After a while I opened my eyes again. He was still scanning my face, his gaze lingering on my lips.
“Look, d’you want this snog or what?” I asked, folding my arms.
He grinned. “Yep. But I think you’re going to have to give it me another time. You’re pretty sloshed, aren’t you?”
“So what? So are you.”
“Not as much as you, you’ve been drinking longer.” He leaned one elbow on the bar and propped his chin on his fist to look at me. “Sorry, love, nice boys don’t do that sort of thing.”
I scoffed. “Nice boy my arse.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “How very dare you, madam.”
“Come on. Can you deny you once got me hyped up on sugary pop and Space Raiders then took advantage by copping a feel?”
“Ha! Yeah, and I was having a grand old time till that bastard Madison grope-blocked me. That was always going to be the highlight of any 14-year-old lad’s night, to be fair.”
“I knew it!” I jabbed an accusing finger in his direction. “You do remember.”
“Well. Course I do. Never forget your first kiss and go on a girl’s boobs, do you?”
“Ooooh. I knew you were having me on. So it was your first too, was it?”
“Yeah.” He reached out to give my hand a tipsy squeeze. “Glad I got to have it with you, Bobbie. Not sure I said so at the time, but… you know, cheers and everything.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, shooting him a slightly wonky smile. “Not that I really had any boobs to speak of back then. Still, long as you enjoyed yourself.” I took another swallow of wine and blinked bleary eyes at him. “I’m glad you came home, Ross.”
“Me too.”
I smiled absently. What were we talking about? Oh yeah, he didn’t want to kiss me. My smile morphed into a glare.
“Right. If you won’t snog me you have to do a tequila slammer.”
He grimaced. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. My birthday, my rules.” I gestured to Gabbie and she came over to take the order. “Couple of tequilas with salt and lemon please, love.”
“Coming right up,” she said with an amused grin, taking the tenner I fished out of my purse. The best thing about the Cragport pubs was that the phrase “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” had never really taken off.
Ross shook his head when Gabbie placed a tequila each in front of us, a couple of lemon wedges and a salt cellar on a dish with my change. “And me such a clean-living lad, never afraid to show tender morning-after eyes to my mother. You know you’re a bad influence, Hannigan?”
“Yep. S’why you like me.”
He smiled. “One reason. So what do I do with this random assortment of booze, fruit and seasoning then? Make a sorbet?”
“Here. Watch me.” I sprinkled salt on the side of my hand, chucked some over my shoulder to compensate the gods of superstition for a bit of spillage, licked it, knocked back the shot and squeezed a lemon wedge into my mouth.
“Ugh! Good stuff.” I nodded to Ross. “Your turn.”
“Er, right. Fetch us that lemon then.”
“Salt first, lemon after. Here.” I passed him the cellar and smiled as he sprinkled it on the heel of his hand with a puzzled, interested air, like David Attenborough watching a bunch of spider monkeys mating.
“Ok, so you lick it then down the shot,” I told him.
“Why am I doing this again?”
“Because I say so. Anyway, it’s rock and roll. You’ll disappoint your fans if you don’t knock back a bit of hard liquor after a gig.”
“Sounds like gateway rock and rolling to me. Slippery slope, that sort of thing,” he said, shaking his head. “Not going to make me go the full Keith Richards, are you? Chuck a telly out the window, snort lines of coke off your boobs?”
“Sounds like the flashbacks I get to mine and Jess’s 18th. Go on, get it down your neck.”
He sucked back the salt and downed the tequila, grimacing at the taste. “Oof! Bloody hell, lass. When you’re out drinking you don’t mess about, do you?”
“Lemon, quick!” I handed him the wedge and he crushed it between his teeth.
“So how was popping your slammer cherry?” I asked when he’d removed the lemon husk.
“Bleurghh.” He stuck his tongue out and gagged comically. “Dunno, bit rough? You might want to ask me again in the morning.”
“Is that a proposition?”
He clicked his tongue. “You want it to be?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, you’re only human.” He winced as the slammer made a second assault on his brain cells. “But that had better wait till we’re sober. Let’s get out of here.”
“Ok. Hey, let’s go back the beach way. Love walking by the sea at nighttime.”
“Me too.”
After he’d arranged with Gabbie to stash his guitar behind the bar until morning, we jumped off our barstools and he pulled my arm through his.
“Thanks for tonight, Ross,” I said as we weaved unsteadily through the empty tables. Most of the Saturday crowd had long since abandoned the place in favour of nightclubs or bed. “Best birthday I’ve had in ages.”
“Best night I’ve had in ages. You’re fun, Hannigan. Although doubt I’ll be saying that tomorrow.”
“Pfft.” I waved a dismissive hand in front of my face. “Bugger tomorrow. Tomorrow can do one.”
“God, you’re sexy when you’re being a mean drunk. Come on.”
***
We stumbled along the shingle arm in arm. The creamy glow from the vintage-style lampposts above us, mingling with the multi-coloured neon of the amusement arcade, made the beach’s chalky pebbles look faintly radioactive.
“Don’t look now, but there’s a murder of seagulls putting the evil eye on us over there,” I muttered, jerking my head towards a gang of glass-eyed birds perched on one of the coloured beach huts.
“Nah, murder’s crows. Seagulls’re –” Ross squinted over at them – “er, a bastard.”
I giggled. “Really, that’s the collective noun: a bastard of seagulls?”
“Well it is if we’re basing it on that little bruiser,” he said, nodding towards the bastard of gulls. “Looks like he just got out of borstal.”
I followed his gaze to a mean-looking thug of a bird, clearly the leader, yarking at us with a nasty look on his squat face.
“God, you’re right,” I said, shuddering. “Reminds me of that Hitchcock film. What’s it called, with all the birds?”
“Um, The Birds?”
“Not that one.” I paused. “Psycho, that’s it. Lad looks like he’d beak you to death in the shower in a heartbeat.”
Ross laughed as I mimicked his gory, beaky shower death with my nose on his arm, complete with blood-curdling sound effects.
“Stop pecking me, strange girl.” He twisted my face to one side to free himself from my relentless nose attack.
“Scared the birds away though,” I said with a grin. “Let’s