‘I’d fuck him,’ added Marco.
‘I bet you would,’ conceded Paul.
‘I feel like he’d be the kind of guy that goes down on you immediately and makes you come five times in a night,’ mused Luna, who was sitting on Paul’s lap and drinking directly from a bottle of red wine.
‘Do you ever watch those clips of him on his latest tour?’ asked May. ‘He’s so cute with fans, wishes them happy birthday and stuff. Someone I know went to see him once in Paris, she was in the VIP section because of her job.’
‘Who was it?’ asked Luna.
‘Oh, I really can’t say,’ she replied, smirking. ‘Anyway, he spotted her from the stage and sent over one of his bodyguards to ask if she’d like to meet him after the show. Obviously, she went. And they slept together in his dressing room. Imagine! No idea how they keep that kind of thing out of the press.’
‘Wow,’ said Flouff. ‘What does the girl look like?’
‘No, I already said I can’t tell you who she is,’ replied May.
‘He’s not fucking Santa Claus,’ said Ben, who must have noticed Rose staying silent.
‘Ah yes, that inherent sex god Santa Claus,’ May laughed.
‘Can we stop fangirling a popstar and get on with the game please?’ said Ben, sternly.
Rose was grateful not to get Milo again in the next round, when everyone had to say one word for the names. Instead, Paul got him. ‘Rose!’ he yelled, gleefully pointing at her when he pulled his name out of the hat. ‘Milo Jax!’ yelped Luna, flapping her hands with excitement.
By the time they’d finished round two, everyone was mercifully too drunk to carry on. The group had splintered: Flouff was now chain-smoking outside with Paul. May and Marco had gone to pick up more coke – it transpired they’d been doing it since the start of the night. And Luna was upstairs on FaceTime to her new Brazilian boyfriend.
Rose and Ben were still at the table. They had been discussing death row meals – Ben’s was a roast dinner: ‘diabolically dull’. Rose said buttery pasta with tuna.
‘Pasta with tuna?’ Ben asked, genuinely aghast.
‘I know. It’s hardly Michelin stuff,’ she replied. ‘My mum used to make it for me.’
‘Cute. To be honest, a Michelin-star meal might bloat you. No one wants to arrive at heaven’s pearly gates with a bloated belly.’
Rose smiled and yawned, noticing the clock on the wall that informed her it was nearing 1 a.m.
Ben topped up her wine again. ‘Rose, can I ask you something?’
‘Sure.’
‘Did you really not know who Milo Jax was?’ he asked.
Rose stayed silent.
‘I just find it hard to believe, given your job,’ he continued. ‘Isn’t he in the magazines all the time? He was at one of your parties the other day, right?’
‘Yes, he came to the Firehouse Awards,’ she replied, her tone sturdier.
‘Right. So, what happened? You know him, or something?’
‘Kind of.’ Rose hoped this would be enough for Ben to stop asking questions. This, she quickly realised, was naive.
‘Stop. Don’t tell me you … and him?’
Rose looked down and said nothing.
‘You are full of surprises, Rose.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she snapped.
‘Oh,’ said Ben, caught off-guard by her frostiness. ‘I didn’t mean … I just. I don’t know. Sleeping with someone like that. It’s a pretty big deal, I guess. I don’t know anyone famous. I’d scream it from the rooftops.’
There were many things Rose wanted to say in response to this. She wanted to tell Ben that his last sentence alone highlighted just how little he understood what had happened to her. And how warped his view of the world must be to think that sleeping with someone famous will elevate your life in any meaningful way. She wanted to tell him that people like him are the reason men like Milo get away with behaving the way they do. That people like him are the problem.
She wanted to lecture him about the value society places on fame. And how it makes no sense that these are the people we’ve decided matter more than others. Fundamentally, she wanted to tell Ben that she judged him for being impressed by the fact she’d slept with Milo. What was it that made it impressive? Why did that change his opinion of her? Did it raise her sexual stock value?
But she also desperately wanted to confide in Ben. She wanted to tell him that he was the first person she had allowed to know the truth. And that she still couldn’t remember what the truth really was. That she was starting to see his face everywhere and it was morphing into a Francis Bacon painting and she was worried she was going slightly mad. That she may never find out what really happened because Milo had been ignoring Rose ever since it happened. And she was too terrified to try getting in touch with him because of what he might tell her. And how every time Rose thought about any of this her lips trembled just a little and she stopped being able to breathe for a few seconds.
But Rose decided not to say any of this to Ben. Instead, she kissed him.
Ben’s lips were soft and full. He was a good kisser, pulling Rose’s body towards him with one hand on her arm, running his fingers along her neck with the other. They must have been kissing for several seconds, maybe even minutes, when they heard Luna’s voice.
‘I knew you two would get along!’ she chimed, audibly delighted.
Ben pulled away and glared at Luna like she’d just stepped on his foot in one of her feathered stilettos.
‘All right, all right, I’ll leave you to it,’ she replied before leaning into both of them: ‘You can use my bedroom if you like. I just found my brother’s stash of K,’ she winked and skipped off into the garden.
Ben looked at Rose. ‘Do you want to?’