Neil was completely and utterly out of breath by the time he reached Alicia’s house. Which was ridiculous, because he’d driven all the way there in the car.
He’d parked a little way down the street, partly because he wasn’t exactly sure which was the right house and partly because he didn’t want Alicia to peep out of the window just as he approached and catch him in the act of hand-delivering her should-have-been-posted invitation to dine at The Ivy. He plucked the envelope from the passenger seat and fingered it gingerly. God, Jemma would gnaw his balls off and eat them for breakfast if she ever found out that he’d forgotten to post the bloody thing.
Where was his brain? He knew how important this was, and yet he’d still nearly managed to cock it up. All it had done was strengthen his resolve to turn himself into a new all-singing, all-dancing powerhouse, not some twit who couldn’t even be trusted with something as dangerous as an envelope. And to that end, as soon as he’d delivered this little time bomb, he was off to buy himself the nattiest suit in Christendom and bugger the expense.
With a quick and overly melodramatic check that the coast was clear, Neil got out of his car and crossed the road. Ed had told him ages ago where the house was, and he only hoped he’d remembered correctly and that some batty ninety-year-old next-door neighbor didn’t turn up at one of London’s swishest restaurants instead, expecting her Prince Charming to be sitting there. How on earth had he let Jemma persuade him into all this in the first place! Because he was hoping that it would result in him relieving her of several articles of essential clothing at some later date, he seemed to remember. Bloody testosterone had a lot to answer for!
Neil crouched down slightly, acknowledging that it probably made him look even shadier than if he’d walked upright and confidently to the front door and just shoved it in. The theme tune to Mission Impossible started playing in his head, every potential curtain twitch alerting him to the danger of discovery. He should have known that no curtains would be likely to twitch, as no one in London was the slightest bit interested in what anyone else was doing anyway. But this was too important to mess up now that he had come this far—and so close to messing it up.
As he reached the right front door, he spun round, checking he wasn’t being followed. He crouched lower and inched his way toward the letterbox, easing the flap open gently, gently, like a bomb disposal expert disarming a fuse. The flap lifted with an I-want-oiling creak, Neil took the invitation and squeezed it through the draft excluder inch by careful inch. When the letterbox had accepted its prey, Neil lowered it down, carefully, carefully, coaxing its creaking hinges to a state of calm and quietness. The envelope was inside. The letterbox was in the closed position. And Neil sighed with relief at the same time as his mobile phone went off, sending him three feet into the air.
“What?” he yelled.
“It’s Jemma.”
His heart was pounding against his rib cage, and his knees had gone as weak as if he’d seen Britney Spears naked. Adrenaline as well as testosterone is bastard stuff. “Oh,” he said breathlessly.
“Neil. You did remember to post those invitations, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Neil panted. He could quite safely say, without fear of contradiction, that he had.
Robbie was having a beer and watching The Weakest Link. “Did you hear a phone, Becs?”
Rebecca looked up from her nails. She blew delicately on them. “No.”
“I did.” Robbie pushed himself out of the chair. He went over to the curtain and pulled it back. “There’s a bloke on a mobile phone crouched down on our path.”
Rebecca looked worried. “Do you think it’s someone we owe money to?”
Robbie curled his lip. “Could be.”
“What’s he doing now?”
“Leaving,” Robbie said. “I’ll go out and see what he was up to.”
He went out into the hall, and Rebecca heard the front door open and close. Robbie came back in carrying a small white envelope. “He’s gone,” Rob said. “Seems as if he delivered this. It’s addressed to Alicia.”
Rebecca held out her hand and he gave it over to her.
Robbie sat down again and stared at the television. “Where is Ali?”
“Upstairs,” Rebecca said. “She’s not very well.”
“She’s looked a bit off-color all week,” Robbie said.
“Christian’s up there mopping her fevered brow. He’s just taken her some soup.”
“That boy has got it bad.” Robbie wagged his beer bottle and then jumped up. “Slash,” he said. “Can’t stand the excitement of the normally meek and mild Anne Robinson being a dominatrix.”
When he’d left the kitchen, Rebecca examined the envelope. If she had time, she probably would have steamed it open. Looked like it was something interesting. Maybe an invitation. She held it up to the light and tried to peer through it. Call of nature presumably completed, Robbie’s footsteps thumped back down the stairs.
Quickly, Rebecca ripped the envelope into little pieces. “Goodbye, Alicia,” she said. “You are the weakest link!” And she stuffed the tiny shreds of Ali’s invitation to The Ivy down the side of the sofa.