I Heart Vegas. Lindsey Kelk

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СКАЧАТЬ wasn’t naked,’ I tutted. ‘Honestly.’

      Trust a man to actually find this sexy. If someone had goaded Craig into punching them hard in the face, Alex would have fist-bumped him and then got beers. I suppose I did have a beer.

      ‘And you’re missing the key points here. Not only did she get me fired, she’s stopping me from getting any other work. Cici is the reason I have to renew my visa. She’s the reason all this shit is happening. She’s the reason there’s a problem.’

      ‘I thought there wasn’t a problem,’ he said. ‘With the visa.’

      ‘Oh, yeah,’ I pouted. Now really wasn’t the time, was it? ‘Well, just … I suppose … worst-case scenario stuff …’

      ‘You’re such a pessimist,’ he said, dropping back down on the sofa and folding me into a very big, very careful hug, avoiding my injuries. ‘Chill. Just wait until after Christmas and then we’ll work it out. No one can deal with stuff like this close to the holidays – their brains are already on vacation.’

      I knew all I needed to do was to sit down with my boyfriend and explain exactly what was happening, tell him exactly what the INS had said and have a simple, grown-up conversation. But I was so tired and so mad at Cici and, well, making excuses. I also felt I lacked some integrity in the outfit I was currently wearing, so instead of having an adult conversation with my adult partner about my adult situation, I let him give me a hug and sulked quietly instead. I would talk to him tomorrow. I would start researching options for the visa. I would make everything right. Immediately after I had burned the French maid’s costume.

      After a long and involved Saturday of research, googling, watching True Blood and thinking about pizza, I managed to rouse myself to prepare for Jenny’s Christmas party. Or to be more culturally sensitive, holiday party. But I have never been much for cultural sensitivity when it involves a fat man in a red furry suit, so I was getting ready to get my Christmas on. I added Jenny’s borrowed shoes (one more wear couldn’t hurt?) to my red silk Marc by Marc Jacobs dress and attacked my face with blusher. The two-seasons-old (aka ancient) frock was one of the few survivors from my pre-Paris wardrobe, but happily it was perfect for a Christmas party. Ruby red, little puff sleeves and a fitted waist that still allowed for the over-consumption of mince pies. I had made mince pies.

      I had also absolutely, one hundred per cent planned to talk to Alex about my visa sitch. I’d even got The Letter out of my handbag to show him, but he’d run out early in the morning (for him) and hadn’t resurfaced until it was time to get ready for the party. Plan scuppered. Now I was going to have to build my nerve all over again tomorrow. And by build my nerve, I meant knock back a couple of white wine spritzers. As much as we’d been through, as much as I knew he loved me, there was still that little voice in my head whispering that he was pleased I was going home. That he was pleased I would leave and he would be free. And that little voice could only be silenced by two things – kissing and booze. And it was very difficult to talk during the kissing.

      It was the same voice that said, yes, you do look fat in those jeans and no, wearing red lipstick doesn’t brighten up your face, it makes you look like a tart. I hated that voice. Part your mother, part your year nine Biology teacher and part Jeremy Kyle. Living with Jenny had really helped me put The Voice back in its box where it belonged, but right now it was coming through loud and clear. So I did what any good English girl would do and ignored it completely, pushing it down, down, down until it was just a bad feeling in my stomach instead of a bellowing in my ear. Jenny would tell me the only way to silence it was to address the issues. Jenny was American. I chose to quietly hope it would go away on its own, like a medium-sized spider or a funny rash in a special place. Since there was sod all I could do about the visa on a Saturday night, I decided to stash those concerns all together. May as well give myself an ulcer for lots of problems rather than just one, surely? I would not worry about things for the next twelve hours. There. Done. Sort of.

      ‘Ready?’ Alex had gone all out for the party. Not only had he washed and brushed his hair, he was wearing a suit, shirt and tie. I had forgotten he owned a suit, shirt and tie. It was silly how good he looked. The suit and tie were black and skinny, the shirt was white and shiny. If he’d been a girl, he would have been doing a spin in his high heels to show off, but since he was a manly man, he was just pushing his feet into his black Converse. Which should not have worked with the outfit, but, irritatingly for someone with her trotters rammed into very pinchy pumps, he looked great.

      ‘So who’s going to be there tonight?’ Alex asked as we shut the door behind us and I felt the icy sting of the New York winter on my bare cheeks. At least tonight it was just the cheeks on my face. Living by the water was wonderful. We had a beautiful view of Manhattan, and in the summer, sitting on the rooftop with a cold glass of wine and a gentle breeze, it was perfection. But in winter, that gentle breeze became razor blades on your skin with a nice after-splash of TCP to really freshen things up.

      ‘Big crowd? Intimate gathering?’ He took my hand and squeezed it, pretending he wasn’t terrified of either.

      ‘It’s Jenny,’ I squeezed back, trying to get the feeling back into my fingers. ‘She’ll have invited everyone she’s ever met. Hopefully they won’t all come at once.’

      ‘Cool, whatever,’ he replied, fumbling in his pocket for a MetroCard. ‘I haven’t seen her in forever.’

      It was cute of him to pretend that wasn’t a relief. I knew full well he was terrified of my best friend, and of crowds in general. Alex could happily entertain thousands of people from the safety of a stage, but parties made him uncomfortable. He would go along, smile, nod, laugh when appropriate, shake his head when required and everyone would love him, but I could tell. Once a high-school music nerd, always a high-school music nerd. Despite everything he’d accomplished by the age of thirty-one, he was always waiting for the popular kids to kick him out of their kegger. He had explained to me what a kegger was. I wouldn’t have been invited to one either. It was funny when you found out that men were exactly like women sometimes.

      After scrabbling down the stairs and dodging a platform full of parkas, I managed to throw myself onto the L train and squeeze myself into a seat as soon as the doors opened. Alex stood in front of me, half shouting over the rumble of our journey about the trains he’d taken in Tokyo. Opposite, I could see two girls checking out his backside. I wanted to be offended, but it really was a great arse.

      ‘See how easy it would be for him to replace you?’ The Voice interrupted Alex’s story to remind me how very attractive my boyfriend was in our neighbourhood. Clearly, he was hot wherever he went, but in Brooklyn, he was like hipster catnip. And I was prepared to bet anything that the two girls in their denim cut-offs over black fishnets finished with scuffed-up DMs hadn’t sat around all afternoon watching gay vampires with toothpaste on their spots. They had probably been making jewellery out of electrical equipment or painting pictures of something very deep and meaningful with hummus.

      ‘You have to come with me next time,’ Alex said as I tuned out the bad-news bears in my own head. ‘You can’t leave me with Craig and Graham again. You’re gonna love Japan – honestly, everywhere we went I was like, Angie would go crazy for this. I think the guys were kinda sick of me by the end.’

      ‘Next time,’ I smiled. Hurrah, I had kept my promise not to mention my lack of visa.

      ‘When you’ve got your visa, we’ll go everywhere.’ He nudged my knee with his and I forced myself not to kick him in the balls.

      ‘Yep.’ I looked back at the hipster girls behind him. They didn’t need toothpaste spot cream or visas. They did need to learn some manners, though.

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