Girls Night Out 3 E-Book Bundle. Gemma Burgess

glass of lemonade. Then, like someone turning the music back up, everyone in the pub realises that the drama is over and starts talking amongst themselves again. We are forgotten.

      One of the bartenders comes back to chat to us. ‘Sorry. We were keeping an eye on those guys all night, we knew they were trouble,’ he says. ‘Are you OK, mate?’

      Robert is now leaning against a table leg, sipping lemonade. Somehow, I’ve ended up perched next to him stroking his hand and hair, like some kind of tipsy Florence Nightingale. ‘I’m fine . . . but I think I need some air. Abigail, will you take me walkies?’

       Chapter Thirty One

      ‘Well, my nerves are still completely shot,’ I comment 20 minutes later, when we finally leave The Punchbowl.

      ‘Your nerves?’ echoes Robert disbelievingly.

      He’s had two pints of water and a lemonade, and I’ve had a large whisky (just to calm the nerves). His face has colour again, and we’ve decided to wait for Luke, Sophie and Dave in a bar in Notting Hill that Plum keeps talking about.

      ‘Fresh air is good,’ says Robert, when I suggest a taxi, or that perhaps, for his sake, we ought to go home. (Dave can always join us there, right?) ‘I want to walk. It’s not that cold.’

      I keep my arm around him as we’re walking along the top of Hyde Park towards Notting Hill. At first, I was supporting him because he was a little woozy. I felt like he needed looking after. But then it was just comfortable: we walk well together.

      ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ I say. ‘Do you want me to go and find that guy and beat him up for you?’

      ‘No,’ says Robert, laughing. ‘Thanks. You’re my knight in shining four-inch-heels.’

      We stop in two pubs on the way, getting a lemonade for Robert and a whisky for me, then pretend to go for a cigarette and just keep walking with our drinks. We deposit the stolen glasses at the next pub.

      ‘This is one of the naughtiest things I’ve ever done,’ I say, as we wait for our drinks at the second pub.

      ‘Apart from the viola bow,’ he says.

      ‘Obviously apart from that,’ I nod as the drinks arrive. ‘Mmm. Lovely warm whisky.’

      ‘I think you’ve probably had enough,’ he says.

      ‘No,’ I say, wrenching my glass away. ‘My whisky. Mine.’ Robert grins. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ I ask again. He doesn’t say anything. ‘You’re embarrassed to have lost control for a split second, aren’t you? You are!’ I start laughing.

      ‘Ah, you find yourself hilarious, I’m glad someone does,’ he says.

      By the time we reach the Portobello Star, the whisky has made everything warm and fuzzy. We find a place to stand, smushed against the wall down at the back of the bar with a lot of West London too-cool types and start chatting – or rather, we both listen to my drunken gushing.

      ‘I love hipsters,’ I say, as Robert hands me an orangey-whisky cocktail (name? Who can tell!). ‘I want to be with a man with a beard before I die. I think it would be warm and cuddly, like kissing a man-shaped teddy bear . . . Oh! That girl is pretty,’ I say. ‘Look at her, she’s just your type. Your two o’clock. I mean my two o’clock, your nine o’clock. I mean . . .’ I crack up at myself. ‘I can’t even tell the time! Ah, you’re missing out on beautiful chicks, Roberto . . .’