The Saving of Benjamin Chambers (The Uni Files) Read Online Free PDF Page A

close and winds his hands around her waist. I have to physically restrain myself from leaping off the stage and punching him. That’s what I want to do, a deep urge burning inside me. Jump from the stage, bop him on the nose, hopefully causing significant blood loss, and then throw Lilah over my shoulder and march her off with her someplace. Someplace where I can kiss her and talk to her, in no particular order. Then I may well ask her to marry me because I am pretty sure that I want to.
    I don’t though. I don’t move from my spot on the edge of the stage. I start to play my guitar instead but not the song the rest of the band are expecting. Luckily it has a long intro so they are able to catch up.
    As I start to sing “Wonderwall” I watch as the banker wanker twirls her onto the dance floor.
    It’s not a song for twirling. What is he doing, the bloody arse?
    She has her hands on his shoulders and her back to me but I can clearly see an enormous diamond ring sitting on her left hand from my spot quite a distance away on stage.
    Damn it to hell.
    I nearly stop singing, but I hold it together, and as I head into the second verse my choice of song becomes even more appropriate.
    The banker wanker pulls her in even tighter and I get a nasty taste in the back of my mouth. I am just in the middle of the chorus when they take a turn and I catch a glimpse of her face.
    That’s what does it. That very moment gives me something completely different to live for.
    Her.
    She is biting her lower lip and the beautiful grey eyes are staring far away in the distance, framed by a frown. She looks like she would rather be anywhere than where she is right now. She looks lost, but on top of that she looks lonely, and I feel a bubble of something well up inside me, something like joy.
    Joy at the fact that this guy holding her, who’s obviously bought her the ring, has no idea what she is feeling. I don’t think he has looked at her face once, not to read it the way that I am. This is good. It means that if I can get to talk to her again then I can make sure my words are the right ones, the ones to make her notice me, the ones to make her want to at least talk to me. And, well, if that fails, then I will just crinkle my freckles at her, pick her up and throw her over my shoulder, and march off with her hoping for the best.
    I know that I will do anything to save her from whatever is causing her sadness and by doing that I have a feeling she will save me.
    I don’t though, of course.
    I don’t talk to her and say the right words. I don’t crinkle my freckles at her and I don’t throw her over my shoulder and march off with her someplace where she can be just mine.
    She is gone before I get off stage.
    I never get to tell her that I want to be the one who saves her.
    Nor that I wish she would save me.
    I do try to find her but it seems the banking community has a wall of silence that the KGB would be proud of. I ask all around but by the time I have pushed through the throngs of drunken revellers I may be looking a little frantic and they all eye the wild guitarist dressed in black with a serious level of caution.
    No one seems to know her or if they do they aren’t going to tell me. I remember her mentioning her dad, so maybe she does not actually work for the bank at all. Maybe she was just helping organise it.
    Eventually I find myself in front of the head honcho. “Excuse me, but I don’t suppose you know who the girl in the red dress was?” I run an exasperated hand through my hair as my eyes continue scanning the room.
    He looks me up and down and I meet his critical stare.
    “I don’t think she is anyone you need to worry about,” he says. He continues to meet my gaze over the top of his varifocals, a stern expression on his face. His attitude gets my back up instantly.
    “Jesus, I just want her number, not to ask her to marry me.”
    Where the hell did that come from?
    He just walks away from me, and I watch him go with