Baby Be Mine

say you haven’t been warned.’
    ‘I won’t.’
    ‘Okay, then. But play another song first.’
    He grins and starts to strum.
    ‘Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees . . .’
    Barney giggles, and pretty soon I do, too.
    ‘What’s his name again?’ Johnny asks as he pulls up outside my parents’ place. He insisted on driving – way too fast, I might add – and I had to give him directions the whole way.
    ‘Tony,’ I reply. ‘And she’s Susan.’
    ‘Got that.’ He unclicks his seat belt.
    ‘Oh!’ I cry, suddenly remembering a very important piece of information. ‘They don’t know about Barney.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ He turns to look at me with confusion.
    ‘They don’t know that Barney is yours.’
    ‘What the hell do they think I’m doing here, then?’ he exclaims.
    ‘I guess they think we’ve stayed friends,’ I reply uneasily. ‘They never knew about you and me, either,’ I add quickly, feeling my face heat up at the thought that he might assume that I bragged about it to anyone.
    ‘This is going to be awkward, then.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I did warn you.’
    No reply.
    ‘Shall we go back to your hotel?’ I ask tetchily. Like I wanted to come here, anyway.
    ‘No, f-f-fudge it,’ he corrects himself and instantly smirks at his own ingenuity. ‘Let’s have some fun.’ He climbs out of the car. ‘Susan! Tony!’ he calls as he opens the front door – my parents rarely lock it.
    ‘Is that him?’ I hear my sister squeak in entirely unconcealed surprise.
    ‘Yes,’ my dad replies unflappably.
    I groan.
    ‘Who? Johnny Jefferson?’ Tony asks in disbelief.
    Dur . . . Who else, you idiot?
    ‘Yes, it’s the one and only!’ Johnny cries gleefully down the corridor.
    I hurry around the corner just in time to see Johnny engulf Susan in a massive bear hug.
    ‘Tony,’ he says affectionately, breaking away from my flabbergasted sister. ‘Come here, you.’ Over Johnny’s shoulder, Tony gives Susan a look of unparalleled incredulity. Susan looks like she’s going to burst. Even more than she usually does.
    Oh, dear, I’ve obviously got the bitch in me today. I blame Jeannette the receptionist.
    ‘We were about to have lunch,’ my mum says, beaming at this turn of events.
    ‘Great, Cynthia! I’m starving,’ Johnny says, clapping his hands together. I give him a wry look and he winks at me as we head outside to the terrace table.
    ‘That was totally over the top,’ I say later, much to Johnny’s amusement. He’s about to drive himself back to the hotel in the GTI. By some miracle, he didn’t drink anything alcoholic today. I’m standing on the driveway, talking to him through the window.
    ‘What that was, Nutmeg, was fun.’
    ‘Will you stop calling me Nutmeg?’ I ask.
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘No, I didn’t think you would.’ I roll my eyes at him. ‘God only knows what Susan and Tony would be like if they found out Barney was yours.’
    ‘If?’ Johnny queries. ‘Don’t you mean, when ?’
    My lips turn down and I shrug.
    ‘We are going to tell them, aren’t we?’ he says, in a tone that implies we’d bloody well better.
    ‘Fine, if you want it plastered all over the tabloids.’
    ‘They wouldn’t do that,’ he scoffs.
    ‘You don’t know my sister.’
    ‘I know that she’s your sister ,’ he replies. ‘I don’t believe she’d sell a story about you.’
    ‘Hmm, maybe not. But I still don’t want to tell her yet.’ I regard him curiously. ‘Have you told Dana?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘When are you planning on doing that?’
    ‘When the time’s right. She’s already peeved at me for dis appearing out of LA for days on end.’
    ‘What have you told her you’re doing?’
    He shrugs. ‘Writing.’
    He always did use to disappear on impromptu writing trips. I remember feeling horribly insecure about it. I shudder at the memory of that girl; that girl I used to be. I’ll never let myself get in a position like that, ever again.
    ‘Right, you’d better be off,’ I say.
    ‘Yep.’ He turns the key in the ignition. ‘See you in the morning?’
    ‘We’ll be waiting.’ I cast a look over my shoulder at the house, then turn back to him and say with widened, crazy eyes, ‘We will all be waiting . . .’
    He shakes his head with amusement before driving away.

 
  Chapter 22  
    Johnny doesn’t turn up until after one o’clock the following day and it nearly drives Susan and Tony around the bend. I can see them continually checking their