I giggled. “Good job your hulk of a brother can’t stand me then, eh?” I lightly flicked Tudor on his arm, but he instantly grabbed my hand and stared at me, squeezing my hand gently in his.
“I don’t hate you,” he mumbled, all seductively.
I couldn’t look away, and felt frisky little shivers creeping up my arm from where his hand touched mine and that familiar warm sensation heading south.
Henry cleared his throat and broke the tension, “Tink? That’s a strange name. Where’s that from?” he asked with a curious side-look at me and his brother.
“Well, it’s a funny story. Wil and I–”
“Wil?” interrupted Tudor, looking mightily confused and breaking our weird little exchange.
“Yeah, Wilbur,” replied Tink, naturally assuming people would make the connection with me and the famous literary pig.
“You mean, Tash?” he clarified.
“Well, yeah but she’s been Wil to me since we were twelve. You know, she was named after the pig –”
“Well, I think we’ll leave it there, hey, Tink? Are you ready to go?” I interrupted, practically shouting while nipping his back and Chinese-burning his arm.
“Ow, Wil!”
I glared at him with daggers in my eyes, daring him to continue his delightful storytelling.
With a defeated huff, he spat out in a prissy tone. “Fine, yes.”
I noticed Tudor silently laughing, and I rolled my eyes at him in reference to Tink. I also noticed Tate. He was staring at the self-named ‘Friggin’fantastic fairy’ and was practically salivating.
Tudor, having seen me studying Tate, covertly glimpsed his way too and raised an eyebrow knowingly. Tink, on the other hand, was oblivious to Tate’s attention. He was too busy trying to embarrass me to notice anything else going on around him. I decided it was time to make an exit.
“Thank you for inviting me to meet you all properly, and for not holding my earlier performance against me. It was really nice to meet you. Tudor, good luck with the acting. Not that you need it but– ah, you know what I mean,” I flustered. “Boleyn, have a nice break, and I’ll see you next week. Samantha, Henry, Tate, Pamela, I hope you have a good night.”
With that, Tink and I headed towards the door, arms linked and giggling when I heard. “Nice to meet you too... Wil.”
I whipped my head around, stopping dead in my tracks.
Tudor had twisted in his seat, an amused expression on his face, obviously tickled at my swine-themed nickname.
Tink started laughing his head off at his dig, and I proceeded to stick my tongue out at Tudor, earning a loud, bellowing laugh from the Blade Reaper himself as I dragged a giddy fairy through the exit.
One-nil to him.
Tudor Bloody North!
Chapter 8
Smack-Bam into fate
The morning after…
I had been lying in my bed for about an hour trying to gain some form of energy to try and move so I could calm my spinning head. However, I instead found myself staring at the ceiling and thinking about recent events.
I had to say that meeting someone who is mega-star-famous was a bit strange, but then, I guess they’re just people too. Abruptly meeting a superstar in the back room of a restaurant in Calgary of all places proved that they did normal things just like everybody else.
Tink couldn’t shut up about meeting Tudor and I just… well I didn’t know what to think. Sure, his looks were phenomenal, and all the adjectives in the world could not describe the pure animal magnetism of the man. But I was having a hard time trying to unravel the enigma that was Tudor North.
He was so dry in humour, so sarcastic in his delivery. Admittedly he was, at times, an arse who seemed to find enjoyment in winding me up immensely – that being said, he did improve a fraction as the night went on. But was that genuine, or was he bullied into that by his family? He seemed unapproachable and gruff, but the real question was, was he a private person, or was he really just a wanker?
As far as meeting a celeb went, I supposed it was memorable. Not something I would want to repeat very often, but it was another life experience in the banco di vita, as Nonna Girasoli would say.
I smelled the addictive aroma of Italian coffee and dragged my tush out of bed. Tink was in the kitchen whipping up some pancakes, sporting his novelty naked-lady apron, complete with inflatable boobs and a hairy muff. How he had never had a Mrs. Doubtfire moment in that get-up was beyond me.
“Hey, my little pig’s trotter. How are you today?” he asked while whisking batter at a furious rate. Tink was very skilled in using his wrist.
“Okay thanks, the hangover seems to have settled. You?”
“Just peachy thanks, chuck.”
Tink was his usually bubbly self, and set to pouring the batter in the pan in small round pancake shapes, gradually adding chocolate chips and slices of banana.
He looked over his shoulder. “Say, did you happen go to the toilet this morning using the bathroom in the hall?”
Confused, I answered, “No, why? I always use my en-suite.” I looked up at him curiously.
Turning back to the pan and flipping a pancake he said, “Mmm, it’s just that someone left the seat up after taking a piss. I just naturally assumed it must have been the other man in the house.” A huge grin plastered on his face.
“Fuck off, Tink!” I grumbled, still harbouring resentment from the previous night and my mistaken gender identity.
Following our encounter with the Norths, Tink and I had toddled off to Calgary’s g*y scene, given it had been Tink’s night to choose the bars that we would drain of their alcohol. In true Tink-and-Tash fashion we didn't fail in causing a stir. Now, I was more than a little tipsy and Tink had gone AWOL after finding a giant hairy man with a handlebar moustache that he wanted to mount, so I hit the dance floor alone to stun Canada with more of my amazing moves.
I shimmied to the stage with vigour on hearing ‘Gangnam Style’ come pumping through the speakers and as I was riding my pony with the utmost energy and winding my imaginary lasso, my ring got hooked on a guy’s chain – yes folks, his chain – that was fixed to a collar around his neck. Unfortunately the fellow didn’t take it so well when I couldn’t get myself unstuck as easily as one would have hoped, and he started going ape-shit right in front of my face, losing me precious Gangnam-dancing minutes.
That, coupled with my already jangled nerves from my Tudor North experience, had me seeing red and unclipping my hair extensions ready for a bitch-on-bitch take down faster than you can say ‘Don’t touch the face, Don’t touch the face!’ Tink (along with his new hairy friend) arrived at the last moment to save the day and save me (and the chain-wearing bastard) from any real danger, but not before my adversary had mistaken me for a drag queen and suggested my show name should be 'Candy Made-my-ass-large’ – you know, something that suited my wide-frame. Nice.