Page 55 of Hot Girl Summer

“Shit, I fucked it up.”

I fuck everything up.

“Your liner? It’s fine, nothing a cotton bud can’t fix.” April says, fishing one out of her makeup bag. She hands it to me. “What’s wrong? Are you nervous about seeing Danny?”

“I like him, and it took me to the point of almost fucking Luke to realise.”

April’s mouth flies open.

“I’m done with casual sex. It isn’t enough anymore. I’m not going to go ahead and say that Danny makes me feel special, but—"

“—but he does,” April says softly, giving me a knowing smile.

“He’s what I want,” I muse. “Fuck, when did I turn so mushy? I mean, it could never work. He’s so much older, and—”

“Since when did age mean anything? Isn’t your dad like twenty years older than your mum?”

“Eighteen, but that’s not the point. I’m not my mum.”

“Harrison and Calista have been together for over twenty years, so have Michael and Catherine, and Ellen and Portia. Need any more examples?”

“The common denominator in those relationships are money and lifestyle.”

April shoots me a condescending look.

“Danny is out of my league. He’s well educated, well travelled, and judging by Belle’s Instagram, they run in similar crowds. I don’t even know where I would fit in to his lifestyle.”

“People divorce for a reason. It’s almost over, right?”

I shrug and take a long pull on my drink.

“He told me it was.”

“So, what are you scared of?”

“What if he decides that, after all this time, he wants to be with her?”

A weight settles in the pit of my stomach, and a wave of nausea hits. Normality for me is being let down, so now that I have the potential to have something good and real, and genuine, it baffles me. I’ve been let down so many times before that it almost feels normal, like I don’t deserve my happily ever after because of the way I’ve treated people. Maybe Ryan was right; maybe Iama bully.

“When does that ever happen? I love you, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, but stop overanalysing, it’s annoying as fuck.” April snaps her blusher compact closed and picks up a tube of mascara. “What does she look like, anyway?”

“Like she models Savage Fenty lingerie.”

“Well, even if she looks like the queen Rihanna herself, they’re not together anymore. If you need some reassurance, just talk to him.”

I fix my eyeliner while I rehearse conversation starters with a version of Danny in my head. It won’t be easy, but growth means trying, and that, I have to do. He needs to know how I feel.

Lilura is packed wall to wall with bodies. In a pre-drinks buzz, we make a beeline for the bar, and order a couple of Sambuca shots. I savour the sweet, burning aniseed as it slides down my throat and turns to fire on my tongue.

April holds my hand while we weave through the crowd and slip onto the dancefloor, letting the good vibes flow as the atmosphere chokes with the traffic of bodies and the smog of sweat.

I can’t lie, since the night my drink was spiked, nights on the town have been tainted, and it’s taken a long time for me to feel safe again, but I know April will always look out for me.

Nothing makes me feel more free than when I’m lost in the music, dancing to my own rhythm, with my best friends by my side. I’m never going to let what happened define me. I’m just a little more careful with my drinks, and with my friends’ drinks.

A while later, April heads to the bathroom while I queue up at the bar. Ahead of the crowd, I spot a familiar forearm tattoo, and there’s no mistaking the striking tiger image which belongs to Ollie. Beside him, Danny leans on the bar with his back turned, and I catch a glimpse of his profile as he laughs at something Ollie says.

His outfit, a white shirt tucked into taupe chinos, hugs his athletic physique in all the right places, I swear my heart stops for an entire second at the sight of his lean, muscular forearms peeking out from rolled up sleeves. My pulse races when his bright smile unleashes those perfect dimples, and I find myself thinking that, although it’s all kinds of cheesy, I want to be his reason for smiling.

---