Page 11 of One Night With You

She pauses for dramatic effect.

‘Well … You, Nic.’

The others don’t even dignify her words with a rebuttal, but I’ve flashed up hotter than a summer heatwave. The others know she meansthem. She’s going to miss them.Why oh whydo I have to arrive right as she’s leaving? I’m really enjoying being around her. Still, maybe if there’s one like her down here, there will be more? Maybe? It seems unlikely, but like buying her sofa has taught me already: anything is possible if you let it be.

I really do fancy her, though. I admit it. I do. She’s got her legs stretched out in front of her, occasionally flexing her feet to point her toes like a dancer warming up before going on stage. Her tiny toenails are painted lilac, I notice, like lavender.

‘Rubes, come and help me?’ Jackson requests. As they leave for the kitchen, I stuff more pizza into my mouth, fervently hoping that Candice doesn’t ask me anything, so that it’s quiet and I can listen in to what Jackson’s saying.

‘It’s cool you’d come hang out with us,’ Candice says, not giving me any such luck. ‘Jackson’s a good guy like that. He always wants to get everyone involved. He’s kind of the glue that holds us together, really. I call them my London family – I don’t really get on with my real family.’

I bob my head from side to side and exaggerate my chewing, the universal sign for ‘Hold on – my mouth is full.’

‘I don’t know if he said,’ I start, once I’ve swallowed. I can’t just ignore her because I’m eavesdropping. ‘But I only know my brother here. Jackson and I got chatting in the taxi and he’s invited me to join his dodgeball team too. So I see what you mean about getting everyone involved.’

‘I was on that team for a bit,’ notes Candice. ‘It’s a goodgroup of people. Only reason I didn’t stay is because of work – I’m a catering waiter, so do unusual hours. I had to book tonight off ages ago because of the bank holiday. Ruby did it for a month or so too, but it wasn’t really her vibe. The dodgeball, I mean. Not the waiting on. She’s much cleverer than that.’

Jackson and Ruby are laughing about something in the kitchen – one of them issues a high-pitched roar, the kind of laughter that’s contagious. I can’t help but smile too, and Candice clearly spots it.

‘Do I sense a spark between you and our friend Ruby …?’ she presses, mischievously.

I instantly flush in awkwardness. ‘What?’ I say, shaking my head. ‘No. I don’t know. That’s not …’

‘Dude, chill,’ she interrupts. ‘We’re not that serious around here. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. It’s cool.’

I feign a nonchalant wave, despite my glowing cheeks demonstrating that I am, indeed, embarrassed.

She holds her hands up like she’s got nothing to hide. ‘These are simply my words of encouragement, whilst we’ve got the chance.’ She smirks, and then before I can ask her to clarify what she means – words of encouragement? – Ruby and Jackson are back from behind closed doors, three beers between Jackson’s fingers as Ruby trails behind him. He gives me a not-very-subtle big thumbs up with his free hand. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, either. Something is going on, but I can’t work out what.

‘Did you miss us?’ he says, giving me a wink. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Secrets and lies,’ Candice retorts, and she looks at Ruby, silently communicating something in‘girl’. Ruby looks at me and blinks confusedly, before Candice reaches out and slapsher bum as she passes. Now I really don’t understand what’s happening. I look to Ruby, and she looks as bemused as I feel.

‘Let’s have a two-minute dance party,’ Candice hollers then, and before I know it, they’ve turned all the lights off and we’re swaying to a Jessie J song in the dark, screaming the lyrics at the top of our lungs and letting the gentle buzz of the booze gradually take hold. I don’t even remember what I was so confused about. I simply dance.

8

Ruby

I’ll bet Nic thinks we’re bloody children in this house. Jackson has all but pimped one of us out, and I can’t tell who. He didn’t need my help getting the beers at all – he only wanted to let me know that he’d slipped a couple of condoms under my pillow.

‘Just in case that’s useful to know, darling,’ he warbled into the fridge as he pulled out more Peroni. ‘I’m not saying anything other than that.’

Which, of course, says it all. It makes me feel like he’s brought Nic back here for the sole purpose of sleeping with me – I just can’t tell if Nic knows that and is in on it, or if he’s genuinely here to chill. He doesn’t seem like that kind of guy – he asks great questions and is a good listener and, all in all, is solid company. Whatever his intentions, I have to admit that it’s nice that he’s here because, as I’d suspected, he’s helping us keep our spirits up. There’s nothing more our little group loves than an audience. I do keep snatchingglances of him though. He’s sent a tizzy through me more than once as he’s maintained eye contact when he strikes up a conversation. And his laugh – oh my God, his laugh! He doesn’t give it away freely but when he does it feels like an achievement. He’s easy to be around. He’s a bit awkward, sure, and he’s certainly not my typical ‘macho’ type, but I find it surprisingly endearing: there’s no bravado to him, only an earnestness that most blokes our age don’t tend to have. Everyone wants to act so casual, so nonchalant; I forget what it’s like to be around a man who is excited by stuff. He’s sweet. Nice. I didn’t think sweet and nice could also be hot but here we are.

Jackson doesn’t give me time to get clarification on anyone’s motivations, just tells me my tits look great and to remember I’m a queen, which makes me cackle with gleeful indignation even though what I really want to do is hook my finger into the back of his belt loops and tug him back so I can demand more information about Nic and the condoms and Jackson’s suggestions we hook up.

As we re-enter the lounge, I catch sight of him and my stomach flips. Never mind Jackson: doIwant to sleep with Nic? I suppose My Year of Me doesn’t technically begin until tomorrow … so does that mean it comes into effect at midnight?

After The Abe Thing, Candice made me watch a movie where the main woman is celibate for a year as a way to focus on herself, and that’s where I got the idea to take a year out to focus on myself. Rebuild myself. Because Abe did break me, if I’m honest. Somebody’s friend-at-work’s-sister’s-auntie can be involved with a fella who has a girlfriend and you always think to yourself,what an idiot – nobody ever leaves the girlfriend! Once a sidepiece always a sidepiece!But I knowfirst-hand now that it’s too easy to judge. For years Abe had me under his spell, drawing me into his orbit, and I always thought we’d be together in the end. He promised me we would, that it wascircumstancekeeping us apart. He’d end up on a ‘break’ with his girlfriend, we’d spend two or three or four glorious weeks together, and then he’d disappear, saying they were trying again.

It happened over and over and over, and I let it. I was a willing participant. But that’s why I held on for so long, tearing off pieces of myself for him even when he wasn’t asking me to: I was desperate to prove what I thought was my love, eager to be chosen. I got so far in that I needed it to have all mean something, and I thought that if I could just prove how much I was willing to love him, in the end he’d love me back like I needed him to. But now I know better.

We dance wildly for the duration of a single song and all of this flies through my mind as I jump up and down and sing and shriek and think,I’m going to miss this. I’m going to miss this so much it hurts.I love Jackson and Candice with my everything. I wouldn’t have survived the tumult of The Abe Thing without them. They’ve been my rock. We know everything about each other, inside and out. They are the real loves of my life. If I leave London with anything, it’s the knowledge that they’ve been my little urban unit, and that’s so special.

When the last note plays and the song stops, Jackson puts the light on again and I catch Nic looking sweaty and elated and happy and he says, sweetly, ‘That was the best two minutes of my life!’ I know what he means. Our two-minute dance parties are one of my favourite things. I like that he thinks they’re awesome too.

I’m still looking at him when he proceeds to pull off hisjumper, revealing a tiny bit of toned stomach, chiselled like stone. Candice clocks it, but I look away before she can give me acaught you!wink. I didn’t think he was interested, but he came back and now I get the feeling he might be. He’s been looking at me when he thinks I don’t notice. And now there are those condoms under my pillow …

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