Page 59 of The Layover
She giggles.Look at you go, girl, giggling away. Look at you go, Leon!
‘No, it is!’ I insist, and scowl. ‘I’m not saying it right. I just mean, you’re a decent guy, and you’re not giving them a chance to see it. Like, you take care of your family! You own your own house! I never remember what your job is because it’s something really boring, but, like, obviously that translates as being stable and sensible—’
‘I’m a conveyancer.’
‘Sure, whatever that is. And you’re really sweet! You’re always doing stuff for other people. You do all that volunteering at a dog shelter, right? I’d bet that your problem is that you’re going inexpectingthese girls to feel let down by you, so you don’t even try.’
He shrugs, grumbles something, and his shoulders bunch up, suggesting I’ve struck gold. I beam, proud of myself for helping him out, not sure how much of this will stick in the cold light of day when we’re all sober, but right now I feel like an absolute genius. Fran is laughing, and pats his shoulder sloppily in a ‘there, there’ motion.
‘It’s okay,’ she slurs at him. ‘No judgement here; my dating life isn’t much to write home about either. My longest relationship is with a guy who’s marrying someone else.’
A laugh bursts out of Leon, deep and bright, and I snort so hard that I choke on my drink and it comes spurting out of my nose. It dribbles all over my face and down my front, and I spill some more from my cup down my legs when I lurch to cover my face. I kick over an open bottle of Coke, spilling it on some of the food and onto the floor.
I’m soggy and dirty and it’s so worth it, because I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that.
One time, when Kayleigh was hosting a dinner party – her favourite thing to do in that fucking flat, the oneIfound, theoneshebought – I was helping her prep and I accidentally put goat’s cheese into the stuffed pepper appetisers instead of feta, and you’d have thought I’d set the curtains on fire, the way she reacted. It wasn’tthe vibe, she insisted, and she made sure to tell everybody, ‘We had a bit of a whoops with the peppers – so sorry, everyone! Might have to get you one of those posters for the kitchen so you can identify different types of cheese next time, Gemma, lol!’
Nobody cared about the fucking goat’s cheese, but they never let me live it down, either.
Fran is fussing about handing me napkins and asking, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Um. Y-yeah.’ My throat hurts a bit and there’s a nasty stinging feeling right up the top of my nose, but that won’t last. Leon has bent down to mop up the spillage and salvage the food. ‘I’m … I’m just going to go get cleaned up.’
I skip delicately over our things – which, with the amount of alcohol I’ve had, is far more likely to look like the ungainly lumber of a T-Rex as I lurch all the way across into the opposite wall, my hands smacking into it and my body following. I’m laughing even as Leon winces audibly.
‘I’m good, I’m good!’ I turn around for my suitcase, and which one was it? There, on the end. Nope. Other end. The one with the garment bag looped over the handle.
I go to remove the dress and dump it onto one of their bags while I go and change, but in the space of time it takes me to pick it up, I’m already turning back to the others with a gleam in my eyes.
‘D’you guys want to see something truly awful?’
Chapter Twenty-nine
Leon
Gemma stumbles the rest of the way down the corridor, giggling to herself. Francesca and I finish mopping up all the spilled drinks, dumping the wet napkins into our designated carrier bag of rubbish along with the drenched Doritos and wet, crumbling crackers, and then she tidies up the rest of our picnic. We didn’t pack anything up properly earlier, abandoning it for some airport Olympics with strangers.
I must be staring, and she must notice, because she says, ‘I’m always the mum friend. I can’t help it. Well,almostalways. At work, it’s …’ Her face scrunches up. ‘It’s a bit of a boys’ club environment with a lot of them. I fell into the trap of trying to fit in so I didn’t get left behind.’
‘You mean with Marcus’s lot?’
Her hands pause as she slots a tray of Milka biscuits halfway back into their box. ‘Yes.’
‘And here I thought it was just Gemma with the shitty job.’
Francesca finishes tidying up the food, but her shoulders are tense. I fight through the alcohol haze to focus my gaze on her. The way she tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, the way her lower lip catches between her teeth. Tiny, automatic gestures that I suddenly find myself wanting to savour.
‘It’s not the job, so much as …them,’ she says. ‘That group. I behave a bit different around them on nights out, but – Marcusstarted including me, and I didn’t want him to stop if I was too much of a bore. And sometimes they can actually be really great fun! And they’ll look out for me a bit, help me with stuff at work if I need it without expecting a favour back, always make sure I get home safe at the end of the night … They’re not all bad, but …’
‘Not all great, either.’
‘Not really,’ she admits. She fidgets with one of the pins on her jacket. The black denim is so faded it’s greyish. Maybe it’s vintage? Maybe she thrifts stuff.
‘Cool jacket,’ I say, but Francesca grimaces. ‘Where’d you get all the badges?’
‘Oh! Um, just … Well, here and there, you know.’ Her voice carries, more chipper than when she was talking about going out with Marcus’s gang at work, and her face brightens. ‘Me and some of my friends from uni sort of made it a tradition to do Secret Santa and always get one of these enamel pins. I used to just hoard them all in a box, or put a couple on a tote bag or something, but it seemed so sad to leave them gathering dust somewhere. Some of them I got for birthdays or I just found from a creator on Instagram or something and couldn’t resist.’
She starts telling me about them all – one referencing a book series, another referencing an avocado Vine from years ago that she and her sister always laugh about, one that she and a friend both bought on a trip to Dublin …
