Page 1 of Date with Destiny

CHAPTER ONE

The trouble with spending half your life with six psychic predictions hanging over your head is that your friends never let you forget about it.

‘Youmustbe thinking about them!’ Myfanwy cries, struggling to be heard over the pumping music blasting out around us. ‘Surely you’re excited! Your birthday’s in a week! You’ve been waitingsixteenyears for this!’

‘But it’s silly!’ I shout back. ‘And it’s not like they’re nice predictions anyway. I don’twantthem to come true.’

She pouts. ‘Some of them are nice. And,’ she shrugs, ‘if it’s your destiny, babe, it’s your destiny.’

A woman beside us turns around. ‘Did you say my name?’

We regard her blankly for a few seconds. ‘Are you called Destiny?’ Myfanwy asks at last.

She nods.

‘Oh,’ I swallow awkwardly. ‘Sorry. We weren’t talking to you.’ She turns away and Myfanwy gives me a knowing look.

‘See, Ginny? Destiny is literally here on your doorstep. Are you going to ignore it?’

Destiny turns around again. ‘Seriously, did you want something?’

‘Um, no,’ I reply. ‘She did say your name again, but she’s still not talking to you.’ I glance desperately at Myfanwy. ‘She’s talking about, like, fate?’

Destiny frowns as Myfanwy inches closer. ‘But while you’re here, Destiny, don’t you think my friend here should be listening to signs from the universe?’

Destiny waves her hand dismissively. ‘Oh, I don’t believe in that woo-woo guff.’

My best friend looks put out. ‘But you’re literally called… OK, never mind. Don’t you think Ginny should at least beopento possibilities?’ She turns back to me, arms wide, imploring. ‘Go with destiny!’

Destiny frowns again. ‘Sorry, I probably can’t leave – though I’d love to.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I’m on a truly crappy hen do right now and the stripper won’t bugger off.’ We glance past her at a huge man in his fifties, jerking his middle-aged body towards our easily confused new pal, Destiny. Seeing our interest, he whips his top off, revealing a waxing strip-shaped rash across his chest. He leers, flicking his nipple piercing.

‘HEY, STRIPPER? PLEASE GET LOST!’ Destiny shouts at him, enunciating as clearly as she can. He continues to dance on the spot, awkwardly thrusting his hips like he’s channelling Channing Tatum. ‘Ugh,’ Destiny turns back to us. ‘This is the worst.’

‘We’re on the same shit hen do actually,’ Myfanwy grins. There’s so many of us, it’s hard to keep track.

Without warning, the stripper changes focus, now thrusting his hips towards Myfanwy and me as we exchange a look of pure horror.

‘Oh my god, I’m free,’ Destiny breathes out, before making a run for the loos, her final word reaching us on the sweat-wind: ‘Byeeeeeeee!’

The stripper moves closer, the heat of his body invading our personal space as he smiles an easy smile.

‘Another Celeste special,’ Myfanwy observes after a moment. ‘Who hires a stripper for a hen do anymore? Haven’t we progressed as a society?’ She shudders as I nod.

‘I think that’s probably why Celeste had to hire out most of this place – because the general public doesn’t want to be reminded of things we thought were fun and cool in the noughties.’

She shudders again. ‘The noughties were full of dirty secrets.’

We turn our backs on the desperately sad man. ‘God, Myfe,’ I breathe mostly to myself, wishing I was anywhere but here. ‘My life is going to be so much easier when everyone I know is dead.’ I regard the rest of the room with dark eyes.

Myfanwy tuts. ‘You just officially reached peak introvert.’ I glance over at her, feeling a pang of guilt at her wounded expression.

‘Not you,’ I say, reaching for her arm. It’s sticky from thelast round of shots we all did – the one that mostly ended upoverthe group rather than in them. ‘Never you, Myfe.’ She beams as I continue, ‘I just meant this is genuinely the most horrendous hen do I’ve ever been on.’

‘A horren do?’ Myfanwy muses, fiddling with the sleeve on her slutty air-hostess outfit.

‘Who even was that Destiny woman? And who’re all these people? Who are those women over there?’ I squint into the distance, where a tight-knit group on the dance floor are grinding against each other, while thirsty glass-collectors and the DJ watch with wide eyes and wide mouths, facial hair wet with perspiration. ‘Do you know any of them?’

She swats at the stripper as he attempts to grind on her. ‘I think they’re women Celeste met through Instagram? They’re all called, like, Ariana and Kendall.’

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