Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (11 page)

Shane catches my eye and taps the handle of his knife so it hits the table surface and expertly flicks a pea in my direction. I open my mouth and in it goes.

‘Stop it, both of you.’ My mother looks at Shane sternly. ‘Layla is
not
a child.’

Both of us erupt into irrepressible laughter.

My mother turns to me. ‘By the time I was your age I was married with four children.’

‘Shane started it,’ I say.

‘This is not proper behavior for a lady. Do you want people to think I raised a hooligan?’ my mother asks.

I cast my eyes down.

‘Let her be, Ma,’ Dominic, ever the gallant, comes to my rescue. ‘When she was away you were always moaning that it was like the life and soul of this family went away. All our meals were proper and dull. Now she’s back and you won’t let her have a bit of fun. She doesn’t behave like this when we are out. This is our family meal. Let her have her fun.’

I look at Dominic with astonishment. My mum said that.

To my surprise Jake cuts in. ‘It’s true that we spoil Layla rotten, but she hasn’t turned out so bad. She knows right from wrong. She’s never ever mean to anyone. She’s generous to a fault. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. She’s not stubborn or selfish or bossy or bitchy. Quite frankly, she makes me proud of her.’

‘And she knows how to catch flying peas in her mouth,’ Shane adds with a grin.

Everybody laughs. Even my mother smiles.

I gaze around the table at all their faces, even the latest addition, Lily, and my heart brims over with love. At that moment I think I am the most blessed person in the entire world

‘How’s the job search coming along, Bear?’ Jake asks.

‘I’ve got an interview on Wednesday. Fingers crossed,’ I say and stuff a chunk of roasted potato into my mouth so that he can’t ask where it is. Jake is such a control freak, he actually paid the people living in the flat next to me in Milan to keep an eye on me and make sure I was all right! God knows what he will do if I tell him where my interview is.

‘Mmmm … delicious, Ma,’ I say around my food.

My mother makes the best roasted potatoes ever. Her secret is twofold. She strains the potatoes and gives them a good hard shake in a closed lid pot after they have been cooked to break up their edges. Then she drops them on a baking tray of very hot goose fat. Hot enough to make the potatoes sizzle. The result: crispy on the outside, billowy on the inside.

After lunch Jake and Lily offer me a lift back to London, a suggestion I quickly accept.

FOURTEEN

Layla

T
he journey is pleasant. The conversation is light and easy and it is only when Jake and Lily start talking about attending a wedding of a family friend that I kind of put my foot in it.

‘Do you want to go, Bear?’ my brother asks.

‘Will BJ be there?’ I reply.

Jake meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. He is frowning. ‘Why do you want to know?’

I shrug. ‘Just curious.’

‘Stay away from BJ, Layla,’ he warns in a steely voice.

I am immediately curious. ‘Why? I thought the feud is over and we are best friends with the Pilkingtons now.’

‘We’re not best friends. We’re friends,’ he corrects.

‘Ma said he saved your life.’

‘Yes, he did and I’ll be forever grateful for that, but I don’t want him anywhere near my sister. He’s a junkyard dog. He’ll fuck anything in a skirt.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Lily says. ‘I think BJ can be tamed. He is a bit of a beast, but a very seductive beast,’ she says and flashes a wink in my direction.

The car suddenly stops.

‘Out of the car, you,’ Jake tells Lily. His voice is deadly quiet.

She raises her eyebrows at him, then flicks her eyes in my direction, as if asking,
You want to do this with you sister here?

‘I’m waiting,’ he says.

‘Are you serious?’ she asks incredulously.

I look from one to the other curiously.

Jake doesn’t reply. Instead he gets out of the car. As I watch totally bemused, he comes around to her side, opens Lily’s door, and takes her hand to pull her out and lead her around the back of the car. For a few moments I don’t turn around to look but then, oh fuck it, I have to know. I glance back, and my mouth drops open.

Whoa, Jake!

Lily is being crushed in Jake’s arms. He is kissing the shit out of her. The domination and forcefulness of his embrace is astonishing. I didn’t know he had it in him to be so intensely jealous and possessive. I swivel my head back quickly, not wanting to be caught staring like a half-wit at my brother eating his wife’s face by the roadside. I needn’t have worried though. It’s a good few minutes before he settles Lily back in the passenger seat. Her cheeks are bright red. And no wonder.

He gets into his seat and turns around to face me.

‘You’ve been warned. BJ saved my life. So I owe him big time, but if he hurts even a hair on your head I’ll have to break his fucking legs, and I really don’t want to do that. We’ve just made up with the Pilkingtons after centuries of pointless feuding. If you don’t want to start an all-out war again between our families, stay away from him. Can you do that?’

I nod slowly.

‘Good. He’s not the only man in the world. There are millions of good guys out there for you. You don’t need to pick a drug dealer.’ He pauses. ‘He’s a criminal, Layla. Don’t ever mistake him for anything else. You deserve better than him. Much better.’

‘Ok,’ I whisper.

He turns around and starts the car. We drive the rest of the way in complete silence.

‘Thanks for the ride, Jake. Bye, Lily,’ I say, opening the car door.

‘No problem. I’ll wait until you get in,’ Jake says.

‘You don’t have to, Jake. What can possibly happen to me in broad daylight?’

‘Layla,’ he sighs wearily.

‘OK, OK,’ I say and, slipping out of the car and shutting the door, I run up the steps to my front door. I love my family to death and all, but sometimes they are so overprotective I feel stifled. I close my front door and I hear Jake’s car drive away. My flat is quiet and still. So much so I jump when my phone rings. It’s Madison.

‘Hey, Maddy. How’s it going?’

‘Same old, same old,’ she says, sounding bored. ‘How was your party last night?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I kissed … someone.’

‘Wait one moment,’ she says and I hear her moving around, doing something. ‘Right. I’m back.’

‘What were you doing?’ I ask.

‘Getting a tub of ice cream out of the freezer. So … who, what, where, when? Spit it out,’ she demands bossily.

So I tell her.

‘No fucking way!’ she screams so loudly I have to hold the phone away from my ear.

I open the freezer and take out a carton of chocolate-chip ice cream and open it on the granite countertop.

‘Are you kidding me?’ she asks incredulously.

‘Nope,’ I say, getting a spoon out of a drawer and shutting it with my hip.

‘But you hate him!’

I sigh, plonking myself on a stool and stabbing my spoon into the ice cream. ‘I know.’

‘What do you mean you know? Is this like some sort of a hate fuck?’

‘I’m not sure I’m taking it any further than dinner.’

‘Liar,’ she accuses.

I slide the spoon into my mouth and let the ice cream melt on my tongue. Maddy is right. In my heart of hearts I know I’m not walking away.

‘So what are you going to wear tomorrow then?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know yet.’

‘Wear your red dress.’

‘No way. That’s a summer dress.’

‘You won’t be wearing it for long, anyway.’

‘Even if I do decide to go further, I’m not planning on sleeping with him tomorrow.’

‘Of course, you’re not. You’re just practically salivating through the phone and into my ear,’ she says with her mouth full.

I scoop more ice cream. ‘Want to bet I don’t sleep with him tomorrow?’

‘To be really frank, I’d sleep with him.’

The spoon halts mid-way. ‘What?’

‘Wouldn’t be the saddest day of my life.’

I lick the spoon. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, he has badditude and that intense, laser stare going on.’

I grin. Badditude and a laser stare. That’s one description for BJ.

‘I like the way he fills out his jeans from the back too,’ she adds.

I laugh outright.

‘Oh! And I suspect he’ll be very good in bed. He looks like he gets laid often.’

That observation shouldn’t have troubled me, but it does. Which is strange because after Jake’s warning I am of the mind that even if I do sleep with him it will only be the once or twice.

‘So come on, what are you going to wear?’

‘Something subtle. Maybe a white shirt and my dark green trousers.’

‘Isn’t that what you were planning to wear for your job interview?’

‘No, I was going to wear my black trousers to the interview. I just don’t want to give the impression that I’m a slut.’

She laughs. ‘You? A slut? Pleeeease. You’ve got ‘Don’t Touch’ written across your forehead.’

‘I do not.’

‘All right, I’m wrong. You’ve got Don’t Fucking Touch Or I’ll Call The Police blazing from your forehead.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Maddie.’ I sigh. ‘Actually, I’m a bit confused.’

‘About what?’ she demands.

‘I think I’m torn between excitement and panic,’ I reveal.

‘I get the excitement bit, but why the panic?’

‘Because I know it’s a bad idea.’

‘Why?’

‘Well to start with, Jake has threatened me off in no uncertain terms. Absolutely don’t go there stuff. Forbidden in capital letters. Huge family feud stuff. Jake actually called him a drug dealer and criminal. And he didn’t say it just for effect. He really believes BJ is a massive gangster.’

‘Ooook. You said to start with. What are the other reasons?’

‘I sometimes get the uneasy feeling that I am standing at the edge of a cliff and about to jump in when I’m with BJ. There’s this feeling of doing something deliciously destructive, but there is also the prospect of oblivion forever.’

‘Man, only you can make a simple fuck sound so dramatic.’

FIFTEEN

Layla

If a girl will walk stark-naked by the light of the full moon round a field or a house, and cast behind her at every step a handful of salt, she will get the lover whom she desires.

Old Gypsy Magic

T
he moment Ria called to ask if I wanted to go to dinner with her at Pigeon’s Pie I knew. I was always going to say yes. So I did. Ria and I agreed to meet at a wine bar in Waterloo first for one drink and then take a taxi to Pigeon’s Pie.

I arrive first. Nervously I order a glass of white wine and find us a table. Ria is dressed in a skin-tight leopard print crop top and leather trousers. She looks sexy and carefree. Suddenly I wish I had taken Maddy’s advice, and not dressed so stuffily. We drink a glass of wine and chat about the people we know, then Ria looks at her wristwatch.

‘We should go. We don’t want to be late for dinner,’ she says with a smile.

‘No, we don’t want to be late,’ I agree nervously.

The taxi drops us across the road from Pigeon’s Pie. From outside it looks like an old fashioned pub; a place with fruit machines, patterned carpets, dark wood furniture, and horrible pub food.