I tugged on my dress; making sure that my outfit was perfect even going as far as to check my reflection in the glass door of the penthouse lift, the sounds of Sloane's merry making party travelling through the lift shaft.
I had found a loophole in the 'I can't believe you wore that' theme, and come as Posh Spice from the Spice Girls. While hardly a huge fashion faux-pa, I had backcombed my long dark hair, and turned up the ends so that it looked like a long bob. I wore a shiny metallic boob-tube mini dress, which I had created by cutting the straps off an old dress and wrapping it with a shiny golden over laying material. My make up was classic early 2000's, which translated to being kind of awful.
As the lift opened, the penthouse was on full display, there were people dressed up as flappers, as famous film characters, I had spotted at least four dumb and dumbers', and a couple of spice girls.
Sloane was in the middle of a crowd, as per usual, dressed in the infamous Jennifer Lopez sea green dress which opened in a deep, deep v until it tied, just below her belly button. She shrieked with glee when she saw me, leaving her adoring crowd to come and throw her arms around my shoulders.
'I always knew you were Posh darling.' She said, her husky voice carrying over the sounds of the booming music.
'Sloane, you look amazing.' I replied, now that she was closer, I could see that if the dress wasn't the exact dress that J-Lo had worn, that Sloane had paid a dressmaker to recreate it down to a tee. I hoped it was the former, the last thing I needed as a designer, was to get my favourite advertisement, the beautiful and vivacious, Sloane Parker to wear someone else's clothes.
'Not as good as you.' She replied assuredly, and my confidence grew, Sloane was so brilliantly reassuring that one's confidence grew tenfold in her company. She handed me a drink, taken from a tray that shiftless men were handing out, and I took a quick slug. The burn running down my throat, into my stomach nearly choked me, and I coughed like mad for at least two minutes straight, while Sloane patted my back in disrupted pattern.
I saw a familiar arrogant face through the crowd, and I swung my head up quickly to look at Sloane, who was tracking the same person through the swarm of people.
'Is Liam here?' I asked; my voice breaking and squeaking thanks to that terrible drink, Sloane had given me.
Sloane took another deep slug out of her cup and looked down at me, her expression fluctuating between extreme pity and amusement.
'Wait until you see what Celia dressed up as.' Sloane promised, and pointed into the crowd of people dancing in the middle of her huge living room, in front of where the DJ was set up.
I looked through the crowd, noting Liam, dressed up in a black shirt opened to the waist, with a heavy cross hanging on his chest. He has close clipped his light brown hair and was dancing with Celia, who appeared to be dressed as Posh Spice too.
I let out an indignant yelp. How dare they, Liam knew that Posh Spice was my ultimate celebrity wannabe from childhood. I narrowed my eyes, taking in Celia's outfit in greater detail. Her dress, dark wig and high, strappy heels all looked expensive, even in the dark flashing light of the party, but the look as a whole didn't work.
'You look much, much better girl.' Sloane assured, as if she had been reading my mind, even going so far as to stop a random party goer and shout, 'Which Posh is better?' and pointing between Celia and I. My confidence grew again when the party goer pointed at me with a definitive thumb up, before wandering off through the crowd.
Sloane yelled something at me, but I couldn't hear her, and she tried again. With another shake of my head, she grabbed my hand and towed me out of the huge living room and into the large kitchen which was filled with people talking and kissing, but which was markedly quieter.
'I missed you, you great big douche.' Sloane said, emphasising her statement with a flinging of her arms over my shoulders and smashing my face into her shoulders.
As well as being hilarious, intelligent and charming, Sloane also looked like she could walk at a Victoria's Secret runway show, and had a face that would make an artist cry.
'I missed you too.' I replied sounding muffled as I swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of taffeta from her dress.
'So, how are things?' She asked, waggling her eyebrows, making herself look drunker than she actually was.
A random passing guy tried to put his arm around Sloane in a passing leering way and she turned, stone still and stared at him until he removed his hand.
'If a lady wants your disgusting mitts on her, she will ask for it. I didn't ask, nor do I want you to touch me, so skedaddle, quickly, before I make a brand new pair of earrings out of a couple of things that you are attached to.' Sloane's warning was said in a polite, detached and utterly cold way, and was so menacing that the guy swallowed in a visible gulp, before stammering an apology and moving away.
'Anyway, you were going to tell me about your grand plan to seduce Jamie?' Sloane turned back to me with a banger of a statement, causing me to spit out my drink dramatically.
'Whoa now, slow down. He's just a friend.' I replied, but I couldn't meet her gaze.
Sloane let out a disbelieving noise, and began to tow me towards her huge balcony. The cool air was a delightful relief from the increasingly warm penthouse.
There were small pockets of people out in the penthouse, and a couple in the large hot tub which overlooked the city of London, and Sloane pulled me around into the tiny private balcony which led off her bedroom, shouting at a couple who were kissing passionately.
'Scram, you two, we've got a deep and meaningful conversation to start. Bugger off.' As the sentence continued, Sloane's voice grew higher and scarier, until the couple were practically throwing each other out of the way to get out first.
Once we were alone, Sloane pulled out a large bottle of absinthe from under a flower pot and refilled our glasses, gesturing for me to sit on one of wicker couches.
'So, spill it Tess. I want to know all the details.' She knocked back a huge slug of the bright green liquor and didn't act like it fazed her at all.
'I think I like Jamie.' I said, saying it for the first time aloud, to myself let alone anyone else. I took a sip from the glass in my hand, and nearly died.
Sloane waited until I was finished coughing to continue talking.
'Why did it take you this long to figure it out, you're an open book Tess, I've known you've been head over heels for the bonny prince since day one.'
I was so shocked, I barely remembered to breath. 'What do you mean, you've known?' I asked, tracing my memory for any recollection of talking about things with Jamie to Sloane. I hadn't said much to her recently about it, not wanting to admit to myself that something had changed, and speaking these feelings aloud would make them more real somehow and I wasn't sure I was ready for that. This meant that Sloane had been going off our relationship from when we were in school, when I still firmly saw Jamie as a brotherly soul mate.
'Tess, for years it's been 'Jamie says' before every sentence. It used to infuriate Liam, so I let it continue, but it was clear that you used to think about Jamie more than you would yourself.' I was shocked, thinking of Liam's sudden seething anger at nothing, and the times that he would blank me for no reason. He was jealous, he had been all along. It would have been made ten times worse if the social climbing pretentious Liam knew that Jamie was really Prince James. Sloane was the only one who knew about my family's past at the palace, and my relationship with the future king. As far as Liam knew, my family lived in Surrey and my father was in catering.
I opened my mouth to speak several times, stammering it closed each time. Had I always felt like this? I didn't think so, sincerely, but I think somewhere deep down in the pit of my stomach, I knew that feeling something more than friendship for Jamie now that I had returned was right, as if it had been foretold by some mystic.
Sloane looked at me with one eye closed and pointing at me. 'You look like you've just realised that you like Jamie. Like him- like him.' Sloane smiled and slapped me on the shoulder in congratulations.
'Fuck.' I muttered still feeling shock radiating in me.
'I have to give you credit Tess, you picked a beautiful friend to evolve feelings for. Except for me, that is.' Sloane winked dramatically, something made even funnier by the very high proofed alcohol that we had been imbibing.
'He's so handsome, and tall, and funny and lovely and if you asked me two weeks ago, I would have told you that he could have practically been my brother, but now- I'm lost.' My words came out in a drunken tangle and Sloane nodded in empathetic understanding.
'I think that you should go for it, that you should take it slow and not push too fast, but that you two crazy kids should go all in.' Sloane's wise reply gave me food for thought.
I groaned in dizzy confusedness. Why couldn't my life just be simple? Trust me to return from a two year absence from my best friend and suddenly find every aspect of him down right obscene it was so sexual. Add the Prince factor into consideration, and the leaving for Paris in three months and the hidden friendship and you've got a monumental screw up.
The door to the balcony suddenly flew open from Sloane's bedroom and a couple came running out, looking terrified and war torn, with ripped clothes and bloodied scratches over their legs and arms.
'You ignored my rule, telling you not to go into my bedroom didn't you?' Sloane asked the couple, and they nodded a shell- shocked look across their faces. 'You went into my room and you met my cat, Hatchet Face, didn't you?'
Again, another nod, and a shiver ran up the figure of the man on the left, while his boyfriend comforted him by absentmindedly patting him on the arm.
'I told you, I warned you. You have no one to blame but yourselves. Now scram, quickly, before I let my wild kitty have seconds.' The two men jumped, and ran quickly through the privacy door which connected the bedroom balcony to the living room balcony.
'How is Hatchet Face?' I asked, enquiring about Sloane's notoriously ugly cat who hated everyone other than Sloane.
'She's good, she's bitten five people today and made a woman cry by trapping her in the bathroom earlier today. She stood between her and the door.' Sloane's cat was the cat version of her owner, except ugly, and I wondered how many people Sloane had made cry today.
I thought about Jamie for a second, and his statement about 'just one girl' and my stomach dropped. It was likely that I was wishing to see certain aspects in Jamie, such as seeing me as more than a friend to the degree that I was imagining it. Especially when he had pretty much confirmed that he had a girlfriend. He wasn't acting any different now, than he had two years ago.
I looked up at Sloane, who had pulled a lovely moist looking cake out of absolutely nowhere and was munching happily. Feeling my stomach rumble, I took half of the cake from her and chewed it down, not noticing her wide eyed stare at me until it was too late.
'Sloane?' I asked, keeping my voice very steady, 'Did I just eat a space cake?'
I forgot rule number one of Sloane Parker, never and I repeat never take something from her at a party. The last time I did that, I woke up on a blow up lilo on the roof of my school dressed as a bear.
'That space cake will just mellow you out. It's just what you needed.' She said in a placating tone, trying to undercut my panic before it had even set in. 'You just need to dance off the edge and eat plenty of crisps and you'll be all right, right as rain.'
I nodded in enthusiastic agreement. I would be fine, the floor may feel like it was melting away, but I'll be fine. I stood up, letting Sloane direct me back into the living room, to where the crowd were dancing.
I flipped my hair and jutted my hips to the tune of the music, Sloane and I doing the choreographed stupid moves that we created while bored in school. We were dancing for maybe twenty minutes, when I felt hands wrap around my hips and judging by Sloane's expression, where she looked like she had just licked piss off a nettle; the arms were attached to Liam.
I tried to ignore him like I ignored the twinge in the bottom of my chest at him dancing with me, but he was very persistent and eventually, I just turned around and looked at him.
'What do you want Liam?' I asked, my voice sounding detached and bored, which was just the reaction I strived for, it would infuriate him more than anything else.
'You look nice Tessie. I miss you.' I grated at him using Jamie's nickname for me, I had tried to dissuade him from using it while we were together, preferring that he even call me Therese as opposed to a nickname that felt sacred.
'It's Tess, and I don't miss you.' I said, turning back to Sloane who was staring evils and actually hissing at him over my shoulder.
I felt Liam try to touch me again and I elbowed him firmly, half expecting his persistent groping hands to continue on the offensive, for which I already had a plan but thankfully, he didn't. It was only when I heard a high pitched posh accented voice piercing the music that I realised why.
'Liam, what do you think you're doing?' Came an angry shriek, and I didn't have to turn around to see who it was, but as I didn't want to miss any of this drama, I spun around.
Celia looked incredibly angry, and swung an accusatory finger at me, one which I returned gleefully, except using a different finger. She howled with anger and Liam threw his hands up in the air, instantly on the defensive.
'I thought it was you Cece, you're dressed the same.' He said, sounding very level headed and convincing. It reminded me of when he used to try and convince me that he hadn't been texting other girls, or that he didn't smell like perfume, or that my friends hadn't seen him kissing someone else, and suddenly I felt sorry for Celia.
'He knew it was me the whole time, he even used my name.' I said simply, trying to talk quickly and remove myself from the situation completely.
Liam looked at me in a murderous glare and I smirked at him. Celia grunted in righteous anger and turned to stare at me, her whole body shaking.
'Why are you even here, Chimneysweep? Haven't you got work in the morning?' Celia's voice was accusatory and snide and my sympathy disappeared instantly. She called me a chimneysweep because I wasn't from obscene wealth, like her.
Sloane cut in this time. 'Celia, I know I did not just hear you talk to my best friend like that, while attending a party in my house. Enjoy the next two minutes, because this is going to be the last one you attend.' Sloane jerked her head, and suddenly four heavy set bodyguards appeared out of nowhere.
'Wait, Sloane, she didn't mean to say-' Liam was cut off my Sloane mashing her finger up against Liam's lips and shushing him, before removing said finger and wiping it on the material of his t-shirt.
'You're leaving too sweetheart.' She said to Liam, and his eyes popped open wide with in an indignant, offended mask.
They were cut off from saying anything more, by the burly men grabbing a hold of Liam and Celia and towing them out of the door. I watched as Celia threw daggers at Sloane and me, screeching in her high private school accent about 'never being so offended in her life' and one sincere 'wait until my father hears about these parties.'
Sloane snorted and looked down at me, 'Did she just seriously Draco Malfoy us?'
I nodded in a weary way, sick of Celia and Liam and their privileged entitlement, and suddenly I was just sick of everything, feeling bone tired and annoyed at being treated like an outsider in every situation I had been placed in since I was five years old. I gestured to Sloane that I was going outside to make a phone call, and she nodded in return, turning back to sharing heated glances with someone dressed as David Bowie.
I pushed my way through the crowd of people, jimmying the clasp of the privacy door and going into Sloane's bedroom balcony. Ratchet Face, named after the character from 'Cry Baby' sat on the other side of Sloane's bedroom glass door. I nearly shuddered at the sight of such an ugly cat, remembering the day that Sloane and I went to London Cat Rescue, in spring mid-term, and they had first spotted each other. Ratchet Face, formerly known as Mabel, was an angry ten year old Maine Coon, who was the size of a big terrier; she was also missing one ear and had a wall eye. Like Sloane herself, Ratchet was slow to trust, but loyal as one can be.
I turned away from Ratchet, ignoring her plaintive cries on the other side of the glass, last time I tried to go near that cat, she had made ribbons out of my favourite pairs of jeans and I had to get a tetanus injection.
I turned to look out at the city, seeing the astronomically expensive view from Sloane's penthouse, wondering just how much it cost. Originally, it had been her father's London base, but after Sloane had moved in, he had conspicuously bought a huge piling mansion near Brighton. I swallowed down my sympathetic musings, and pulled my phone out of the small bag I had brought. I scrolled through the names until I found Jamie's, and pressed call.
The dialling tone rang out three times before Jamie answered; sounding groggy and I checked the time quickly and saw that it was nearly twelve o'clock. Jamie, an early riser would be out of his bed by five thirty, going for a run followed by a swim and then a ride with his favourite horse, Cash, across the estate grounds, he did all this before my morning alarm would even go off.
''Lo?' Came his voice down the line and I instantly began to apologise.
'I'm so sorry, I didn't realise it was this late.' I said the grimace I wore on my face transferring to my voice.
'Are you ok, Tessie?' Jamie asked, his husky, smooth like caramel voice so comforting that for a minute I felt like crying.
'I'm fine. I mean, I ate a space cake by accident, and I can kind of feel it kicking in.' I replied, trying to ignore the plant in the corner that had started to dance in time to the music.
'Do you want me to come and pick you up?' Jamie instantly asked, and I heard the rustling of bed clothes, as I could imagine him jumping out of bed and rushing to be here, like the hero he was.
'No, I'll be fine. This isn't the first time.' I said, my voice sounding high and squeaky even to my increasingly stoned ears.
'Oh Tess, you're such a rule breaker.' Jamie replied teasingly and I laughed, throwing my head back and loving the feel of the warm night sun sift through my now loose hair.
'Face it Jamie, I'm the princess that the world needs.' My sarcastic voice floated dryly from my now very dry mouth.
Jamie laughed at this, and I could imagine him, lying on his bed in his messy room. Jamie had never worn pyjamas I realised with a start and I was suddenly so overcome with images of a warm, nearly naked Jamie in his bed, that I nearly dropped my phone over the edge of the balcony. I turned back to the chairs and sank gratefully down on the large wicker sofa. Jamie had been talking to me throughout this process, but I wasn't paying any attention to it, instead choosing to hum one of my favourite Alt-J songs.
'Tessie, are you humming?' Jamie asked, his voice suddenly sounding like it was booming.
'Yes, yes I am. I'm humming through my horniness.' I replied in a very matter of fact tone, taking a couple of seconds to process what I just said and I yelped, rushing to cover it up. 'Ignore I said that, the space cake is really starting to kick in.'
The whole penthouse was rocking in small, delicate movements and I put my foot on the ground, hoping that it would tether me in place.
Jamie's shocked laughter came down the line and I heard it lead into loud hoots. 'Trust you to say something so astronomically world altering while under the influence of narcotics.' I heard the sound of a door open, and I imagined that Jamie was probably going outside to stand on his own terrace which surrounded his suite.
'Are you going outside?' I asked, suddenly very interested in what he was doing.
'I am. It's so warm tonight I was finding it hard to sleep.' Jamie said, and more images of him violently slammed into my head.
'Do you reckon that if I wave, you'll see me?' I asked, feeling one hundred percent certain that I could see the estate and Jamie standing out in his underwear like it was next door.
'How about you wave, and I'll tell you if I see you.' Jamie said, chuckling.
I stood up and waved frantically. 'Did you see me?' My voice was breathless with exertion; maybe it was time to join Jamie on his morning runs.
'I always see you.'
I flat out shuddered at Jamie's tone, and suddenly I felt as though I would give anything to be near him at that moment. With whatever drug was in my system, I felt as though I was invincible, like I could scale the wall of this penthouse and run all the way to Surrey.
'Jamie, can I ask you something?' I hiccupped noisily, and kept my eye on the dancing plant.
'You can ask me anything.' Jamie's voice sounded soft and making me feel as though someone had rubbed my whole naked body with a sheet of velvet.
'When did you get so handsome?' I asked, laughing loudly. Anyone else would have been offended but Jamie just snorted.
'May 22nd 2016. We had a party to celebrate.' He said with a guffawing laugh.
I tried to roll my eyes and discovered with alarm that I couldn't shut my eyelids. 'I don't mean to alarm you, but I can't shut my eyes.'
'That is alarming. What do you mean; you can't shut your eyes?' Jamie sounded less alarmed, and more bemused.
'I can't shut my eyelids.' My voice was becoming more and more alarmed, and I cried out when my phone was snatched out of my hand.
'Jamie? This is Sloane? Hmm, yes, she's fine. What? She's blinking right now. Probably blinking a bit too much actually, it's kind of startling.' I looked up at Sloane, who had changed out of her J-Lo dress and into a silvery slip sequined dress with a bare back. So far it looked like when I got high, I sexual harassed my best friend and became uncontrollably worried about my eyelids, while Sloane just got more gorgeous, and changed into another show stopping dress.
I huffed angrily and stared down at Ratchet, who was curled up around Sloane's feet looking up at me with detached speculation. Was the cat talking to me?
'I'm going to drop her home now. She's fine, still blinking like she's trying to do Morse code with her eyelids, but other than that, she's cool.' Sloane sounded effortlessly chilled, and for a second a nasty part of me wondered if I should let her talk to Jamie, why would he choose me if Sloane was available.
'I would be worried if I was you.' Ratchet said, her voice sounding alarmingly like Danny Devito.
I nodded sadly and looked up at Sloane, who was standing in all her tall, willowy glory, looking like a reimagining of Venus.
Sloane hung up the phone and handed it back to me, and I put it in my handbag. 'That is one delicious sounding man. I can see why you're interested.' Sloane wagged her eyebrows.
I sighed, 'I know.' My voice sounded ridiculously dramatic, even to me, and I slipped off my strappy heels and stood up, making Sloane tower over me like an Amazon.
'Let's get you home, lightweight.' She replied, throwing an arm around my shoulder and I let her tug me into her room.
Ratchet face continued to yap away, in her Danny Devito voice, and I turned to look at Sloane.
'Is the cat talking to you too?' I asked, my voice sounding spaced out.
Sloane breathed a sigh of relief, 'Thank god you can hear it too. I thought I was going crazy. She's such a bitch, and I really didn't see her sounding like Danny Devito.' Sloane nattered, pulling me down a small, back corridor which was used by the cleaners and down to the lift without anyone really seeing us.
I just nodded, for once not knowing what to say in response to that.