Page 54 of Glitterland
I gave a shaky, unconvincing laugh.
“I know it ain’t you,” he said, after a moment. “But it ain’t nuffin to be scared of.”
“Fear isn’t rational.”
He nodded. “We’ll be cheering you on all the way.”
I raised a brow. “And wanting to do me?”
“Always, babes. It don’t matter what you’re wearing.”
Heedless of Chloe’s warning, I kissed him. It was a claggy business.
When we unstuck our mouths, Darian was laughing. “I fink we just swapped lip gloss.”
The next twenty minutes of my life rushed by like motorway traffic and I had no idea how I got through them. The only thing I could recall with any certainty was the heat of Darian’s hand holding mine. Backstage at a fashion show, it turned out, was madness without method. Nothing but shouting and running, a tornado of light and chaos and shoes. It was impossible to understand what was happening, but somehow things came together. And the models, who had been dishevelled and borderline hysterical in the seconds before, glided onto the runway like swans.
Could I do this? I didn’t think I could do this.
“I’m gonna be right back,” said Darian. “Just gonna do my fing.”
My hand clenched about his, my nails pressing pale, desperate smiles into his skin.
But I had to let him go. So I did.
Then Chloe was hustling me to one side. “This way,” she whispered. “You can watch ’im.”
Backstage, unsurprisingly, afforded a poor view. Through a dazzle of light, I watched Darian recede and then come back to me. His face, his body, the way he moved were all so composed that it wasn’t until he stepped through the wings, grinning, that I quite believed in his return.
“See, babes,” he said. “Nuffin to it. Serious face on. Giving it a bit of strut.”
It was slightly too late to say that I didn’t strut (I don’t) or that I really didn’t want to do this (I didn’t). But when I stepped onto the catwalk, all of Darian’s friends leapt to their feet and burst into wild cheering. Essex, obviously thinking something important was happening, did likewise. I doubt I was much of a model, but I walked, turned, and did not fall over, cresting a wave of entirely undeserved appreciation that continued even as I fled into the wings, where I landed, breathless but safe in Darian’s arms.
Kissing him to a chorus of applause that flashed like fireworks behind my eyes.
From there came a haze of laughter and congratulations, Chloe’s voice rising stridently across the noise: “Y’know what, honey, you can ’ave the glardigan. It’s yours.”
“G-glardigan?”
“Yeah, it’s like glamour and cardigan, innit?”
Of course.
The day unravelled into evening, event into after-party, sweeping me along with it. A group who—Darian informed me—had been onEss Faktaperformed to great enthusiasm, and then a DJ took over. We tumbled round a table near the bar, Gary going to secure the first round.
The revelation that I didn’t drink inspired a squeal of glee from Darian’s friends.
“They’re meant to be togevver!” cried one of the Laurens. “So romantic.”
“I just don’t see why you ’ave to be blatted to ’ave it up,” said Darian. “I am hunjed pahcent sober and hunjed pahcentli-ving.”
Chloe shook out her mane, which caused a cascade reaction through the group, and suddenly everyone was checking their hair. “You are so right, honey.”
He was. He was. Just then, I didn’t need a drink to feel drunk.
Darian wound an arm round my waist and said quietly, “You gonna come dance wif me later?”
I put my lips to his ear. “I want to fuck you later.”
