High Heels & Pink Glitter (the heavily edited version)

Over-drinking, over-thinking

Tadgh continued to stare adoringly at Nell, remarking that she couldn't possibly be almost forty. It still rankled that Kelly's attached (albeit unhappily at present) friend always attracted so much attention, leaving her feeling a bit like... sloppy seconds.

Grant smirked, his eyes darting from Tadgh to Kelly as if sensing her disquiet. "Aye, this is our lucky night eh, Tadgh? We come oot for a quiet drink or two, no' thinking of anything else and we bump into these lovely ladies. Bonus, eh?"

Nell groaned. "He didn't just say that, did he?"

Kelly tried and failed to suppress a grin, cheered by obvious flirtation. "He bloody did. Must think we're stupid enough to fall for that crap."

Grant smirked. "Oh, lassies... you're breaking me and Tadgh's hearts." He splayed one hand across his chest, miming heart break. Kelly and Nell burst out laughing.

"You know on the first one I crashed and burned," Grant sighed. Tadgh sniggered. This was obviously a well-rehearsed routine.

"And the second?" Tadgh adopted a high-pitched American falsetto.

Grant's eyes burned straight through Kelly. "I don't know, but uh, it's looking good so far..."

Nell giggled, the Prosecco kicking in big style. "Top Gun's one of my favourite films! The cheesy music, the accidentally gay beach volleyball scene, the utter shit dialogue!"

Grant feigned outrage. "Dinnae say that! The dialogue is masterful. Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jnr shoulda got the script-writing Oscar for that piece o' genius."

That set the four of them off. Kelly could quote large chunks of Top Gun verbatim too. Though to be on the safe side, she steered clear of Meg Ryan's iconic quip, "Hey, Goose, you big stud! Take me to bed or lose me forever."

Nell staggered off to the toilets. Tadgh's phone, which was lying next to the ice bucket, beeped. He picked it up, glancing at the screen, and dropped it facedown again almost immediately. Kelly raised an eyebrow, her senses attuned to secretive behaviour thanks to plenty of previous experience. "Was that your wife or girlfriend, asking you when you're coming home?"

"Dinnae be daft! It was a message aboot ma dog. From ma nephew. Ryan."

He held up the screen, which showed a picture of a young lad curled up on a sofa with one arm around a staffie, its jaw hanging open.

"That's your nephew?" Kelly asked, staring closely at the picture. The lad looked familiar, but she couldn't remember where she'd seen him before. "You can't possibly have a nephew of that age."

"Ma older sister had him when she was awfy young. Wouldnae tell anyone who the faither was, but he didnae want anything to dae wi' the kid anyway. He lives wi' me off and on."

"On mostly." Grant shared out what was left of the second bottle of Prosecco. "Because you're a total mug. Ryan's a cheeky wee git who takes advantage of ye."

Tadgh shrugged, making a move to put the phone back in his pocket. The resemblance suddenly struck Kelly, and her mind battled with the information. Surely, the boy couldn't be...

"Can I see that picture again?" she asked, pinching it so the boy's face filled the screen, her disquiet growing. Nell chose that moment to return to the table, sitting down with a clunk that made the glasses wobble.

She caught sight of the picture too and frowned. "Why... why d'you have a photo of Dan-Daniel on your phone?"

There, Nell had also spotted the boy's close resemblance to her husband. Kelly felt the ground shift under her feet, as she worked her way backwards, trying to figure out when the boy was born. Could Daniel have cheated on Nell, the man Kelly had always placed on a pedestal, worshipped as the ultimate in life partners, envied Nell her luck, and sometimes thought, even though she tried to suppress it, that she, Kelly, would not mind being married to a workaholic AT ALL if he were the lovely, fan-tab-u-lous Daniel.

Mark had always been a poor substitute for the man she really wanted and could never have.

"Nell, that's not Daniel," she said now, her voice gentle. Nell screwed her face up. "But he's... no, too young."

Nell's complexion had turned sheet-white, and she swallowed several times. She stood up once more and headed in the direction of the toilets.

"Who's Daniel?" Tadgh asked, watching her go.

"She's all muddled, she's had too much to drink," Kelly replied, scraping back her chair and following her. The toilets were in the basement, down a wide flight of stairs, with flickering lights that would become a death trap later that night.

Two women opened the door, pushing past Kelly, and objecting noisily to the smell. Someone, and it wasn't difficult to guess who, had vomited in the ladies. Nell, white-faced and bleary-eyed, stood in front of the sinks, holding her hands under the hot tap. She met Kelly's gaze in the mirror. "God, sorry. I drank far too much on an empty stomach."

Kelly rummaged through her handbag and extracted the still in its wrapping toothbrush and mini tube of toothpaste she kept for emergencies. Did she ask Nell why she'd mistaken the boy for Daniel? If she did, what unpleasant things might leap out of that Pandora box?

Nell raised the subject anyway, and Kelly argued her (and herself) out of any suspicions. No, it was just a co-incidence. No, Daniel wouldn't do that. And anyway, about the time the boy would have been conceived, Daniel was busy, busy, busy opening shops in Edinburgh. When on earth would he have had time for an affair...?

Neither of them pointed out the obvious flaw in the argument, the one screaming in Kelly's head. Oh, yeah? As if conception depends on an affair, when a child could as easily be the result of a one-night, a one-day, a one-hour, a one-minute stand.

Kelly heaved an inward sigh of relief when Nell stated she wanted to go home. If Nell looked at that photo again, she'd see the resemblance loud and clear, when she ought to speak to her husband before jumping to any conclusions.

"Don't worry about me." She patted Kelly's arm. "You stay here and have fun."

Kelly walked her to the end of the alleyway, making her promise she would text as soon as she was back home. The crowds milling around on Buchanan Street swallowed her up in seconds.

Grant had wandered out of Lock-down. He slung an arm around Kelly's shoulder. "Tadgh's abandoned me too. What d'ye want to do now?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE - what's going to happen next... should Kelly say yes or no to Grant?