The Wedding Date by Jennifer Joyce Read Free Book Online Page B

would rather stand for a while.’
    Leona shrugs. ‘Fair enough. If you do want to sit down though, you’re better off sitting out in the bar.’
    ‘She can’t, can she?’ Doodle asks. ‘Not with Dan anyway. Donna’s out there.’ Doodle shakes his head at Dan. ‘You shouldn’t have banged her, man. That bitch is never going to leave you alone now.’
    Dan has the good grace to look slightly uncomfortable, which only makes Doodle throw his head back and laugh his puny little head off.
    ‘Leave it, will you?’ Dan asks, but Doodle does not. He ups his game and starts to do impressions of Dan and Donna in the act, using Munch as a prop. To be fair to Munch, he isn’t at all happy with the arrangement.
    I look at the time. There are almost two hours until the band are due to start their set. It’s going to be a long night.
    The pub has started to fill up a little more by the time we escape the suffocating storeroom. I can’t tell you how glad I am to be out of there. I thought the smell of the sofa was bad, but then Doodle and Munch tried to outdo each other with farts and I would have quite happily shoved my face into the sofa cushions and inhaled deeply to mask their stench. At one point Munch had grabbed the seat of his jeans and waddled out of the room, declaring that he may well have shat himself. He couldn’t be sure and we haven’t seen him since.
    ‘I’m sorry about them,’ Dan says as we shuffle out of the storeroom. We’re carrying bits of drum kit, so it’s a slow walk to the corner of the pub where the band will play shortly. ‘They’re ok once you get to know them.’
    ‘It’s ok.’ I have to remind myself that I’m on a date with Dan and not his mates, otherwise I’ll drop the drum I’m lugging across the room and leg it. ‘They’re not that bad, really.’
    ‘They’re a laugh, aren’t they?’
    Is Dan being serious? ‘Mmm.’ I’m not committing either way. It’s far too soon to pick faults with his mates.
    ‘I’m sorry about Donna too.’ Dan and I dump the kit in the corner before returning to the dreaded storeroom to pick up more. It still stinks. ‘I didn’t think she’d be working tonight. She doesn’t usually do Fridays.’
    ‘It’s fine.’ It’s none of my business, really.
    ‘It only happened once and I was completely off my face. I couldn’t even remember it but Munch filmed it on his phone.’
    ‘He filmed it?’ We pick up more bits of drum and shuffle out of the cupboard. ‘How did you not notice him in your room?’ I have visions of Munch crouching in Dan’s wardrobe, his phone poking out of a crack in the door. The weird little degenerate.
    ‘We weren’t in my room. We were out there.’ Dan nods towards the back of the pub. ‘Out in the alley. It was so dark you can’t really tell it’s me but I recognised my trainers.’ He sticks out his foot, displaying a pair of trainers that must be three-hundred years old. ‘And you can’t miss Donna and her big gob.’
    Dan starts to tinker with the drum kit and I excuse myself to pop to the loo. This date is not going at all as I expected. I thought it’d be fun to hang out with Dan outside of The Farthing. We’ve always got on so well and he seemed fun and charming, but I’m seeing very little of that now. I don’t like this Dan and I really don’t like his friends.
    ‘Looking forward to the show?’
    I jump at the sound of the voice as I leave the stall. I hadn’t heard anyone else come in but Leona is standing at the grimy mirror, the contents of her makeup bag tipped into the sink. She’s busily applying eyeliner, thick and neat with an elaborate flick at the corners.
    ‘Yes.’ At least I was, until I met the band. ‘How long have you been together?’
    Leona screws the lid on the eyeliner, swapping it for mascara, which she applies liberally. ‘Since school, so about five years.’
    ‘Five years?’ My stomach does a funny jumpy thing. ‘How old are you guys?’
    ‘Me and Gary are