I have a little present for you. Think of it like a DVD extra feature but with words. I'm posting some excerpts from Walker's bit of Pretty Things that never made it into the final version. I thought they might amuse you.
And then we had to stop because Lavinia strutted in and started screaming like a fishwife at us.
I had Charlie practically in catatonic shock next to me and over the other side of the room there was Daisy, curling in on herself as she bore the brunt of Lavinia's wrath.
Daisy has this really annoying thing about how she's fat. It's all "No, don't touch me there, I'm so lumpy." And even though I'm besotted with the evil little bitch, even I could never call her exactly sylph-like. But as she sat there, her lips, her shoulders, her everything drooping further down as Lavinia got going with her invective, she seemed to shrink before my eyes. Disappear into herself.
When she got up and tore out of there, it was like she was taking another piece of my soul with her.
"Um hang on a second," Charlie said from behind his fingers. "Don't take this the wrong way but I… well, I… that is… I like it when you flirt with me. I know it's not going to go anywhere. Believe me, I'm painfully aware of that but it doesn't mean you have to stop."
"I can't help it," I tried to explain. "It's like this inevitable reaction once I know someone fancies me. But I could try to stop…"
Charlie pushed the sun-bleached tips of his hair out of his eyes and frowned. "Didn't you just hear what I said? I don't want you to stop flirting with me. It's about the only sexual contact I get."
"Or you can stop," he hastily amended. "But only when I'm madly in love with someone who has the good sense to be madly in love with me back."
"I think the back of my head has just fallen out."
"So I guess you told Charlie," Daisy said calmly to Brie who refused to back down. I was getting really pissed off with V.02 of Brie, the bolshy remix.
"Charlie's my friend." The tone of Brie's voice redefined the word 'petulance.'
"Yeah and you didn't want him to find out like you did and be upset. I get that." Daisy put a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun and smiled at me.
"You been making inroads into my stash?" There had to be some reason why she was being so pleasant to me in front of other people.
I got another lazy Daisy smile and then she deliberately leaned forward and covered my hand with hers. None of this was wasted on Brie and Charlie who wore matching perplexed expressions like we were the last question in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
"Walker didn't tell you because I asked him not to," Daisy said to Charlie. "Because I was trying to pretend that me and him were just this temporary bout of insanity."
It took Brie and Charlie several millennia to eat their sausage and chips and bombard us with questions, which Daisy refused to answer. Instead she wouldn't stop touching me. Running her fingers along the back of my neck and tugging at the short strands of hair she found there. Curling her leg round mine under the table. Resting her head against my shoulder. There's only so much resistance a boy can give and in the end I stopped trying to fight it and let her do her worst.
The other two finally pissed off and then Daisy sighed. "Thank God for that. I thought they'd never leave. C'mere."
Next week, I will be posting a little unseen snippet from Let's Get Lost for your viewing pleasure.
Have a good one!
Love Sarra x