Angie desperately wanted to say no. Jax would be here any time now and everything was ready for him. The very last thing she needed was Tiger playing gooseberry.
‘It’s not that convenient right now,’ she managed. ‘I mean, if I’d known you were coming . . .’
Tiger looked a little taken aback, but ploughed on regardless. ‘Oh, you know me,’ he said. ‘There’s never a plan. I just go where the wind blows me.’
Well, the wind could blow him right back to where he’d come from, Angie thought. ‘Yes, but I’ve got someone coming to stay. They’ll be arriving any minute now. In fact, I thought you were them.’
‘Even better,’ said Tiger as he pushed her gently to one side and began to climb the stairs. ‘The more the merrier. We can have a little party. I’ve got some great weed. Hid it in . . . Well, you don’t need to know where I hid it, but Customs didn’t find it.’
Angie sighed, took a long look down the street to see if Jax was anywhere on the horizon – he wasn’t – and then set off up the stairs after Tiger.
‘And there’s no need to worry about me. I don’t need much. I can kip on the sofa. I won’t get in your way and I promise not to be too dazzling for your friend.’
This would be the moment to tell Tiger that rather than the girlfriend he seemed to assume was coming to stay, Jax was very much all man and Tiger would not be welcome whether he was on the sofa or not, but somehow the words stayed locked in her throat. What would be the point? She knew from past experience that there would be no shifting Tiger, not tonight at any rate. And he was one of her oldest friends. She couldn’t just kick him out on the street, not when he had only just arrived.
Tiger dumped his rucksack on the floor in the middle of the room and flopped down on the sofa so that the length of him took up every inch. He was grubby and in serious need of a close encounter with plenty of hot water and soap, but other than that he looked well. According to a hastily scribbled postcard, he had turned thirty in a yurt somewhere in the Atlas Mountains, but to look at him Angie thought you would probably still place him in his mid-twenties. His body was tanned and athletic-looking and his face glowed with health. That must be what a life with no worries did for you.
‘Beer?’ he asked expectantly. ‘As in, any chance of a . . . ?’
Angie sighed and took a bottle from the fridge. She passed it to him, and he flicked off the top with his thumbnail and took an appreciative swig.
‘Ahhh. That’s better,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to that.’
Angie was tempted to comment that there were plenty of other places to buy beer between wherever he had come from and her flat, but Tiger was Tiger. He was just acting true to form and she had never objected to his behaviour before, so it hardly seemed fair to start now.
‘So, how’ve you been?’ he asked her. ‘Still here, I see. It’s a nice little place.’
Angie shrugged. ‘It suits me,’ she said. ‘But listen, Tiger. I really do have someone coming tonight and so if you could, you know, kind of make yourself scarce for a bit that would be great. The pub down the road is all right.’
If she could get him out until closing time at eleven o’clock then at least she and Jax would get a bit of time to themselves.
A smirk spread across Tiger’s face. ‘Like that, is it? You haven’t gone and got yourself a bloke whilst I’ve been gone?’
Angie rolled her eyes as if she couldn’t have cared less, but inside her she could feel a tell-tale heat building. She hoped she didn’t blush. Tiger would never let her live it down. They had always been as one on the subject of relationships, neither of them feeling the need to find a partner in the traditional way of things. Sex had been something that had just happened, like them watching a film together or sharing a sunset. Fun, but with no emotional engagement. But now she had Jax, which not only altered the dynamic between her and Tiger, but almost felt like a betrayal of their unspoken agreement to float through life without commitment.
‘Life goes on,’ she said. ‘I don’t just sit around the place waiting for you to get back, you know.’
‘Does that mean sex is off the agenda?’ he asked. ‘That’s a bit of a bugger. I was looking forward to that almost as much as the beer.’
‘God, you’re such a charmer. And just because we might have done that in the past doesn’t mean it’s on the cards now.’ She meant her voice to be light, but actually she could hear an uncharacteristic barb in her words.