‘Becks?’ Robbie pressed her again. Same old bullish Robbie, she noticed. No patience. The people around them were already starting to take notice of the tension at their table. Robbie tended to do that wherever he went. She had forgotten what all that attention felt like, and now she had a reminder, she hated it even more.
‘Back?’ Luke echoed, all caught up and annoyed now. He squeezed her hand and stood up, facing Robbie. Robbie grinned at him, his best fake grin, and Luke’s eyes flashed.
‘Lovely to meet you, Robert, but—’
‘Robbie.’
‘Bobby, right.’ He took a half step forward, so his chest brushed against Robbie’s. ‘Well, Nobby, it’s nice to meet you, but we are on a date, and I’m sure that you have people waiting on you.’ He nodded his head behind them towards the bar, and Rebecca could see some of his old crew, along with a tall, black-haired woman wearing a short white dress who was looking at Rebecca as though she knew exactly who she was to her man. Rebecca stared right back till the other woman looked away. You can keep him love. I have no designs on the bloke. Mina walked past, and Rebecca caught the look of horror on her face when she clocked Robbie at their table. She started coming over, making her way through the tables as discreetly as she could.
‘Luke …’ Rebecca went to stand up from the table, and Luke automatically reached for her hand. Moving to her side, he pushed Robbie out of the way with his arm as he passed. Robbie went to grab his shoulder, and Luke grabbed him by the wrist. ‘Luke, please. Let’s go. Mina’s coming.’
Luke was too busy glaring at her ex-fiancé to hear her, but he still kept his grip on both of them. He was eyeball to eyeball with Robbie now, their chests butting up against each other like men did before a fight.
She found Luke’s ear and whispered, ‘Luke, come on. You do know you’re not actually Clark Kent, don’t you? What are you trying to do, laser beam him with your eyes?’
‘Eh?’ Luke asked, his head moving in her direction slightly before returning to glare at Robbie again. ‘Clark Kent,’ Robbie laughed. ‘As if.’
‘Shurrup,’ Luke growled. ‘I don’t need lasers for pretty boys like you.’
‘Luke,’ she whispered again, trying to move them. ‘Mina!’
She didn’t want to cause a scene and get her friend into trouble.
Mina arrived, and she did not look happy. ‘Robbie, knock it off. Go back to your pathetic snow groupies.’ Too late, she was standing at the other side of Robbie now. ‘You okay, Rebecca?’
Robbie was looking around him as if he was the butt of some big joke.
‘The Great Becks Atkins, nothing to say? Mina, what the hell’s going on?’ He bent his head around Luke, looking right at Rebecca now with a confused look on his face. ‘When did you come back?’
He was talking to Rebecca again now, peppering her with questions, and she was trying to take out money from her purse to pay for the food. Luke took her bag, closing it and tucking it under the arm holding hers.
‘Becks!’ Robbie was shouting now, and the diners closest to them had heard him over the soft music and relaxed chatter. She could see people starting to look, putting things together. She felt hot, her hand clammy in Luke’s. She went to pull away, but Luke pulled her closer, pushing some notes into Mina’s hand. ‘Sorry Mina, we’ll be leaving now. It was nice to have met you.’ He glared at Robbie, who whooped like a schoolgirl at him.
‘Ooooo, you getting mad, are you? Big man, eh? Come on then, let’s share Becks stories eh? Can’t top Canada, can he Becks?’
Mina was trying to push him out of the back now, Robbie’s own security posse standing close by. The guy needed his own security team because he was such a colossal dick. They looked positively fed up, and Rebecca smiled at them apologetically. Lester, Robbie’s head security guy, gave her a wink and rolled his eyes. He mouthed ‘you look great’ at her, and she loved her old friend for it. Lester stepped forward then, his thickset arm easily wrapping around Robbie’s waist as he reached where they were all standing.
‘Pleasure to see you Rebecca,’ he said just low enough to be heard, ‘Luke, take care of my friend. Robbie, time to go. Team, extraction in 3. Next location.’ The next bar, it meant. Somewhere else for Robbie to make his presence felt. She’d spent enough time in their company to know all their little codes.
The people around him started to shift, moving Robbie and his party back away towards the bar, and the side exit. Robbie was having none of it.
‘Come on Becks, what the hell? You got nothing to say to me, eh? You just going to leave me here, standing like a fool?’ He was taunting her now, she could feel it and Luke was reading her face, his own getting darker by the minute. He faced her now and made her look at him. He nudged her chin with her finger till she looked at him. He squeezed her hand again.
‘You okay?’
Robbie was yelling behind him, Lester telling him to knock it off and Mina telling him to bugger off in her mother tongue. Rebecca knew that Mina knew all the worst curse words too. She was furious, the whole night was ruined. ‘Just ignore him. I take it you dated?’
‘Dated! Ha!’ Robbie, bat-eared and wrapped in a bear hug by Lester, was flailing his arms around everywhere. The diners had mostly chosen to ignore him now, though a couple had pulled their phones out. This was bad. Damn the inventor of the smart phone. Nowadays you couldn’t have a poo without someone making you into a viral internet star.
