‘Want to join us, Noah?’ I ask.
‘No, I’m all right. You girls go ahead and have fun.’
‘You sure, big boy?’ Stella pouts.
He looks her up and down, his eyes assessing in the way only a man’s can be. ‘Don’t play with fire, babe.’
Stella takes my wrist in her hand. ‘Ooooo, promises, promises,’ she taunts cheekily and starts walking backwards away from him.
He just shakes his head and turns back to his beer.
‘Why are you flirting with Noah like that?’ I ask when we get back to our table.
Stella shrugs. ‘Just something to do, I guess.’
‘What?’
‘Well he’s hotter than a brick shit house, but he’s always so controlled and professional I kind of like provoking him to see how far I can go before he snaps,’ she says giving a sly sideways glance in his direction.
‘But wouldn’t you like to date him though?’ I persist hopefully.
‘I never really thought about it, but I don’t think I’m his type.’
I look at her curiously. ‘How do you know you’re not?’
‘Come on. When a man really wants you it oozes out of his pores.’
‘I don’t know. From what I saw he seems to like you well enough,’ I say, tearing the foil on the champagne bottle.
‘Enough is the key clue. I don’t want enough. I want desperately, can’t live without, dying for, madly, deeply, etc. etc. You know, the kind of stuff you have with Zane.’
I ease the cork out with a quiet pop. ‘What should we drink to?’ I ask.
‘Hot men,’ she says with an impish grin.
I fill our glasses and we clink glasses.
‘Hot men,’ we say in unison and giggling like two naughty schoolgirls let the bubbles slide down our throats.
‘Oh God, yes. Mmmm … Heaven,’ Stella moans and rapidly flutters her eyelashes to indicate just how blissed she is with the taste.
‘Come on tell me how your date went.’
She pulls a face. ‘Ugh … he was an insufferable idiot.’
‘Really? What did he do?’
She leans in. ‘He asked me out to a restaurant and proceeded to gobble up everything in sight including my leftovers. I swear he was like a bloody turkey. When he was not eating he was boasting about himself. Brag, brag, brag. How much money he had. How good he was at his job. How much property he owned. God, you should have heard him. Anyone would have thought I was sitting with Warren Buffet.’
I smile at her.
‘Honestly, I’ve come to the conclusion every father should tell his son what my granddad told my brother. When a man starts bragging he’s compensating for something small between his legs. The consequence of that small heart to heart between my granddad and brother is: my brother never brags.’
She pauses to take a sip.
‘Then, when this turkey had just about talked my head off he called for the bill and started tapping and fumbling about in every pocket he could find on himself.
So I was sitting there watching him and,’ she taps her hair, ‘you know the brain underneath all this pretty, was going, oooo this guy must think I fell off an Irish turnip truck.’
I start giggling. I can almost picture the scene.
‘After he had tapped the shit of all his pockets he looked at me all innocent and astonished and told me he must have left his wallet in the side pocket of his car door. Then came the big ask: would I be so kind as to get the meal first and he would see me all right later? Mind you, it wasn’t like it was an expensive place or anything.’
‘What did you do?’ I ask her.
‘I looked him in the eye smiled really seductively and said, “You run along and get your wallet and I’ll wait right for you, honey.”
‘Wow, you’re really brave to call him out like that. If someone did that to me, I’d just pay for the meal and never take his calls again.’
‘No way. I’m a pretty laid back person, somebody calls me a bitch and I’m like, true, but I’m not down with what he did. Paying for that meal would have been encouraging him to go out and do that to another poor girl. It was a matter of principle,’ she says firmly.
‘And just in case he was planning on doing a runner, I scratched the inside of his thigh and told him I had something super special planned for him when we got back to my place. To seal the deal I looked at him as if he was going to get the best damn sex of his life.’
‘Stop, you’re killing me,’ I say.
‘What a blinking idiot. He actually thought he could stiff me with the bill. I mean, I’m all for women’s lib and everything.’
She takes a sip of champagne.
‘I hate a man opening a door for me as much as the next girl. Not. But for fucks sake don’t invite me out for dinner and then pretend you’ve left your wallet in the car.’