Dolphin-san: Hey there everyone! I'm so sorry for the very lo-o-ong delay with updating this fic but since the Easter holidays I've just been kept so crazily busy with revision for my prelims, and then almost straight after that it was revision for my final exams, then the exams themselves. Also I've had to finish my project for the part time college course that I take, so I've barely had a minutes free time to sit down and write anything for this.

This may be a short chapter, since I decided that I had to at least write something to keep you guys interested, but I promise that I'll write even more chapters very soon, okay?

Chapter 26

By ten o'clock, Ray was seven hundred and sixty pounds down and beginning to panic.

'I'm usually lucky. This kind of thing doesn't happen to me,' he wailed. 'I'm normally great at this.'

Across the table, Kai smirked. 'Don't forget you still owe me a hundred as well.'

'You're all heart,' Ray muttered, counting how much he had left.

Surreptitiously, while Kai wasn't looking, Ray slid a couple of fifties into the waistband of his shorts, for emergency use only. Sod Kai, if he didn't know Ray had it, he couldn't demand his money back.

'Right, my go.' Florence rattled the dice and flung them across the board with panache. 'Six. Hah, Community Chest! "It's your birthday,"' she read aloud, '"collect five hundred pounds from each player."'

'I think you mean ten,' Kai told her.

Florence winked at him.

'Worth a try, darling, always worth a try. Wouldn't care to sell me that funny little blue card of yours, by any chance?'

'That funny little blue card,' said Kai, 'is Park Lane.'

'Name your price,' Florence announced grandly.

'A brand new Porsche.'

'Oh!' Ray suddenly squealed. 'Did you see Bruce's face when you said Florence had offered to buy you one?' Scrambling into a sitting position, he imitated Bruce's get-ready-for-the-suppository expression. 'Poor old Bruce, I almost felt sorry for him, I thought for a second his eyes wer e going to bounce out on springs . . . you know, doinnnggg . . .'

Max stared at Ray in amazement.

Florence, raising her eyebrows, said, 'Is he on drugs?'

'Either that or he has something to hide.' Kai was calmly counting his own money. 'It could be a desperate attempt to distract us, so we won't notice he's landed on somebody else's property –'

'Yes! Bond Street!' Max cried. 'Hooray, that's mine!'

'Bastard.' Ray glared at Kai, who was trying not to smile.

'Actually,' Kai said to Max, 'would you take seven hundred pounds for Fenchurch Street Station?'

Max, who was turning into quite the wheeler-dealer, promptly said, 'Make it eight.'

Florence said, 'He only has seven.'

Kai looked at Ray.

'Pay-up time, I'm afraid. I need that extra hundred.'

'I don't have it! Max just cleaned me out,' Ray protested, Kai could take a hike, he wasn't getting his hands on Ray's emergency fund.

'Give me my hundred.'

'I can't.'

'Oh yes you can.'

'Look, how can I give you something I don't have?'

Florence said, 'Where are you going?' as Kai leapt to his feet.

'Don't you know? I'm a debt collector in my spare time.'

Ray, who was on his knees, began to shuffle backwards away from the table. Ow, carpet burns, carpet burns –

'No!' He let out a howl of outrage as Kai made a grab for him. 'You can't do that!'

A brief and not very dignified grappling contest ensued on the Persian rug. Ray screamed as warm fingers burrowed expertly under his T-shirt and slid – eek – beneath the waistband of his shorts.

'Sorry,' said Kai, emerging triumphant within seconds and clearly not sorry at all. 'Had to be done.'

Grinning, he waggled the crumpled fifties under Ray's nose, then whisked them out of reach before he could grab them back.

'I hate you,' Ray sighed. 'Now I'm really, really skint.'

'Cheer up, I might land on Old Kent Road in a minute.' Kai rolled his eyes. 'Then I'll owe you . . .phew, two whole pounds.'

'That wasn't gel I put in your hair, by the way.' Ray tugged his T-shirt down over his midriff. 'It was superglue.'

'You two, stop sniping,' Florence instructed as the telephone began to ring. 'At least while I answer the phone.'

'Maybe I should check your hair,' said Kai. 'You could have thousands stashed away.'

Ray gazed up at him from the floor, flushed and out of breath.

'You wouldn't dare.'

'Want to bet? Oh, sorry, you can't, can you?' Kai flashed Ray his wickedest grin. 'I forgot you don't have any money left to bet with.'

'Pig,' wailed Ray.

'Ray!' said Florence.

'What? Why can't I call him a pig?'

'I think Florence was talking about the phone call,' Max put in helpfully.

'Oh.' Lifting his head from the rug, Ray saw Florence holding the receiver out to him. 'Who is it?'

'Richard Branson, ringing to ask if you want to borrow a couple of grand.' Florence cackled and blew pretend kisses in the direction of the phone. 'Who d'you think?'

Max passed the receiver across to Ray and wriggled out of his way.

At the sound of Hiro's voice, Ray's stomach did an impromptu jump for joy.

'Sounds lively,' Hiro observed. 'What's going on?'

'I'm just losing at Monopoly. Mainly because I'm surrounded by cheats.' Ray narrowed his eyes at Kai. 'How about you?'

'Lonely. Missing you,' said Hiro.

'Oh!' Overcome by this admission, Ray tried to shield his mouth so that Kai wouldn't be able to overhear. 'I miss you too!'

'This is so romantic.' Kai sighed, clutching Max's shoulder and shaking his head. 'Anyone got a tissue?'

'You may need one' – this time Ray covered the receiver - 'to mop up the blood.' Moving his hand away, he returned his attention to Hiro. 'Sorry about that. Some people have the most infantile sense of humour. So where are you now, out somewhere celebrating the end of the conference?'

'Better than that. Newport Pagnell service station, on the M1.'

Ray let out an ear-splitting shriek.

'You're joking! What are you doing there?'

'Uh oh,' Kai leaned back on one elbow, 'he's met someone else. He's ringing from Gretna Green to tell Ray he's just got married. His name's Zack, he's a stripper – ouch.'

Ray stuck out his tongue and kicked Kai, for god measure. Did he really think he was being amusing?

'I couldn't stand it a minute longer,' said Hiro. 'We all went out to a club earlier. You should have seen the rest of the team, chatting up anything with a pulse. All they care about is picking up some tart for the night and getting their leg over. I left them to it,' he went on. 'That might be their idea of fun, but it isn't mine.'

'So you're on you're on your way home now,' Ray exclaimed. 'Oh, this is brilliant! How long will it take you to get here?'

'I'll pick you up at eleven.' Hiro sounded as if he was smiling. 'Only if you want me to, of course.'

'I do want you to. Oh, I definitely want you to.' Ray was beaming too, he couldn't help himself. He wished he could purr seductive sweet nothings into the phone but it was hard to purr seductively when you had such a blatantly amused audience.

'I love you,' said Hiro.

'Mm. Um, me too.'



Hiro laughed.

'Difficult to talk?'

Across the table, Kai was playing an imaginary violin.

'You could say that.'

'Okay, never mind. See you soon.'

'I sincerely hope that wasn't Richard Branson,' said Kai when Ray had hung up.

'I don't need a loan any more.' Ray shot him a sweet, couldn't-care-less smile. 'I'm out, bankrupt. You three carry on without me. And you,' he pointed a finger at Kai, 'can apologise, if you like, for all that guff you gave me earlier about men saying they're away at sales conferences when they aren't.'

'I'm sorry. He's clearly mad about you.'

'He is,' said Ray.

'He's a very lucky man.'

'Absolutely correct.'

Kai grinned, watching Ray uncross his legs and leap excitedly to his feet.

'So what's he got that I haven't? Oh, don't tell me, he's terrific in bed.'



Florence was by this time practically doubled up with laughter.

'Right again,' Ray told Kai as he headed for the door. 'That makes three out of three. Excellent. You could be a clairvoyant when you grow up.'

It was five past eleven.

Downstairs, Max could dimly hear Florence and Kai still battling it out across the Monopoly board, each of them determined to win.

Yawning, Max climbed into his new bed. It had been a long day and he was shattered. Four hours in the shop, then the trip to the antenatal clinic, followed by the move itself, not to mention the strain of keeping a straight face throughout Kai Hiwatari's bravura performance as Orlando.

The curled up strip of photographic paper lay on the bedside table between his rackety old alarm clock and his reading lamp. Reaching for it, Max lay back against the pillows and gazed at the fuzzy ultrasound image of his baby.

The doctor had assured him that it was a baby, even though, in profile, it looked more like an exotic mush room.

Max's eyes filled with tears of joy as he traced the outline of the head and stomach. To have actually watched the tiny heart beating frantically away on the screen, seen the birdlike legs stretch and kick . . .

Biting his lip, he remembered the hospital waiting room packed with hand-holding couples. All those husbands and boyfriends, actually looking forward to seeing their very own exotic mushrooms for the first time.

Oh, Hiro, you stupid, selfish bastard, you don't know what you're missing, you really don't.



Max was still studying the miraculous black-and-white image when he heard the sound of a car drawing up outside, followed by a brief toot on the horn. Less than a second later, there was a furry of activity in the next-door room. Cupboards and drawers were slammed shut, the radio switched off and the bedroom door closed.

He listened to Ray clatter rapturously down the stairs, call goodnight to Florence and bang the front door behind him. Suddenly tempted to sneak out of bed and peer out of the window, Max threw back the duvet. The next moment, the car door slammed shut and the engine was revved up. Oh well, how much had he expected to see anyway, in pitch darkness?

Max hauled the duvet back up again, switched off the bedside lamp and settled down to sleep.

Lucky Ray, to have a boyfriend so besotted that he had driven all the way from Birmingham just to be with him tonight.

As he closed his eyes, Max wondered briefly if any man would ever feel that way about him.

Sex, good grief, he could hardly remember what it was like. It was months, Max realised, since anyone had approached his nether regions without stopping first to pull on a pair of surgical gloves.

Dolphin-san: Okay, I'm going to leave it there for just now. I know, it was a short chapter, but I have the time to write a lot more now, so don't worry.