' I exclaim loudly, making a show of peering around Ben who had folded his arms and was doing his best not to smile.

'If you're asking whether I just heard my delightful fiancé admit he'd been wrong and we'd been right all along, then I'd have to say no,' Isaac replies jovially, earning a snort of contempt from Ben. 'Because as we have been made aware of on several,' he coughs, 'thousand occasions . . . Ben is never wrong!'

'That's what I thought! Are you sure we brought the right ugly sister home? Because it was pretty hard to tell the difference between the two of them. You know, what with all the green lace underskirts and pink eyeshadow.'

Isaac cackles mischievously.

'Oh, shut up, you two!' Ben roars, unable to conceal his grin any longer. 'You won't be laughing when I reach international renown and I decide to replace you both with younger, less irritating models!'

'Even me?' Isaac asks him with a pout and Ben prods him tenderly on the chest.

'Especially you!' he grins, and he puts his arm around me as I lean towards him for a cuddle.

I was feeling the most content I had in a long while, (despite the unmentionable from last night that I was still fighting to get my head around) and I let myself relax into Ben's embrace as we turn the last corner onto our street.

I didn't want to go home yet. I was having far too much fun in their company, and it feels like we never get to just hang out anymore. All three of us are like ships in the night at the moment, always with something important to do and somewhere crucial we needed to be, that times like this were turning out to be quite precious. It's how it's been all winter and I find myself opening my lips to ask the boys if they wanted to go for a drink when the garish flashing blue lights of an ambulance up ahead stop me in my tracks.

It was parked ominously outside the front of our building, and I couldn't help feeling a sense of unease in the pit of my stomach.

'Oi oi,' Ben whispers quietly, unaware that my feet had halted on the pavement and my arm had slipped from around his torso. 'Do you reckon Mrs Maloney's been on the raz again? What do you think happened this time? Slipped and fell trying to perform an erotic dance for her new Rent-a-Date?'