Free Something Borrowed by Louisa George

worried about the same things; he’d been through the same experience. Maybe she could help him not be sad?
    Oh, what the hell—she might as well be honest. She sipped some coffee, which was hot and strong and fortifying for her needs right now. ‘Look, cards on the table, Carl; I don’t suppose you’re free a week on Saturday? I have a wedding to go to, and I really need a date.’
    ‘Not your wedding, I hope?’ He tipped back his ponytailed head, showing a row of straight white teeth, and laughed. ‘That would be hilarious. Groom doesn’t show up and guest steps in. Only, stranger things have happened.’
    Hilarious indeed, and far too close to the truth. ‘No, actually, I’m a wedding planner, and I don’t normally take a date, but this is a friend’s wedding, and she said I could bring someone. I thought it’d be fun.’
    ‘I’ll check.’ He swiped his phone a couple of times, and she noticed he had manicured fingernails, which she wasn’t sure about, at all. Just a little too pointy, and a little too long. He shook his head. ‘No, sorry, I’ve got a gig that night. I can do tomorrow night? How about a drink? We could go for a pint? Somewhere a bit cheaper than Covent Garden, though.’ His hand was back on hers, oddly unnerving.
    ‘I’ll just check my diary.’ Unsure about how good a liar she was, Chloe dragged her hand out from under his and grabbed her phone, deflated. If he wasn’t going to be her wedding date, then should she lead him on?
    She crossed her legs again, but not without a searing pain that pinged from the top of one of her thighs to the other and brought swift tears to her eyes. ‘Ow!’
    ‘Do you have…?’ He grimaced. ‘I don’t know how to put this. Do you have Tourette’s? Only you keep squealing for no apparent reason. And that’s fine, you know. We all have little foibles, and I’m totally okay with it. In fact, I’ve got—’
    ‘No. I don’t have Tourette’s.’ And please don’t add anything else to my list of please don’ts… Okay. She was going to have to sort this out. Right now. ‘I’m… I’m just going to the loo. Back in a mo.’
    She shuffled, in not a little pain, semi-cross-legged to the bathroom where she darted into the first empty cubicle, hauled up her clothes and took a good look.
    Oh. My. God. Little bits of fluff from her blue woollen skirt had rolled itself into tiny balls and attached to the leftover pink wax bits in the creases of her thighs. Down under she looked like a hairy mammoth crossed with a smurf. Frantic, she started to try to pull the fluff off, but, Oh Holy Mother… Her underneath… What? Tiny red spots. She’d either had a reaction to the wax, or the fluff, or a lethal combination of the two? A smurf with measles.
    Please don’t sing, cry, kiss me or try anything else on until I a) feel tingles, b) no longer resemble a pox-ridden blue dwarf.
    Her phone rang. The cavalry, thank God. ‘Hey, Jenna.’
    ‘Why are you answering?’
    ‘Because you rang. Why are you calling?’
    ‘We didn’t have a code sign for thumbs horizontal. What does it mean?’
    ‘That he’s okay ,’ she hissed. Having de-fluffed as much as she could, Chloe pressed the phone to her ear, secured it with her shoulder, dragged down her skirt and went out to wash her hands. ‘But unavailable for next weekend, unfortunately. A little short, and shy and sad. More to the point, though, any tips on gentle fluff removal from raw genital areas?’
    ‘What the hell, girl?’
    ’Never mind, I’ll just have a bath when I get home. He won’t be seeing that tonight.’
    ‘But? Do you like him?’
    Did she? ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. He seems okay. He has a guitar.’
    ‘Is that good or bad?’
    ‘Aaargh. I just don’t know. We’re planning a drink tomorrow. A real drink, with alcohol and everything.’ Maybe that would help with the tingles? Chloe pushed the bathroom door open with her bottom and stepped back into the