Page 19 of You Spin Me Round

‘She’s protecting that person’s anonymity,’ Alex said, her tone rather tight.

‘From her own PR person? Why would she do that? She trusts your ability to keep a secret, doesn’t she?’ Leigh asked.

‘I don’t need to know, so I won’t press,’ Alex said haughtily.

Leigh chuckled. ‘I see. Well, it’s been great catching up, but I must go. I’ve got someone to see.’ Leigh hung up. She had to. She wasn’t going to get a better one-up than that.

She pulled back onto the road and headed onwards, a smile in her heart. Now all she had to do was squeeze a photo out of an octogenarian movie star, and she was set.

Nine

Alex was steaming with rage. Leigh had just one-upped her and hung up the phone. What the hell?

The call was not supposed to go like that. It was supposed to go more like, ‘Hello, we’re both in this, so let’s acknowledge that, and while we’re at it, no hard feelings about the past.’ That was the general script Alex had been reading from. But Leigh wouldn’t go along with it, and now Alex felt completely foxed.

Years and relationships and career stuff had passed under the bridge since their little moment together. But the second Leigh started talking, it was like being pulled through time, reset to an earlier version of herself. Alex 1.0.

Ten Years Ago

Alex was standing in a rock club. She was not dancing. The closest she came was shuffling her feet occasionally to unstick them from the disgusting floor. Her friend Orla was a few feet away, snogging a rando. That would have been fine, except Alex had to wait until they finished so they could walk back to their shared house together. Or until she was officially released to go home solo.

It amazed Alex just how easily Orla would find someone to suck face with. She’d once seen her start kissing some bloke on the dance floor without ever exchanging a word.

Not that Alex was a virgin. She’d had her fun. But she never let it be more than that. She kept it brief, simple, and brutally truthful. Wham, bam, thank you, Miss—not like Orla.

Orla was smart in many departments, but not this one. She would spend the next month believing she was in love with this guy until he did something that turned her off, and then she’d hide every time she saw him on campus. It was a joke.

Well, Alex wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t a fool. She didn’t believe in love. It was a lie told to sell shit. Desire was only a biological drive. Alex was grateful she’d learned that early. It would save a lot of time and energy.

Alex wondered if she could maybe give Orla a little kick. Just a light tap, a hint to get on with things, one way or the other. She wanted to go to bed. She’d had a long day, and this music sucked.

Alex was mulling that when she saw her.

On the edge of the dance floor, caught occasionally in the strobe, a girl. She was beautiful, with eyes the size of saucers, shapely as all get out. But that wasn’t exactly what caught Alex’s attention. It was… What was it?

Vulnerability. That was it. Everyone else that Alex met put on a show of confidence, of belonging. Alex included herself in that. But not this girl. She looked sad, apart, and indifferent to the party atmosphere everyone else was soaking in. She didn’t appear to care if anyone knew it, either.

Alex couldn’t say what about her that was drawing her in. But she suddenly forgot about Orla or about getting home to bed. She felt her feet moving, swerving around dancers, dodging fallen plastic pint glasses, fixed on this girl.

She stepped in front of her. The girl didn’t notice. She was in her own world. Up close, Alex saw she wasn’t just beautiful, she was striking. Her face was framed by red waves of lustrous hair, her large dark eyes were surrounded by the most unbelievably long lashes, her nose was just crooked enough to be interesting, and her mouth screamed sex.

‘Hi,’ Alex said.

The girl noticed her at last. ‘Hello?’ she said warily, as though she thought Alex was about to pants her and run off.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’ Alex asked. She wasn’t usually quite this direct, and she wasn’t sure what was happening exactly.

‘What?’ the girl asked.

Alex realised it was too loud, and she was gonna have to repeat herself. ‘I want to buy you a drink.’

The girl frowned. ‘Why?’

Oh no. She was straight. Why hadn’t this occurred to Alex on her trip across the dancefloor? Why had she done this at all?

Well, she was here. She had to say something. ‘You look sad. I wanted to cheer you up,’ she said.

The girl looked at her in astonishment. ‘You can see that?’

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