Sugarcoated Read Online Free Page B

chatted up! And not by a gargoyle!’ I was tempted to yell out. But I don’t think Dad would have given me thumbs-up right now. He’d his back to me and his thumbs were otherwise engaged. One was jabbing at the mess on his window, the other at some noddy-suit huddled over the outline of the hammered man plucking the ground with tweezers.
    ‘Just as well Dad was elsewhere,’ I told Stefan, pointing him to the scene. ‘He’d’ve tried to stop the attack. Got himself whacked by a pair of hammer-psychos, knowing him.’
    ‘You saw them?’
    ‘Huh?’
    Stefan’s fingers stopped stroking. Pressed into my collarbone instead. ‘You saw the guys who did this? Have you given a statement to the police?’ Stefan’s grip grew less gentle as he spoke. I twisted to free myself.
    ‘Hey –’
    ‘Oh, Claudia. Sorry. It’s just that –’ Stefan’s fingers relaxed. He ran his hands the length of my arms till he reached my sticky paws. His knees crooked so his pale grey eyes were level with mine. The little smirk he shrugged me dimpled at the left side of his mouth. Made him look baby-faced.
    ‘Sometimes,’ he said, while I tried to guess his age – Eighteen? Twenty? More? Impossible to tell – ‘you hear about people helping the police and they end up …’
    ‘End up what?’
    donk donk donk
    When the phone in Stefan’s soft suede jacket pulsed, I felt the vibration in our joined hands. Like we shared a heartbeat:
    donk donk donk,
Another One Bites The …
donk donk donk …
    ‘Don’t you ever answer that?’ I nodded at the sound. ‘Hate to be your girlfriend.’
    ‘How can you stay that, Claudia? D’you want to break my heart, babes?’ Stefan let go my hands to dig out his phone. He cut the call again. Then he thumbed his menu button. Handed the mobile to me. It was a tiny, sexy slip of stainless steel. State of the art.
    CLAUDIA – ADD NUMBER: its screen winked.
    So I accepted the invitation. Good thing too.
    My own mobile rang as soon as I handed his back.
    ‘Hi? Claudia? It’s Stefan. Can I see you later? Please say yes, babes?’ Before I’d even fished mine out my pocket Stefan’s eyes were pleading over his tiny, sexy mobile, while my tinny non-polyphonic ringtone embarrassed me by playing I Am the Walrus.

6
nothing to wear
    ‘You don’t know anything about this guy, you nutter,’ I giggled, floating home after agreeing to meet Stefan outside the Underground. Couple of hours from now.
    ‘You don’t know what age he is, where he lives, what he does, his surname … So what, he’s GORGEOUS . Live dangerously,’ I announced at volume to a small boy zigzagging towards me on a scooter, head down. He wouldn’t be doing that again. Not without a helmet. Not to my pelvis anyway.
    Yeah, live dangerously, I decided. What else was I going to do? Get Starsky and Hutch to run a police check on Stefan?
    Hire manly Marjory as my bodyguard?
    Was I going to send Stefan a text questionnaire:
Excuse me, most gorgeous guy
I’ve ever met. See before you
go down in history as my FIRST
and ONLY date, d’you mind
ticking the following boxes to
disclose whether or not you
are:
    A. A psycho axe-murderer.
B. The Devil in a suede jacket.
C. Just after me for my body.
(Ooooh yes please!)
    It wasn’t as if five foot ten, size-nine-footed Desperate Dinas like Clodhopper Quinn here could be choosers. And frankly, with a back-story like mine in romance, two hours with a psycho axe-murderer was a score in my book! I’d make sure me and Stefan stuck to public, well-lit areas. I’d even ask him to leave his axe behind the bar. Politely, of course.
    ‘Anyway, we’re only going for a drink ,’ I reassured the showered, naked hefty slad of flesh filling my bedroom table mirror. Then I groaned. Aye and it would be ONE drink, too. Then Time, gentlemen, please; the state of me.
    ‘Nice knowing you Claudia,’ as I imagined Stefan’s eyes scrutinising what I was seeing right now, I also heard his voice in my head. It was