Just Last Night by Mhairi McFarlane EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Mhairi McFarlane
- Language: English
- Genre: Women’s Friendship Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Before
“We’re going to win tonight,” Ed says. “I can feel it. I can smell it. I could
slice it like a frittata. The air is thick with the odor of our imminent victory.
Breathe it in, my bitches.”
He pretends to scent the air.
“Are you sure that’s not Leonard?” Justin says. “He had chili con carne
for tea. Got up on the counter and had his face in the saucepan before I could
stop him, the fool. He’s been farting in spicy beef flavor ever since.”
“Maybe victory smells exactly like mince and kidney beans working its
way through a very small dog’s digestive system,” I say, as Susie says:
“BLURGH.”
“How would we know how it smells, after all? None of us have ever been
successful,” I say, directing this at Ed.
“Speak for yourself. My GP said my hemorrhoids were the most
prominent he’d seen in thirty years practicing medicine.”
I guffaw. (This is a standard joke format with Ed; I assume his bum is
fine.)
I reflexively reach out to pet Leonard, who has his own chair, sitting atop
Justin’s coat, protecting the upholstery.
Leonard is a “Chorkie”—a Chihuahua crossed with a Yorkshire Terrier.
He has beady eyes peering out from under a comical fringe of gray-white
hair, spiky in the middle like he’s had Paul Weller’s Mod cut, bat ears, and a
lopsided little grin, full of toothpick teeth.
He looks, as Ed says: “Like an enterprising cartoon rat doing some kind
of stealthy cosplay as a canine. We’ve been infiltrated by a rodent master
criminal.”
Leonard, an omnivorous eater and troublesomely impromptu urinator, is
one of the loves of my life. (The rest of them are around, and also sometimes
under, this table.)
“You say we’re going to win this quiz every week, Ed,” Susie says,
worrying at a coaster, shredding it into a pile of soft cardboard shards. “And
we are always fucked by the same five determined men in Lands’ End
packable anoraks.”
“Describing my best holiday in Wales, there,” Justin says. Justin is a selfproclaimed “tiresome show-off and performative middle child” and one of
the funniest men you’ll ever meet, but you absolutely do not go to him for
good taste.
The quizmaster’s voice booms out, cutting through conversation, like the
Voice of God:
“Question TEN. Who is Michael Owuo? Who is, Michael Owuo?”
The usual seconds of post-question hush fall.
“Is he . . . the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East?” Ed whispers,
faux-earnestly.
“Seriously?” Susie says.
“No,” I say, rolling my eyes, and Ed taps the pen on his lips and winks at
me.
“You three do know who he is, right?” Justin says, doing a double take.
“UGH. So we are the millennial cast of Last of the Summer Wine.”
“Did he play the villain in the last Bond?” I ask, and Ed says: “YES!
‘Doctor Pardon.’ What was his gimmick again?”
“He had bejeweled ear gauges,” I say. “And a walker, with tinsel wound
’round it.”
Ed laughs. I love the way he laughs: it starts in his shoulders.
“OK, who is joking, and who isn’t?” Susie says. “I mean obviously, they
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB