Down London Road

little disappointed as she led us out of the room. ‘I know! We’ll have a girls’ night in this month and we can talk about our first loves.’
    ‘Aren’t you and Joss dating yours?’
    Her mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Just yours, then?’
    I grimaced. ‘Sounds like a real good time.’
    ‘Every time you hang out with Hannah, you get a little more sarcastic. I’m banning you from her company.’
    Hannah grinned happily at the thought that she might have influenced me, and I couldn’t help but laugh, affection filling my chest with warmth. ‘Only wild horses, Ellie. Only wild horses.’
    Once we were seated around the table, Elodie clucked around us, making sure we all had what we needed.
    ‘Are you sure you don’t want any more gravy, Jo?’ she asked, the gravy boat hovering precariously in the air in her light grasp.
    I smiled around a potato and shook my head.
    ‘Cole?’
    ‘No, thank you, Mrs Nichols.’
    He made my heart hurt with his beautiful manners, and I nudged him with an elbow, grinning at him. Cole flicked me a look that clearly said, ‘You’re such an idiot’ and continued to eat.
    ‘What were you and Hannah talking about in her room for so long?’ Elodie asked as she settled back in her seat at the end of the table. Clark sat at the opposite end. Ellie, Adam, Joss and Braden sat across from me, while I was between Cole and Hannah, and Declan was on Cole’sother side. I could tell Elodie was pretending she didn’t really care what we had been talking about but in truth was dying to know.
    ‘Books,’ Hannah and I answered in unison, causing Clark to chuckle.
    ‘I’m guessing it wasn’t about books.’ Adam threw Hannah a boyish smile and she blushed. These girls and their susceptibility to a roguish Scotsman … I was suddenly thankful Malcolm wasn’t the least bit roguish. All that angst and drama?
Does he like me, doesn’t he? Is he just flirting?
No, thank you!
    ‘How cannily deduced, Adam.’ Braden’s mouth twitched as he took a sip of coffee.
    Joss smiled around her fork.
    Adam shot an unimpressed look down the table at his friend. ‘I think we need to come up with a child-friendly phrase for f-u-c-k off.’
    ‘Duck off?’ Cole suggested.
    ‘Exactly.’ Adam gestured with his fork. ‘Braden, duck off, you sarcastic dastard.’
    Ellie giggled. ‘Dastard?’
    ‘ “Bastard” with a “D”,’ Hannah supplied helpfully.
    Clark’s laugh was cut short by Elodie’s huff of outrage. ‘Hannah Nichols.’ She sucked in her breath. ‘Don’t you dare say that word again.’
    Hannah gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘It’s just a word, Mum. It means a person whose parents weren’t married when they were born. We only make the word offensive by implying that there is something morally wrong about that. Are you suggesting it’s morally wrong to have a child out of wedlock?’
    Silence reigned around the table as we all looked at Hannah in mischievous glee.
    Elodie made a little spluttering sound, breaking that silence as she turned sharply to skewer Clark to his seat with her blazing gaze. ‘Say something, Clark.’
    Clark nodded at his wife and then turned to his daughter. ‘I think you should have joined the debating team after all, sweetheart.’
    Braden’s deep laugh was a catalyst for the rest of us. We all chuckled and Elodie’s grimace melted as our good humour got to her. She sighed wearily. ‘My fault for raising a clever girl, I suppose.’
    She was more than clever. Hannah was a superstar and I was glad she was surrounded by people who told her every day how special she was.
    Chatter filled the room as we broke off into separate conversations. I was just asking Cole if he’d finished the comic he’d been working on when Joss said my name.
    I looked over at her and saw her eyes dancing with mischief. I immediately went on the defensive. ‘Yeah?’
    She smiled saucily. ‘Guess who was at the bar last night.’
    I’d always been crap at guessing games. ‘Who?’
    ‘Hot guy from the shitty art show.’
    ‘Hot guy?’ Braden turned from his conversation with Clark.
    Joss rolled her eyes. ‘Nothing more than an adjective and a noun put together, I promise.’
    ‘What hot guy?’ Ellie peered past Adam to look at Joss, completely cutting off whatever her mum had been saying to her.
    ‘There was this hot –’ She caught herself. ‘I mean a guywho may or may not have been marginally attractive. I wouldn’t know because I don’t notice the