Page 36 of One Night With You

‘It’s from Candice, actually,’ I say. ‘Thankyouvery much.’

Wearing heels, bodycon and face glitter Saturday, so I’m going to have to ask you to do the same please! Can’t be the only OTT bitch in the room! And you’d better bloody reply to this Miss MIA!

I send back a thumbs up.

‘Hmm,’ says Harry. ‘Hearing his name has made you smile, anyway, hasn’t it?’

‘Shut up,’ I say. ‘Left at the end here, then you should know the way. It’s the main road there.’

‘It’s nice!’ Harry retorts. ‘You have a crush! Here?’

‘Here.’

We pick up speed now that we’re on the right road and Harry has got both hands lunch-free.

‘He’s funny, that’s all,’ I say, feeling oddly defensive. ‘Nic’s texts are funny, so yeah, I text him back sometimes. Not like fuckingAbe.I need to actually block him. Every time I ignore him on one platform, he finds another way to get in touch. He reckons he’s finally broken up with his girlfriend and wants to be with me. He DM’d me, and I saw that he’s following Finding JP’s Girl. Like dude, get aclue.He did both right after I posted a picture of us two, Harry, when the caption was just a love heart.’

‘So he thinks you’ve moved on? With the handsome devil that ismoi?’

‘And he’s making sure I don’t … I reckon so, yeah.’

‘All this texting,’ says JP. ‘Texting me, texting him. You want to get yourself out there, face to face. It’s not good, all you youngsters on your phones all the time. When I was your age they talked about robot technology making life easier, not becoming a full-time job.’

‘Astute point,’ I concede. ‘My screen time is pretty disgusting. Should I start a list of things I’m not doing well? That you can both refer to? I talk about Nic too much, I’m glued to my phone … what else was there? Oh, well, I got your order wrong at the sandwich shop, Harry – should I put that one down in pencil, or pen?’

The men don’t dignify my faux self-pitying rant with a reply. They know I’m trying to change the subject.

‘That’s so passive-aggressive of you both, not saying anything now I’m mad. You’re both a pain in my bumhole, do you know that? JP, you’d better stick up for me or else I’m going to undo the child lock on your door and leave you in a ditch. A shaded ditch, maybe with a bottle of water and a blanket, but a ditch nonetheless.’

‘What about one of those apps?’ JP asks, once again side-stepping my misdirected frustration. ‘If you’re going to be on your phone so much anyway?’ I’ve been a bit short-tempered for a few days, actually, and I don’t even think it’s hormonal. I’m frustrated, I suppose. We keep adding to the Finding JP’s Girl Insta and, in between classes, Harry and I have sketched out some important beats to hit in our storytelling depending on a variety of different outcomes in our Amelie search, but it’s still far from taking shape; I feel like I’ve started a puzzle and maybe got the edges done, but haven’t even turned over half the pieces to see where they go yet.

I’m constantly thinking about how to lace everythingtogether: I think about the doc before I go to sleep, as soon as I wake up, when I’m walking to Harry’s. It’s some sort of creative immersion, maybe, like Janet and I talked about, but I’m also getting a bit obsessed. UsingAlmost Doesn’t Countas the anchor is great, and it means we’re getting closer to figuring out the exact question it is we’re trying to answer. If almost doesn’t count, where does that leave us? Can people ever really be happy if they miss what was meant for them? Or was it never really meant for them if it passed them by?

It’s a big question, and sometimes, unexpectedly, it makes me think of Nic. He wanted to see me again and I said no because of The Year of Me, so doesn’t that mean it wasn’t meant for me? Or am I getting in my own way? Maybe that’s why I keep mentioning his name, now – I don’t want to ask JP and Harry for advice, but I want someone to tell me what to do. I feel like I have to make a decision about how I’m going to play it when I see him, and I’m wondering what it means that I’m pretty eager for it to be the weekend already.

‘I don’t have time for dating.’ I sigh. ‘And I’m in my year-long … you know.’ I hate using sexual words in front of JP, even if those words are about the absence of sex.

‘Oh, yes,’ says JP. ‘The Year of Me.’ He says Year of Me as if it is in air quotes, like it’s silly. It hurts my feelings, actually. Aside from this past week, I’ve been loving my Year of Me. I’m making things! Meeting people! Feeling more creative and innovative than I have in my whole life! I don’tneeda man right now. It would be a distraction. What’s happening right now is too important to be distracted from. I’m using my heart in other ways, making friends and community and pouring it into my art. I see Harry glance up to the rear-view mirror with a smirk, locking eyes, I assume, with an unrepentant JP.

‘What does he look like? Nic?’ Harry asks. ‘Just out of interest?’

‘He has a face,’ I say. ‘And two eyes, a nose, and mouth.’ I conjure up an image of him in my mind. I try to think back to that night, but it’s easier to remember him from his social media, in photographs when I wasn’t even there. ‘Nice lips, I suppose. But whatever.’

To be honest, I don’t remember how his lips looked. But I do remember how they felt.

‘Tall?’ presses Harry.

‘Tall enough.’ I shrug. ‘Bit lanky. Nice hands.’

Harry keeps his face impassive. ‘Nice lipsandnice hands.’ He nods, expressing his appreciation. ‘And a funny texter to boot.’

‘I gave him an STI,’ I remind him, turning to apologise to JP. ‘If you’ll pardon my harlot ways.’

‘Darling,’ JP chuckles. ‘I was a soldier, remember? The things I’ve seen …’ He does a comic wince. It’s enough to make me smile, and as Harry looks in the rear-view, he feels me looking at him and turns so that we smile at each other. They’ve won. I have thawed.

‘Speaking of Abe and STIs, did you ever text him about it?’ Harry says.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I know I need to.’

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