Free Grind Their Bones by Drew Cross Page B

you'd have noticed her, since you'd have had to retrieve your piggy little eyes from her cleavage when she passed.'
    I smiled sweetly and without sincerity, watching him exchange a worried look with two of the other gorillas.
    'What?'
    I asked impatiently, waiting to be let in on what they knew.
    'She headed into the gents about five minutes ago with a group of guys.'
    His expression burned with dawning realisation at the whole world of shit he was about to land in, and he suddenly found it hard to meet my stare.
    'Just so we're clear. You watched an obviously drunk woman being led into the male toilets by a group of guys, and you didn't do anything about that? Say goodbye to your licences gentlemen, if that term can be applied to low lives like you.'
    His eyes suddenly flicked up and past me, and I tensed as I felt a hand rest on my shoulder, relaxing again when I heard a familiar voice.
    'It's okay Zara, I'm fine, I just want to go home now,' said Emily, and then threw up all over my shoes.
     
     

Chapter 28
     
    'Just when I was beginning to believe that we were making progress, she went and screwed it all up royally again.'
    I was over at Lee's ultra neat rented house mouthing off about Emily and her antics again, noticing how this was rapidly becoming a feature of my life at the moment. Lee was fresh faced and chipper this morning, in stark contrast to my current condition, and his evident enjoyment of that fact was doing nothing to help my mood. I was nursing the kind of hangover that made anything more strenuous than blinking painful, and I was pretty sure that I looked like the bride of Frankenstein right now.
    'Not that I necessarily approve of what she did, but it's not exactly a hanging offence in this day and age, and she's hardly the first person to seek a little solace in strangers, is she?'
    He took a gulp of coffee and reached for a slice of buttered toast, smiling as my stomach performed a spin cycle and I glared at him belligerently.
    'For the record, if you ever find yourself seeking solace in the arms of a stranger then make sure that you really, really enjoy yourself. Because, by the time I'm through with you, it'll be the last time that you're physically able to perform that particular act.'
    I could feel the heat of indignation rising up in my face.
    'Don't worry, in that department I'm more than happy with my lot.'
    He flashed me another boyish grin and took a big bite out of his toast.
    'What am I going to do with her, Lee? She's in her early thirties now, a wife and a mother, and she's out behaving like a teenager. I thought she'd been assaulted to begin with, you know? Then when we got outside and she finally started to make sense, it turned out that she'd been quite happy to oblige a group of strange men like some streetwalker, and that it's apparently not the first time she's felt and acted on that particular urge.'
    I sighed in frustration and chewed at the ragged corner of a fingernail, pushing my unruly hair back with my spare hand.
    'And that's her choice, Za, so don't take responsibility for that on your own shoulders.'
    He put down what was left of his toast and moved around the table to hold me, enveloping me in the sweet smelling scent of a new Issey Miyake aftershave that I'd bought for him.
    'She'll be just fine in the end, you'll see. She just needs this time to find herself before she'll be ready to be a mum and resume all of the related responsibilities again. All you can do in the meantime is listen when she wants you to and bite your tongue until she asks for your opinion.'
    He played with a loop of my hair as he spoke and I almost forgot about my hangover.
    ‘You’re probably right as usual, but it’s not going to be easy to keep my mouth shut about her recklessness last night.’
    I closed my eyes as a heartbeat took up residence in the centre of my forehead, pulsing at double the rate of the steady rhythm in Lee’s chest. I tried to blank out the pain, but it felt absurdly