Oxford made a gesture behind him that was most ungentlemanly, no matter what decade they were in!
“I don’t trust Cressida,” Lovelace whispered in his ear. “If this even is Cressida. What kind of person summons a velociraptor to a dinner party? Even for a dinner party including Nero, it’s a bit much.”
“Sorry I missed it,” Monterey replied, and shamelessly took the only seat next to Cressida for himself. “Fen, would you be a lamb and help Oxford with the tea? Or the G and T, if that’s on offer.”
Fenella looked annoyed. “I’m sure he can manage.”
Monterey waggled his eyebrows at her. “Can he, though?”
She gave him what she probably thought was a dirty look — sweet — and stalked off through the crowd of sunflower children.
Lovelace, getting wind of what Monterey was up to, dug her claws in extra hard as she leaped from his shoulder to the ground. “Don’t think you’re getting rid of me,” she said, and sat on his feet, out of sight. “Pretend I’m not here if the two of you want a moment.”
Cressida gave Monterey a menacing look. She was better at it than her sister, though the slight sway of her body did rather ruin her credibility. “Oh my,” she said. “What can he have to say to me now he’s got me alone in a sea of hippies?”
Monterey patted Cressida’s hand, and looked her over — the usual sort of casual examination that one might make when a friend returns home through the hoops. Checking that they still had the right number of fingers and ears. That their tail was the correct length.
“Monterey, you’re starting to worry me,” Cressida said with half a laugh.
She looked fine. Bustle aside (and the least said about her towering hair arrangement the better), she looked perfectly normal. Lovelace might have her own theory this was a creepy doppelgänger, a trap, but all Monterey saw was Cressida Church.
He’d liked her since that first day, when they turned up for orientation and he caught her pulling faces behind the back of the pompous Dean Pennyworth.
They’d never been lovers; they’d barely even been friends. Work acquaintances, sure. Their cats adored each other. It was like when the two best friends of the main characters in a movie are forced to hang out together.
Monterey liked being bitchy to Cressida, and he loved it when she insulted him in return. They got each other. They entertained each other. After they graduated as time travellers, the best job in the world, they became viciously competitive pen-stealing rivals.
That was even better than friends.
And then she was lost, and Boswell’s heart was broken, and Monterey was so busy being grateful he hadn’t lost his partner, he never let himself mourn the enormous Cressida shaped hole she had left behind.
Leave that to Melusine from Admin and the statue-building committee.1
“Let’s pretend I never did this,” Monterey told Cressida, and enfolded her in a warm hug.
Hopefully Oxford and Fenella were out of sight. It would do his reputation no end of damage if anyone thought he cared about anything beyond his clothes, or his cat.
“Oh,” said Cressida, sounding surprised. She leaned into the hug regardless. “But, Monterey. I’m your least favourite person.”
“True,” he muttered into her hair. “I fucking missed you, fiend. I’m surrounded by children now. Chronos College is wall-to-wall toddlers and grumpy old cats. How dare you disappear for seven years?”
Lovelace bit his shoelace with something adjacent to fondness.
“They’re not that much younger than us, the new batch of travellers,” murmured Cressida.
“Speak for yourself,” said Monterey, feeling weary. “I came here the long way.”
She gave him a squeeze, then wriggled out of his arms. “Nice to know I was missed, you absolute sap.”
“Oh, they turned you into a patron saint, back home,” he informed her. “There’s a marble statue, and a scholarship in your honour.”
“Lies,” she smiled.
Monterey’s own smile felt rather less warm now. Chilly. “What aren’t you telling us, Cressida?”
“You know,” she said, looking away. “There’s a few famous actors in this crowd once you look beyond the giant sunflowers and floppy hats. I’m starting to think I know exactly what party this is.”
“Don’t even try to tease me,” he warned her. “If Freddie Mercury was within a ten mile radius of this quaint little farm house, I would know.”
Someone stopped the record player. Someone else clinked two glasses together, which caught on like wildfire until there was a full chorus of clinking glassware.
A pretty woman in an ankle-length cheesecloth gown and pale yellow hair nearly as long stood up on a table, followed by a shaggy ginger-haired gentleman in denim flares. They were more than casually attractive, and ever so slightly familiar in a way that made Monterey wonder which film he knew them from.
She wore a necklace of gold sunflowers, and a fresh flower tucked behind her ear. He wore a series of sunflowers stuck into his beard.
“Hello darlings,” said the woman, projecting with a clear, professional voice at odds with her delicate appearance. “Geoffrey and I wanted to share a few words about our guest of honour, who can’t be with us tonight.”
The mood of the crowd shifted. The well-heeled flower children fell upon each other, performatively sad. A few of them sniffled. One very drunk young lady covered in paper sunflowers started sobbing into a large cake in the corner.
“Is this a wake?” said Monterey in a mild panic.
Oxford and Fenella pushed their way through the weeping crowd, carrying a mug of water and a large jug of party punch. No tea, which Monterey took as a personal attack.
“We’ve figured out what party this is,” announced Oxford.
“I could have told you that,” remarked Lovelace, still sitting on Monterey’s feet.
“Wench,” said Monterey, nudging her.
