Chapter 5
N eve wasn’t entirely sure why she’d said anything. Alba hadn’t been paying attention. It would have been so easy to just walk by without being seen. Instead, she’d frozen, stared, and yelled out Alba’s name.
Her eyes finally moved from Alba’s face to the rest of her table.
Neve winced. It was fairly obvious from their conversation together last weekend that Alba wasn’t straight. Neve wasn’t certain what she was, but she definitely wasn’t straight. And there, sitting opposite her, was possibly one of the most modelesque women Neve had ever seen. Long, black hair, gorgeous facial structure, and piercing brown eyes.
She’d interrupted a date.
Of course someone as beautiful as Alba dated women who looked like they were gracing the cover of a magazine when they were simply getting coffee.
Not that Neve wanted to date Alba. She didn’t want to date anyone right now. She had spent the last week wondering whether it was ever going to be safe to date anyone ever again.
But she still had eyes, and an aesthetic appreciation for the world.
She might not understand it herself, but she wasn’t ignorant to the way the world worked, and, when she thought about it, she imagined both Alba and her date were the kinds of women Alice and Charlie talked about being hot.
Neve blushed, realizing she was simply staring at them, debating what it meant to be hot, and interrupting their date.
She really shouldn’t have said anything at all.
“How are you doing?” Alba asked, seeming genuinely concerned, if a little flustered. That was probably what happened when people who cried all over you after being dumped dared to interrupt your date.
“Oh. Uh, yeah. I’m doing okay.” She shuffled awkwardly, aware that Alba and her date were both watching her and hating the attention, even if she had brought it on herself. “Better.”
Alba smiled softly. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” As she nodded, Neve considered how true the statement was.
Unarguably, she was better than the last time they’d seen each other. The past week had been hard, but it had also been an education, one Neve should have learned a long time ago. And, while the lessons weren’t nice, they were necessary, and that was okay, right? Nothing was really a waste if it taught you things you needed to know.
And crying wasn’t automatically bad. It was a sign of processing difficult things. Maybe all the tears she’d shed over her relationship with Roxanne and her potential future were okay in the end. If she let them out, she wasn’t stuck carrying them around with her forever. Then, she could move on in the life she now believed she was supposed to live.
Alba took a step towards her. “I’m really glad. I’ve been thinking about you this week and hoping you were okay.”
“She has been really worried,” Alba’s date said with a little too much glee as she leaned forward on the table with her elbows.
Alba shot her a look while Neve attempted to school her confused expression.
“I’m Zainab,” the woman said, holding a hand out in greeting, and even it was perfect—soft, long, delicate.
Hating herself as she did it, Neve sucked in her stomach slightly as she shook Zainab’s hand. Her own body felt wrong, too marked by imperfections, and both too soft and not soft enough next to this woman. But she knew she was just being hard on herself at the minute. Everything this week had been a little bit harder than it should be, and, as she had, once again, been forced to look her own shortcomings in the eye, it felt difficult not to feel like every part of her was coming up short.
“Neve,” she replied, a little too quietly for the café noise. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Zainab smiled, warm and welcoming and far, far too kindly. “It’s really my pleasure.”
Alba cleared her throat and shot Zainab a look Neve didn’t understand, but which caused her head to spin. Maybe she wasn’t an expert in dating— evidently —but she was pretty sure this dynamic was not date dynamic.
“Neve! Are you okay?” Alice’s panicked voice cut through the moment as she and Charlie appeared at Neve’s shoulder.
Neve blushed harder, looking at the two of them and dropping Zainab’s hand after far too long. “Yes. Sorry. I’m fine.”
“We thought something had happened to you,” Alice said, checking Neve over like a worried parent. She was always the more nervous of the two, but in the week since Neve’s breakup, Alice had seemed particularly worried about her.
“We thought you’d fallen in the toilet,” Charlie added with a grin, looping her arm around Alice’s waist.
Neve had seen her do that a million times in a million situations, but, in that moment, something about it caused an ache deep inside of her. A simple gesture that signaled a deeper understanding. Charlie knew Alice was worried, she knew what soothed Alice, and, there, in the middle of a café, she simply wrapped an arm around her, soothing her, comforting her, letting Alice know she wasn’t alone and everything was okay. And Alice melted into her.
It was the kind of experience Neve had been waiting her whole life for.
“Don’t worry,” Alba said, unexpectedly. “We’d have pulled her out if she’d fallen in.”
Neve looked between Alba and the others. Four people between whom Neve was now the connection. But she had no way to explain.
Well, she did, but she didn’t want to.
“There you go, babe,” Charlie told Alice, pulling her in tighter. “Neve’s got loads of people looking out for her.”
Alice smiled sweetly—as if she came in another setting. “That’s good. How do you two know Neve? I don’t think we’ve ever met before…”
Neve suppressed a sigh. Alice knew full well they’d never met before. She was just being kind and providing an opening. But that opening was a wide-open cavern through which the truth could escape.
Alba laughed. “Oh, we met just last week, actually.”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed as she looked Alba over again in light of the new evidence, and, before Neve could think of anything helpful to say, Charlie leaned in. “Alba?”
Alba’s eyes found Neve, the green of them seeming so much more alive as she grinned in surprise. “You mentioned me.”
Neve cleared her throat, not missing the way Zainab rolled her eyes. “Uh. Yeah. Just… a little bit. You know, explaining… what happened.”
“No need to be shy.” She turned back to Charlie. “I am, indeed, the knight in shining armor.”
“Good god,” Zainab muttered, looking down at her menu.
Alba waved her away. “Ignore her.”
“Do not,” Zainab shot back instantly.
Charlie shook her head. “You’re the one going around picking up crying women at the mall?”
Neve’s blood ran cold. Why did she have to say it like that? It sounded creepy and callous and weird.
Alba simply laughed. “Nothing quite as sinister as you make it sound, and I definitely wasn’t picking anyone up, but it’s nice to help a person in need.”
“Right.” Charlie didn’t sound convinced and Neve wondered what the hell had gotten into her. “Just… helping for no reason.”
Alba seemed undeterred, even as Zainab gave Charlie a cautious once over. She simply shrugged. “Do you generally abandon people who run into you in tears?”
Charlie hesitated and Neve watched her fingers flex around Alice’s waist. “I don’t know,” she said eventually. “It’s never actually happened to me.”
“Well, I’m not the kind of person who abandons those in need, and better that Neve ran into me than some weirdo who might have hurt her.”
“She didn’t actually know—”
Neve cleared her throat, having had enough of being spoken over like a child who couldn’t understand or speak for herself. “Well, as lovely as this is. We should really be going and let you get back to your date.”
Zainab scoffed as Alba looked around, puzzled.
Neve was even more confused.
“It was really lovely meeting you,” Alice said, somehow entirely genuine despite Charlie’s tension. “And thank you, Alba, for helping Neve last week. We all really appreciate it.”
Alba laughed, shooting Neve a conspiratorial glance she didn’t fully understand. “I’ll be sure to run it past your guardian angels if you need help again in future.”
Now, Neve got it.
She felt her face go up in flames again. She wasn’t a child and she hated being made to feel like one. Even if Charlie was only trying to look out for her, it still felt uncomfortable. She was a perfectly capable, grown adult. Even if things went wrong sometimes, and even if she made the slightly ill-advised decision to get into a stranger’s car, she wasn’t entirely foolish. She’d known Alba wasn’t going to hurt her. Couldn’t Charlie just trust that?
Neve shook her head. “That really isn’t necessary.”
“Maybe you should take my number just in case it is,” Charlie said, still watching Alba critically.
“ That absolutely isn’t necessary,” Neve insisted, shooting Charlie a furious look.
She shrugged in response, mouthing, “What?”
Neve shook her head as the others simply waited in silence, the tension weird and tumbling around them.
Zainab laughed, breaking the moment. “Tell you what. I’ll write Alba’s number on this napkin,” she said, pulling a pen from her bag. “I’ll hand it to Neve, and then you can all decide on the best thing to do with it… in your own time.”
“Zainab…” Alba said, her voice low. Neve wasn’t sure whether it was a warning or a question, but she could hardly spend too much energy attempting to figure those two out when Charlie was acting so bizarrely.
Zainab looked up at her innocently, and a million unsaid words passed between her and Alba as Neve watched, that burning pang inside of her starting up again. All of these people just knew each other so well. They didn’t need words, they didn’t need anything from anyone else.
She ached to be known like that.
Eventually, Alba rolled her eyes and sighed. Clearly, she was letting Zainab win because the woman clicked her pen with a flourish, scribbled down a number from memory, and turned to Neve.
Neve stared. “I barely know my own number by heart…”
She laughed. “I have a head for numbers. Don’t worry about it.”
Neve nodded as Zainab folded the napkin and rose to stand before her.
“This is for you. To do… whatever you’d like with.” She slipped the folded napkin smoothly into Neve’s hand and winked.
Neve really didn’t understand anything that was happening. “Uh, thank you.”
“My pleasure.” She smiled again, and it was only the look in her eyes that convinced Neve she wasn’t being made fun of. “It really was a delight meeting you.”
“You too.” Was it? She wasn’t sure. This whole interaction had been unbelievably weird.
Zainab turned to Alice and Charlie. She smiled gently at Alice. “Pleasure meeting you too.” Her eyes flicked to Charlie. “And it has been absolutely fascinating meeting you.”
Charlie scowled slightly, her eyes bouncing between Zainab, Alba, and Neve, as she obviously attempted to figure out the dynamic.
It was only then that Neve realized she hadn’t introduced Zainab. Well, she hadn’t introduced Alba either. The others had just… badly handled that themselves.
She wondered whether she should introduce her now, but that would be weird on so many levels, and the last thing she wanted was to postpone this conversation any longer.
Charlie sniffed. “You too. And you, Alba. Lovely to meet you.”
There was the slightest inflection that made it clear that the meeting was anything but lovely , but the laugh Alba let out told Neve she still wasn’t fazed.
Alba was a strong woman.
Neve watched as the two shook hands, and she scowled at Charlie for the heavy grip she took of Alba’s hand. They were going to have to have words as soon as they were alone, and Neve hated that.
Alba turned towards her, her smile soft again, and Neve took a step backwards, away from the intrusive group.
“Sorry, about… all of that,” Neve said with a grimace.
Alba chuckled. “That’s okay. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“Really?”
She nodded to the napkin clasped in Neve’s hand. “Maybe I’ll tell you the stories one day.”
Something nervous broke out in Neve’s chest. Was she really supposed to use the number? Did that mean it was real? She’d genuinely expected it to be a fake, to be a game for Charlie. But was Zainab really giving her Alba’s actual number?
She batted back the thought that she’d look deeply out of place in that friend group, annoyed with her own internal monologue again.
She’d desperately wanted to thank Alba for the kindness she’d shown her, and maybe now she could.
And she could apologize for the—well, for Charlie. Just… Charlie.