Page 8 of One Night With You

‘Your radar is off,’ I dismiss. ‘He couldn’t leave fast enough.’

‘My radar is never off,’ she pushes.

‘Well, whatever. I’m a boy-free zone now. I’m over it.’

‘I could go and ask him to join us for that pizza …’

‘Candice,’ I caution. ‘Please.’

‘I’m just saying!’ she tries again, though it’s clear from her expression that she already knows it’s fruitless.

I don’t want my mood to sour. I’m not spending my last night talking about chuffingmen.Everything that happened was awful, but at least some good has come from it. Jackson and Candice might not understand, but it’s an undeniable truth: it’s time to take control of my life, make a change, and own it. I want a fresh start and a Year of Me: twelve months, starting tomorrow, of total celibacy and absolute focus on my own self-discovery and creativity – if that doesn’t sound too grand. I just feel like if I can wholeheartedly commit tomyself this next twelve months, somehow it might alter the whole course of my life. I’m not where I’m meant to be yet, even if where I currently am is where the people I love are. That’s what makes today so bittersweet. I just want to get a little tipsy, have a dance party, and lie on the living room floor until we can’t keep our eyes open, swapping memories and promising to always be best friends. ‘Just don’t. I don’t have the bandwidth for it. This is a brave face I’m putting on, in case you can’t tell.’

She exhales and lets go of the blind. ‘Me too,’ she says, sadly. She gives me a hug, but we both pull away before the threat of crying looms. We can do that later, as well. ‘I was only trying to help.’

‘I get it,’ I tell her, and the way she looks at me melts my stoic heart. She’s wordlessly communicating with me, in the way only she can. I understand what she’s saying and she’s not even uttered a syllable.

‘Seriously?’ I say, knowing what she’s getting at just from the way she blinks. She’s not given up. ‘We’re seriously going to ask this man to hang out with us?’

She grins, impishly, letting me talk myself into whatever is going to happen next. It’s her superpower, shutting up and letting other people babble away until she gets what she wants. Even as it’s happening, I know I’m playing into her malevolent plan, but I am a mere mortal. I cannot refuse her.

‘Fine,’ I say, blinking back the threat of tears as it hits me, again, how much I’m going to miss her. ‘Text Jackson. If Sofa Guy wants to come back for pizza – which he won’t do, I’m sure – he’s welcome. Maybe another person here will steer us away from morose and keep things celebratory and fun.’

Candice pumps her fist in the air in a dramatic gesture designed to make me laugh. ‘Yes,’ she squeals, as if she’s won.

‘You’re an idiot,’ I say, grinning in spite of myself.

‘And you need to go make sure your bikini line is sorted,’ she retorts. ‘I’m telling you: my radar is perfect. You’re about to get lucky.’

7

Nic

Well, it’s official. I am back in their house and, every time Ruby speaks to me, I blush. She says a single word and something sticks in my throat and bleeds upwards, spreading like spilled wine towards my cheeks, the backs of my ears, my eyes. Then the blushing makes me even more nervous because I feel such a twat, and because I feel such a twat, I blush harder. It’s humiliating.

‘What did I say, man?’ Jackson stage-whispers to me when Ruby disappears to find napkins with Candice. ‘Just breathe. Be where you are, remember?’

I nod. ‘Be where you are,’ I repeat. I can hear the dull background noise of chatter behind the kitchen door.

‘They’re talking about you,’ says Jackson.

He’s clocked me trying to listen in, then.

‘Are they pissed that I’m here?’ I probe, and Jackson shakes his head. He had insisted I come back to the house with him after we’d delivered my sofa. In the taxi he’d told me abouthis job as an assistant talent manager and the crazy stories of what some of the roster get up to, and then, once we’d done the heavy lifting, a bit about what it was like when he first moved here whilst I made him a brew. It was really touching when he asked me to come and hang out, and to be honest I really appreciated being offered plans. Takeaway and Saturday night TV was fine by me for tonight, but you hear stories, don’t you, about people relocating and then sitting in their flats all alone forever, with nobody to text to go for a pint. My brother is here, but he’s not reliable – he invited me out at 9 p.m. last night, when I was about to go to bed. And of course pizza with Jackson is also a chance for pizza with Ruby, even if she is leaving. And Jackson knew it.

‘The text says to invite you! Plus, you can practise what I taught you,’ he’d offered, getting me hook, line and sinker. He’d even asked if I’d like to come and play dodgeball sometime as well. If I was seduced by him dangling Ruby’s company, I was locked in by the suggestion that he and I could be friends.

I feel so awkward being here though. I wish I was better at knowing what to say, and what to do. I can be okay when I’ve warmed up, but shit, it takes me time to get going.

Ruby returns, Candice on her heels, handing over a fabric napkin to each of us, and I force myself to look her in the eye, just fleetingly. ‘These are … pretty,’ I say, and I’m quivering so much that I have to snatch my hand away before she might see. I can’t believe I’m using bloody napkins as a talking point, but Jackson promised me it would work.Be where you are.

‘Thanks,’ she says, brightly, settling in on the floor and tucking her bare legs under the coffee table. She wears life so lightly. She’s clearly a happy person. Comfortable withherself. ‘I actually got them as a gift for Candice last Christmas. We reached a low point, using toilet roll to wipe our hands when we ate, after we ran out of kitchen towel. I thought we were ready to graduate to proper linens.’

‘Clever,’ I admire, only that one word on the tip of my tongue. I scramble for something else to add.Be where you are!‘You need those napkin rings with each of your names on, so you know whose is whose.’

‘I didn’t think of that.’ She nods appreciatively, considering it. ‘We all have a special knot we do, so we know which is ours. But personalised napkin rings would be so much more sophisticated.’

‘Personalised knots?’ I ask. ‘Like a sort of Girl Guides thing?’

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