Free The One Before the One by Katy Regan

Austen period drama or something.
    ‘Hello, Toby
Delaney,’
she says.
    She’s wearing a black, stretchy minidress, pointy shoes with bows on them and a leather biker jacket. In my mother’s book this would definitely qualify as a look that says, ‘On the game.’
    Toby’s sitting up on the worktop, hands clasped neatly in his lap in a gesture that says, ‘Do I look like a man who was just having sex on the kitchen floor?’
    ‘Hi …?’
    ‘Alexis,’ she says.
    Alexis? Since when did she ever want to be called Alexis?
    She pulls out a kitchen chair and sits down, stretching out her long, bare legs. If I didn’t know any better I’d say she was flirting.
    ‘Cool name,’ says Toby. ‘So how was the body combat class? Back when us two old timers were young …’ Ha! He’s got a cheek. Less of the ‘old timers’ and the ‘us two’ thanks very much. ‘It was aerobics or step class. Everyone was lugging these step things about.’
    Lexi giggles. A mixture of nerves and a certain thrill, perhaps, that a handsome, older man is talking to her.
    She leans forward and rests her dainty chin on her hand so that you can see her perfect B-cups resting in a floral lace bra.
    I check Toby. His eyes dart upwards. Caught!
    ‘Eh, so you’re that Toby off the photo aren’t you?’ she says, her accent even stronger now she’s obviously had a drink.
    Oh, that’s great, that is. Now he’s going to think I’m obsessed with that photo.
    ‘What photo’s that?’
    ‘Brighton,’ I say curtly. ‘Anyway, hadn’t you better be getting a shower or something, Lexi?’ I glare at her but she ignores me or she’s just too pissed to take a hint.
    ‘It doesn’t do you justice,’ she says. She’s looking up at Toby from under mascara-smudged eyes. She
is
flirting. God, I could kill her! ‘You know how some people look better in a photo and some people take a rubbish photo but look much better in the flesh?’ she slurs on. ‘Well, you’re definitely the latter type.’
    Toby laughs, flattered. I shoot him a look.
    She takes off her leather jacket and puts it on the back of her chair, sliding it back from the table slightly. That’s whenI see them. Toby’s Tommy Hilfiger boxer shorts, caught under the front right chair leg! I look over at Toby. Had he spotted them too?
    ‘Thanks very much,’ says Toby. ‘If that is a compliment, which I think it is. It’s all your sister’s fault, anyway …’ He winks at me, which I respond to with a tight smile and cock of the head in the direction of the floor. ‘Shoddy photography.’
    Lexi mumbles something but she’s already thinking of the next question. She has her audience and she’s determined to keep them.
    ‘How was the book club, anyway?’ she pipes up. (How much longer was this going to go on?)
    ‘Great,’ we say in unison.
    ‘So where is everyone?’
    ‘They left,’ we say, again in unison.
    ‘But they were here,’ I add, totally unnecessarily.
    Lexi nods, uninterested, and looks around the room, her eyes finally landing, unfocused on Toby.
    ‘Sowhatsyerjob?’ she slurs
    God, when was she going to shut up? I look again at the pants, the chair’s moved slightly now, so that more material is on show. My heart’s beating ten to the dozen.
    ‘I’m an account manager. I sell stuff to supermarkets the same as your sister, but I’m much better at it than she is,’ he says, to which I roll my eyes.
    ‘Wow!’ says Lexi.
    Wow? She’s never said
my
job is wow.
    ‘So that must mean you have to do a lot of like, speeches?’
    ‘Present—’
    ‘—ations,’ he was going to say, but then Lexi kicks off her shoes, which land with a slap on the wooden floor, inches from the pants.
    I see Toby do a double take as he spots them; his eyeslinger there for a second before he looks up at me, mouth open.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Lexi giggles. Her eyes flit about the room and rest on the floor for a second. I clench my stomach muscles, hold my