Fucking hell, I’ve forgotten everything that I just read was on the menu. “Salmon,” I reply.
He frowns and takes the menu off me. “There isn’t salmon on the menu.”
“Oh, shit, sorry, I just always have salmon, I just assumed…”
“No, no, don’t be sorry.” He picks up the cordless phone that’s lying on the coffee table and dials. I sip my wine, wondering what he’s doing. “Get Gino… Yes it’s me, get Gino.”
He looks me over. “How’s the wine?”
I look at my glass, and then back at him. “It’s delicious, very clean and crisp, a bit dryer than I usually drink but it’s nice.”
He nods his approval. “Good girl, well done.”
Shit, I didn’t know it was a test, I would’ve swirled it and sniffed and mentioned peaches and grass if that’s what he was after, still, he seems happy enough with my answer.
“Why do we not have salmon on the menu?” he asks whoever is on the other end of the phone, I’m assuming its Gino. Who Gino is, I have no idea. “Well look harder, I want salmon on the menu, in fact I want a couple of fish choices, not just prawns, I don’t know, you’re the fuckin’ chef, do your job, this might be Essex but I want more than prawn cocktail, sirloin steak and black forest gateaux on the menu… No, don’t take all of that off the menu, I said I want more than that, hang on.”
He looks toward me. “How dya like your steak?”
“Medium rare,” I reply.
“Two steaks, one rare, one medium rare, both with jacket spuds fully loaded, spuds, spuds, potatoes, learn some fuckin’ English will ya.” He disconnects the call and throws the phone down on the coffee table.
“Sorry, we’ve only just started doing food, this is just a trial menu, I’m expanding the wine bar into the shop next door, we’ll have a full a la cart restaurant up and running by September and bar food available in the wine bar.”
“That’s great.” I raise my glass to him. “Here’s to Cameron King and his ever expanding kingdom.”
He smiles at me and his eyes sparkle. “I’ll drink to that.”
He clinks his glass against mine. He leans forward and my heart pounds hard against that brick wall it’s encased in. He reaches for the wine bottle and tops up both our glasses with a slight smile on his lips, fucker, he knows I thought he was going to kiss me, I thank him for the wine and turn and angle myself toward him. “How old are you Cam?”
I don’t know why I asked that. I’m curious, I know he must be at least thirty, he’s been married, he almost had a family, I won’t ask about that though, it’s too soon, I’ll let him tell me when he’s ready. “Why are you so concerned about my age? You haven’t told me how old you are.”
“I’m twenty, it’s not a secret.” He spits his wine everywhere and I mean everywhere, coffee table, sofa, carpet, me. “You’re only twenty?”
“Well yeah, didn’t you know that?” He doesn’t look happy, he gets up and goes and gets a tea towel from the kitchen and wipes the sofa and the coffee table and then leaves the room, leaving me sitting there. Fuck, what does that mean? Am I too young for him? How fucking old is he then? He returns with a t-shirt in his hand.
“Sorry about that, throw this on, I’ll put this in the drier.”
He’s standing right in front of me, between the sofa and the coffee table, as I stand up, there are only a couple of inches between us. I pull my sweatshirt over my head and face him in just my bra, he struggles for a split second, then loses the battle and looks down at my chest; he reaches up with his three middle fingers and drags them over my throat and down into my cleavage. My nipples are so hard they are painful, I look down to where his touching me, he cups my right boob and drags his thumb over my nipple, he leans in and sucks on my left, through my bra and I can’t help but throw my head back. “You have a fantastic pair of tits for such a skinny little thing.”
Before I get chance to consider what is the appropriate answer to that, a buzzer sounds and I jump out of my skin and launch myself toward him.
“Bollocks,” he whispers looking down at me, he kisses the top of my head and says, “Let’s get you fed.”
The food is great but I only manage to eat half of what’s on the plate, Cam complains that I haven’t eaten enough, then dives in and finishes it off for me, he opens a second bottle of wine and we go and sit back down on the sofa.
We are sat at the breakfast bar to eat and as I look across the room, I notice a vase of flowers on the dining table. “Oh, thanks for the flowers by the way, they’re beautiful, my Mum had to go out and buy more vases to put them in and my car looks good too, I haven’t looked at it properly but what I did see looks good.”
He smiles at me. “You’re welcome Georgia, I wanted to call to make sure you were doing okay but I was worried about your Dad answering the phone, I didn’t know… I wasn’t sure if you’d said anything to him about us.”
I shook my head. “No, my brothers know, well Bailey and Lennon do, I haven’t said anything to Marley yet.”
His lips curl in the slightest of smiles. “What?”
“I love the way your eyes spark when you talk about your brothers.” I can’t help but smile at the thought of my brothers, I’m so glad Marley and I are on talking terms again, I really do need to arrange to spend a day with him.
“I love my brothers, we’ve always been really close. It’s just,,, it’s just been a shitty few years. Bailey was living with Donna and she wasn’t a big fan of how close we all were and he stopped coming over for dinner but they’ve split up now and he’s back living at the barn with my Mum and Dad in Shenfield. Lennon I see a bit of each other now that he’s not travelling so much, he’s marrying my best friend in June, I’m being bridesmaid for that, they want to start a family straight away so he won’t really be travelling anymore.”
“What does he do?” I can answer this. I can answer this…
“He’s the manager of my brother’s band but he’s getting into the agency side of things now so that he doesn’t have to tour with the band and Jimmie, his girlfriend, she works for them too so she’s been able to travel with him but if she has a baby, that’s not what either of them want.”
He nods as he listens. “I can’t believe your brothers are called Lennon and Marley, who’s the music fan?”
I laugh as I think about the times I’ve explained our names to people and for some reason I think about sitting on that old Chesterfield sofa in the summer house and explaining to the cutest brown eyed boy I had ever seen, a tear rolls down my cheek and I wipe it away quickly.
Cam doesn’t say a word; he just waits for my answer. “My Dad. My Dad loves music, all music, any music, he encouraged all of us, and my brothers are all good musicians, with great voices. I play guitar and sing, I had piano lessons but I’m not very good at it, but our names, well Bailey’s named after a bloke who makes guitars, my Dad met him at a festival in the sixties and remembered his name. Lennon and Marley, well that’s obvious and me because Georgia on my mind is my Dad’s favourite song and it’s sung by Ray Charles, I’m Georgia Rae.”
I feel embarrassed as I finish the story behind mine and my sibling’s unusual names.
“It’s a beautiful name.” He leans in and tucks my hair behind my ear.
“Thank you,” I reply.
He leans back into the corner of the sofa. “So your other brother, Marley, he’s in a band then?”
For just a split second, my heart stops beating, my blood stops flowing and my brain stops functioning, just for a split second, then I pull myself together. “Yeah, they’re doing… ” I shake my head, I actually have no idea how they’re doing, I know they’re famous but I have no idea how famous because I’ve avoided all information about them for almost four years but I know from what little information I have heard, that they are big. “They’re Carnage; my brother’s band is Carnage.”