If I Were You

Chapter 2 Flynn

Two Years Ago

My weekends are mostly spent at stag do’s. Wedding planning doesn’t appeal to a lot of my mates, but preparation for the stag do is undertaken with the precision of a large-scale military strike. The target this time: Bristol City Centre.

I’ve done a weekend in Ibiza (best man missed his flight home and might still live there), a country house near Bath (we lost our deposit), about sixteen clubs in various cities in southern England (banned from fourteen of them), and gone white water rafting in the Lake District (stag knocked out with a paddle).

They’re easy and entertaining. Men in groups regress about twenty years and I play my part well.

Tonight we are in a karaoke bar in the centre of Bristol, about a mile from my house in Redland. The stag passed out a good couple of hours ago and is currently horizontal in a booth dressed inexplicably as a nun, as we drink beers around him. Singing publicly is my hell, but I like drinking, and Eddie bought the whole table shots and is currently in a dark corner with a girl he started flirting with in the queue to get in.

I’m just thinking about heading home – the other stags are staying in a hotel on the ring road somewhere – when Eddie returns, wipes his mouth, and suggests a strip club. Someone whoops but I quickly counter-offer with a casino. Strip clubs are the places joy goes to die. There’s a flash of anger in Eddie’s eyes when two of the guys want to come with me.

And then she walks past.

Flushed cheeks, wide apart eyes, smooth limbs. My mouth gapes and I suddenly couldn’t care less about strip clubs, casinos, or my own name.

A dotted headband is lost amongst her curls, and she is wearing a dress that isn’t a dress but more like shorts and a top joined up. She looks incredible.

I’m about to reach a hand out to stop her and ask her name when she halts abruptly at our table. She is less than a couple of feet away. My chest judders.

Then she points at the prostrate stag in the booth.

‘Is he alright?’ She has a confident voice, loud even over the music, and an accent I can’t immediately place.

My mouth is still open.

‘Seriously?’ She looks round at us, cocking an eyebrow. The others gape at her in different stages of drunkenness.

‘Yeah,’ one of the lads says before slumping backwards, one arm draped over the inert body.

‘Oh my god, you’ll suffocate him.’

She has big Hermione Granger Energy and is even hotter now that she’s close up. I seem to have lost the ability to do anything other than look at her. My stomach disappears. Can I ask her out? Who’s she with? How have I never bumped into her in Bristol before?

Her mouth is still moving and I realize she is directing her words at me. ‘Seriously, is he OK? Why are you all just drinking around him? Does he need to go to hospital?’

She scoots across me to check on him and I feel simultaneously bad it didn’t occur to me to do the same, and also can’t help noticing she smells of oranges, which makes my head spin even more.

The stag groans as she places a hand on his head and her eyes soften as she asks him if he’s alright.

He starts to sit up and, satisfied he isn’t a corpse, she steps back and gives the whole table of men a withering look.

‘Take better care of him,’ she says.

I start nodding furiously.

She walks off.

Someone sniggers and Eddie rolls his eyes and mutters, ‘Nutter.’

I don’t say ‘she’s not’, I don’t want to rile him up, and I also feel like I’ve been whacked in the head. It’s not just the five or six beers (and shots) I’ve drunk. I’ve never met anyone with such charisma. I wonder what she does for a living. The youngest CEO of a FTSE 500 company, a major in the Army, the Prime Minister? Nothing would surprise me.

I watch her weave her way across the bar and perch on a stool.

Over people’s heads I see her settle at a high table. She momentarily stares at a girl on the small stage holding a microphone singing a wobbly rendition of ‘Man! I Feel like a Woman!’. There’s a guy with her, neck tattoo and a top with ripped-off sleeves like he’s just wrestled a bear or something. I hope for my sake he’s her brother, because what I’m about to do next feels brave.

I just know I can’t leave this place without trying.

I head straight to the bar to ask for paper and a pen. It seems to take them forever to find one and I curse, craning my neck to check she is still there.

‘Thanks for that,’ I say breathlessly, standing in front of her table.

Her vague smile wobbles as she tries to place me and then a line appears between her eyebrows.

‘That was kind of you,’ I say. ‘Just now. With our friend. A couple of the guys are taking him back to the hotel.’

She nods non-committally and my heart sinks as she returns her attention to the man opposite her. I don’t think he’s her brother. He looks too annoyed with me to be her brother.

I want to stay, want to know her.

‘Do you make a habit of rescuing drunk men or is it a one-off thing?’

‘Mate,’ the man on the date says, twisting in his seat.

‘I’m just talking to …’ I leave a pause for her name, which she doesn’t fill, just cocks her head to one side and looks at me.

‘You know, you’re beautiful,’ I can’t help adding.

‘Mate!’ the guy with the tattoo sounds more cross, which is fair. I think the mystery woman might be about to smile but she swallows it down.

‘I’m with someone,’ she gestures. The same direct tone, the same steady gaze.

‘Yeah.’ The man crosses his burly arms. He does have extraordinarily large biceps.

‘That’s true,’ I say, nodding earnestly. Then I look up, meet her gaze. Is it my imagination or is there something in her eyes, a momentary flash of curiosity? Or is it just the reflection of the disco lights? ‘But,’ I add, with a winning smile, ‘you could be with me.’

Internally I am asking what exactly it is that I’m doing. I’m flailing here. And I’ve seen the biceps. But I can’t help it. There’s something about her that makes me want to behave in this macho and confident way.

‘Want to take this outside?’ Her date scrapes back his chair. Of course he’s tall. A strange rush of energy courses through me which might be the shots and beers but also the imminent danger.

‘I just wanted to give the lady this.’ I produce a piece of paper with my name, address, email and phone numbers on it. ‘I work in events and we’re always on the hunt for talent.’

‘The lady sells houses.’ Tall tattoo-neck says.

‘Well, I imagine that takes great skill and we need people who have … skills,’ I say.

The mystery woman meets my eye this time, and something shifts, a flicker at the corner of her mouth. It’s enough to give me a small boost. Maybe I am not messing this up completely.

‘She demonstrated a real flair for handling people just now and, well, that’s the kind of person I like on my … my team,’ I invent.

‘You fancy her,’ the man says.

‘I also do, yes.’

I nod solemnly and the mystery woman does smile this time and then hurriedly settles her face back into neutral. She glances at the paper in my hand.

‘You’ve included a fax number.’

‘I just wanted to be available to you on all platforms.’ I smile back at her in what I hope to be a winsome way.

The trouble is this prompts the man to slide his seat back, make a fist and punch me in the face. The piece of paper with my details flutters to the floor before I can give it to her.

I hit the deck. Then there’s general shouting, bouncers, my mates, the man, and, just as I’m hauled out of the club and steered away by my fellow groomsmen, I see her face in the window, brow wrinkled, a look I can’t read as I waggle my fingers back at her in a half-wave.

Later, back in my flat, the guys in their hotel, I’m gutted. There was something about that woman in the bar that stirred some emotion in me. I recognize it as hope. Her forthright manner, her kindness, her ability to stand up to our bullshit. I loved it. I want that kind of person with that kind of passion in my life. Someone who would be a voice for people when they aren’t able to do it for themselves. What would it be like to be loved by someone like that?

But I screwed it up, went in all smarmy. I don’t blame the guy for hitting me. My temple throbs, my eye swollen as I sit, head back on the sofa, feeling battered.

The buzzer to my flat goes and I frown.

Opening the door I practically do a cartoon double take because, against all odds, standing on the threshold of my house is the woman from the bar. And she is wearing a suspicious expression.

‘Are you a serial killer?’ she asks.

I quickly shake my head. Which makes my head hurt more. But I’m keen for her to know I am not. ‘I haven’t even killed one person.’

Her mouth twitches.

‘That was very cocky of you in the bar you know.’ It’s a statement, not a question, and I hold my breath.

‘We were on a first date,’ she adds.

I keep holding my breath and then wonder if this is when I should speak: apologize?

‘I met him on Tinder.’

She’s slightly blurry at the edges but I don’t dare tell her I need to sit down in case it scares her away.

‘He kept picking stuff out of his teeth.’

Tentatively my heart quivers.

‘He called me Ames. It’s Amy until I give you permission otherwise.’

‘It’s a nice name.’

She tilts her chin.

‘Do you always hit on women you don’t know in bars?’

‘No, actually!’ Which is the truth. I haven’t felt like asking anyone out in three years. That thought rattles me, just as I look down and see something that makes me pause. She is holding a handbag in one hand and something bulky in the other. Wait – am I about to be attacked?

As she steps forward I wince at her through one eye.

It’s a kilo bag of peas.

‘Well – invite me in then,’ she says in the same confident, slightly withering tone she used earlier. ‘I want to see if you really have a fax machine.’

I almost fall down in my effort to get her inside. My whole chest fills with warmth, the pain in my eye and head immediately lessening.

‘Do. Come in. It’s not plugged in, but I do. And,’ I turn to her, my eyes widening, ‘I think I have a pager somewhere I could dig out?’

We head inside together as she laughs – throaty, full. I think it might be the best sound I’ve ever heard.