Egotism and Enmity

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

"Is he amiable?"

A week after our mother's birthday party at Longbourn, Jane and I had finally arrived back in our house in London, what I considered to finally be a safe enough proximity away from both my mother and Will Darcy, whom I had had to endure a further three times during my stay because my sister wanted to see Charlie Bingley. Darcy had been as insufferable as ever and it had been as much as I could do, every time I saw him, to not rip out my hair. Yeah, he was that bad.

I had promised Chaz, my best friend, that we would meet up when (or if) I returned from Longbourn. I had known Chaz for about fifteen years now, a fact that never fails to make me feel surprisingly old. The first time I saw him, I knew that we would be best friends. He was hilarious; utterly mad and totally gay. He has, hands down, the most interesting fashion sense I have ever seen on a real life human being and today, when I met him, he was wearing glaringly pink knee length shorts. Sometimes I worry for his sanity but he is far too entertaining for me to be too concerned.

He had managed to persuade me, today, to leave the comfort of my sofa in order to meet at our favourite coffee shop, just around the corner from where I lived. It was called Bean and had, by far, the most delicious coffee for miles around. Even though it was only quite a small shop, it was always busy and Chaz and I had practically fought for the window seats that we were now lounging on.

After taking a long sip of his Frappuccino, Chaz looked at me over the top of his straw. "So; tell me about him then. Was he hot?"

I blinked. Hadn't he just heard what I had been saying? "I was just telling you about him. His name was George, he was one of the bartenders at Mum's party..."

"No, no," said Chaz, waving a dismissive hand in front of his face. "Not him. The other one you mentioned. Darcy? You were obviously attracted to him."

I spluttered into my drink and had to cough for several seconds before turning to my friend, with what I hoped was a sufficiently horrified look on my face. After coughing for a couple more minutes (without so much as a pat on the back from my best friend may I just add, by the way), I managed to splutter out a rather pitiful, "What?"

Chaz shrugged. "It's obvious. You don't normally care if people are grumpy shits. I mean, you're a grumpy shit. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to see that you were only so annoyed that he was so standoffish to you because you thought he was hot."

My jaw dropped. "What?" I said again.  "I mean, sure, he was pretty good looking." I saw Chaz smirk in smug satisfaction. "But that doesn't mean I found him attractive!" I insisted. Then, forlornly, I added, "Does it?"

Chaz insisted on pressing me for more information, which made me squirm in my seat – what was this, the Spanish Inquisition? Now that I was being forced into thinking about it, I suppose I had found Will Darcy just a little attractive. In looks anyway, not so much his personality. But I didn't want to admit to Chaz that he was right. His head was big enough as it was, already. To be perfectly honest though, I don't think I wanted to admit it to myself either.

"Hey, look!" said Chaz, suddenly, making me jump in my seat. "It's Georgie!"

Snapping quickly out of my Darcy induced haze, I turned to see who Chaz was pointing at. Georgie had been a mutual friend of both Chaz and I through university. We had been pretty close during those days but I didn't get to see her as often as I would have liked because she had got married and recently had a baby. When I had told my mother of this, she had seen it as the perfect opportunity to tell me how wonderful Georgie was and that I should take a leaf out of her books. "Hi, Georgie," I said, shaking thoughts of my reprimanding mother out of my head. "What are you doing here?"