Page 51 of The Perfect Gift

They were interrupted by a man about Ed’s age who dug into his pocket as he approached their table. He shuffled some coins in his hand and selected a two-pound one, which he pushed into the slot in the lid of the bucket. ‘Worth every penny to see you in the drink, mate,’ he told Ed with a cheerful grin. ‘Three o’clock, you said?’

‘Yup,’ Ed replied. ‘See you there?’

‘Too right you will! I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ Chuckling to himself, the man walked off.

‘Friend of yours?’ Frankie asked, arching her eyebrows.

‘Since we were tiny,’ Ed replied with a laugh. ‘His parents live a couple of doors down from mine.’

A couple more people stopped at the table to drop money in the bucket on their way out, though they seemed more interested in staring at Frankie like she was a sideshow exhibit than in the fundraising. Knowing they weren’t being intentionally rude, Frankie smiled and thanked them for their generosity and they went off grinning like she’d given them a gift.

Issy arrived with their coffees and Frankie took a quick sip of her creamy cappuccino, eager for the caffeine hit to boost her waning energy levels. As tempting as it was to slope off home after they’d done their fundraising stint, she was determined to stick it out and be there to cheer Ed and the others on.

An older man approached and popped a five-pound note in the bucket. ‘The lifesavers do such a brilliant job, Ed. Good on you and your brothers for doing something to raise money and awareness.’

‘It was all Rick’s idea,’ Ed replied. ‘I’m just there making up the numbers.’ The man laughed and patted his shoulder then moved off.

It wasn’t the first time Frankie had heard that kind of self-deprecating remark from Ed and it was starting to annoy her. ‘You shouldn’t put yourself down like that.’

His eyes widened in what she could tell was genuine astonishment. ‘I wasn’t, I was telling the truth. Rick deserves all the credit for making today a success.’

‘Hmm.’ Frankie gave him a look but let it go. They were having such a lovely day that she didn’t want to spoil it.

A voice called out across the café. ‘Oi, Frankie! You going in the sea, are ya?’

She whipped around to see a red-faced man who looked to be in his mid-forties watching her. He had a smile on his face she recognised well as nothing friendly. Worse, he had a table of mates grinning like hyenas. She knew this type well, full of gob and bravado in front of their mates and always happy to take someone down a peg or two as a way to make up for their own inadequacies. Give her a room of polite gawkers over a wanker trying to show off any day.

‘Ignore him,’ Ed snapped. ‘He’s a dickhead.’

It was clear to Frankie that Ed was genuinely annoyed and if she didn’t do something the situation might easily escalate. She glanced over the room and her gut clenched as she realised pretty much everyone was watching and waiting to see how she’d respond. Someone raised their phone in the air and she thought she might be sick.

Ed stood and reached for the bucket. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Frankie shook her head. ‘No, it’s fine. Sit down and let me handle it.’ She’d been humiliated by a man in public once before and at least he’d had the excuse of being unwell. The one grinning at her was nothing more than a pathetic bully.

Thankfully, Ed wasn’t the type of man who felt he had to fight a woman’s battles and he subsided again, though his thunderous expression made it clear he wasn’t happy about any of this.

Frankie drew in a deep breath, set her shoulders back and stood. Tits and teeth. It was a crude saying, but that didn’t mean it didn’t work and she put on her best smile as she stepped away from her table and started walking towards the man who’d challenged her.

It was clear he hadn’t expected her to take him on and his nasty smirk began to waver at the edges as she drew closer. Frankie notched her smile up from stage school to shark sensing blood in the water.

That’s right, you prick, I’m not some scared little girl that can be messed with by the likes of you.

She stopped right next to his table and extended her smile to his little pack of minions. ‘I hadn’t planned on joining in with the splash-for-cash, but I might do it, for the right price, of course.’ Frankie didn’t shout, but she knew how to project her voice and there was nothing more she thrived on than the energy of an audience. She turned her back on the table and held her arms wide in appeal. ‘What do you reckon, ladies and gentlemen? Do you think our friend here has a point and I should do it?’

There was a ripple of laughter and several shouts of encouragement. Frankie held up her hands as though in surrender. ‘Okay, okay, seeing as it’s such a great cause, I’ll do it.’ That earned her a round of applause. ‘Now, as my friend here was the one who suggested it, I think it’s only fair he makes the first donation, don’t you?’ There was more laughter as the audience spotted the trap she’d neatly set. What they didn’t know was that Frankie wasn’t quite done yet. She turned back towards the table of men, several of whom were grinning at their friend’s discomfort. ‘What do you reckon, folks? How much should he give?’

‘A tenner!’ a woman called from the back.

‘Twenty!’ the man at the table with the broadest grin said as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket. ‘And here, I’ll match it.’ He slapped a note on the table while his mate who’d started it went from red-faced to a shade closer to purple.

‘Shut your mouth, Dan,’ he snapped at his grinning friend.

‘That’s what you should’ve done, Aidan,’ another man at the table said as he too pulled out his wallet and counted out two ten-pound notes. The other two did the same and soon there was a little stack of notes and coins on the table.

‘Thank you so much!’ Frankie turned back to Aidan. ‘What do you say? A nice round hundred pounds has got to be worth it, don’t you think?’

Aidan glared at her for a moment then shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out a handful of crumpled notes and chucked them on the table.