Chapter 8
T he smile that had begun the second Alba realized it was Neve texting her grew into a wide grin as she read the whole message. It was odd to feel as if you knew someone from only a couple of encounters with them, but Alba felt that way. The message was so very Neve—nervous and apologetic and sweet. Two typos that seemed out of character for someone who gave the air of being put together, even when they were crying on you. Alba could only imagine they came from the nervousness that screamed from within the text. She didn’t think she’d ever been so nervous she couldn’t type properly, but she’d wager good money Neve had.
I’ve met scarier people than Charlie, don’t worry. As she typed, she knew her grin was ridiculous but she didn’t care enough to try to fight it. I know she was just making sure I wasn’t attempting to abduct you. Although, how she’s worried about that when I clearly didn’t is a little beyond me…
She sent the message and was typing immediately again. And now I have your number you’re never getting rid of me!
It was only after sending the second message that she fully realized they both instantly showed that they’d been read. Neve’s message had been sent ages before Alba’s reply. Had she been staring at her phone, waiting? It seemed unlikely. Much more likely that she just didn’t have her phone set to switch itself off and had simply set the phone down after texting and wandered away.
It wasn’t as though she was typing a reply. If she’d been sitting waiting, she’d have started typing immediately.
“What are you grinning at?” Zainab yelled over the music in the bar.
Alba smirked at her. “Nothing.”
“You’re so predictable.” She rolled her eyes. “So, what did she say?”
“The bartender?” Alba tilted her head, knowing exactly what she was doing. “‘What can I get you?’”
Zainab stared at her for a moment, her eyes dead, before she collapsed forwards onto their table. “That poor woman has no idea what she’s getting herself into.”
Alba glanced back towards the bar. “Oh, I don’t know, she didn’t seem new. I’m sure she knows what the job entails.”
“You do realize she deserves better?”
“Undoubtedly. The service industry is rough.”
“I’m moving out,” Zainab quipped, grabbing her drink and taking an annoyed sip.
Alba couldn’t help but imagine Zainab was wishing she’d ordered something stronger. “You’re definitely not. You’d miss me too much.”
“You massively overestimate your own charm.” She shot Alba a serious look. “What did Neve say?”
“How’d you know it was her?”
She rolled her eyes again. “It’s like you think I don’t know you at all.”
“You might know me, but you don’t know Neve. How’d you know she’d even text?”
“ That was just a lucky guess. But you, grinning at your phone like a lovesick schoolgirl? That, I know how to read like the back of my hand.”
Alba snorted as she sipped her own drink, glancing around at the bar and its packed dance floor. “I’m not a lovesick anything. Calm down.”
“What. Did. She. Say?” Zainab glared at her.
Alba laughed, taking another swig of her drink. “Just apologizing for her friend Charlie.”
“Oh, you mean the friend who clearly thinks you’re bad news?”
“Mm. Worrying I’m going to abduct their friend.”
Zainab huffed a laugh. “I don’t think it’s that at this point.”
Alba studied her in the low neon glow of the bar. “What else would it be?”
“It’s actually ridiculous that they let you graduate when you’re this oblivious.”
“I didn’t do a degree in reading people.”
“Clearly.”
“I don’t know why you’re so smug. It’s not like you did either.”
“I don’t need to.”
“And, if you’re not going to give me a clear answer, at least come dance with me.”
“Aren’t we waiting for—”
Before she could finish the thought, Francisco and Tariq reappeared, armed with drinks of their own and several extra bottles of water for their group. The pair were happy to go out for their friends’ birthdays, but they were not the ones to be found on the dance floor—unlike tonight’s birthday girl, who had barely left it. Instead, they held down the table, hydrated, and made sure anyone who was drinking wouldn’t wake up with too much of a hangover the next day.
They also flirted shamelessly, and Alba had been wondering for years now when the two might actually get together. She couldn’t quite figure out what they were waiting for.
“You two go dance,” Francisco insisted, waving Alba and Zainab away from the table. “We’ve got this.”
Alba smiled and thanked them both, wondering whether it was that they wanted her and Zainab to have a good time, or whether they just wanted alone time.
She grabbed Zainab’s hand and dragged her back to the dance floor, weaving through the dense crowd until they found their little group again. It wasn’t difficult to do, Ivy had used her birthday as an excuse to dye her hair pink and was wearing a particularly sparkly birthday tiara.
As they danced together, the music pounding through Alba’s body like a heartbeat, she leaned into Zainab. “So, ready to tell me now?”
Zainab laughed, the sound too low to be heard over the music. “Charlie doesn’t like you.”
Alba leaned back exaggerating her scandalized expression. “Charlie doesn’t even know me. How could she dislike me?”
Zainab danced freely, but her exasperated expression was at odds with her movements. “Because she thinks you’re bad for Neve.”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” Alba protested. She wasn’t used to people so viscerally disliking her for no apparent reason.
“Not yet, maybe.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The song changed and the crowd cheered approvingly, the general movements becoming bouncier than before. Alba fell in with them as she waited for an answer.
Zainab tapped one of their friends, gesturing them into the conversation.
“Zainab! What’s up?” Ace asked, more than a little tipsy.
“What’s Alba’s type?” Zainab asked them, keeping her gaze on Alba as she did.
Ace laughed, pushing their rolled shirt sleeves further up their arms. “Curvy, short, killer eyes, nice smile.”
“Thank you.”
Alba rolled her eyes as Ace turned back to Ivy and the rest of the group. “You don’t need to keep doing that, you know?”
“I do, because you apparently aren’t getting it.”
“I get it just fine. Neve is my type. Whatever. Yes, she’s gorgeous and sweet, but I’m friends with lots of gorgeous, sweet people. I do know how to control myself.”
“Yes, but there’s just a—”
“And besides, Charlie doesn’t know that’s my type. Charlie doesn’t know jackshit about me.”
Zainab grabbed Alba’s hand and twirled her. “Charlie can probably figure it out from your whole knight in shining armor bit. And from the way you look at Neve.”
Alba sighed. She looked at Neve like she was happy to see her again, because she was. Because she cared that the woman she’d seen so broken was doing better. Not because she wanted to fuck her on the table in the middle of a café. She had no idea why everyone was acting like she had no class or self-control.
“Charlie’s just being a supportive friend,” Zainab said, twirling herself this time.
“There’s a difference between supportive and weird.”
“As if you’d know.”
“I know plenty, thank you.”
“She’s just worried Neve’s going to get hurt again,” Zainab said, her mouth close to Alba’s ear.
“You’re talking like you know her.”
“I don’t need to know her to understand the dynamics when we ran into them. Charlie’s in a relationship that seems to be a happy one, so she’s probably not after Neve for herself. Neve has just had a horrible breakup and is vulnerable to people sweeping in and breaking her heart again. It’s only natural that her closest friends would be worried about that.”
“She’s not a child, you know? She doesn’t need babysitters swatting away anyone who comes near her.”
Zainab pulled back to give Alba a look. “We’re all vulnerable in situations like that. There is a reason the whole rebound concept exists. And the rebound can backfire.”
“I’m not looking to be anyone’s rebound. I’m not looking to be anyone’s anything. I just…” Alba wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. Every word she could think of felt like something Zainab—and apparently Charlie—could twist and turn into something more, something romantic, something potentially destructive, and it wasn’t like that. She just… cared .
“I know,” Zainab said, mostly sincerely. “But you do have… an energy about you that I can see Charlie being wary of.”
“Weird time to insult your best friend.”
“I’m not insulting you, I’m just explaining the situation. Especially since you’re wading into having a relationship with Neve without thinking it through. I doubt you can have Neve without having Charlie.”
“I have no interest in having Charlie, thank you very much.”
It took a second too long for Alba to realize she should probably have insisted she didn’t want Neve either if she wanted Zainab to believe she wasn’t looking to start something romantic.
Zainab watched her in a way that told Alba she’d noticed, but, rather than comment, she simply shook her head. “I didn’t mean like that. I just meant that, if you’re going to be friends with Neve, you’re unlikely to avoid her friends.”
Alba huffed, spinning herself around in a bid to escape the annoying fact that Zainab was right. “Fine. I suppose that’s true. But I want the record to show, I don’t have a problem with Charlie. She’s the one with the problem.”
“Indeed.”
Alba let it drop, considering, as she danced, how much time she really would have to spend around Charlie if she became friends with Neve. She’d only found it amusing in the café. Now, it felt like something she’d actually have to deal with. But, how did you tell your brand new friend’s friend that you weren’t romantically interested in said friend and not have it be weird? Even just hypothetically, it sounded like the weirdest conversation Alba could imagine.
Perhaps she could just spend time with Neve, see Charlie occasionally, and Charlie would finally get the message that there was nothing sinister about the relationship or Alba, and that they were, in fact, just friends.
She swayed with the music, people jostling her on every side, focusing on the pounding bass and the moment. However, when someone reached out from behind her, their hands gripping her hips, Alba jolted. She twisted, looking to see who it was. It would be an odd hold for one of her friends, but not entirely impossible.
The person behind her, though, she’d never seen before. They smirked at her, eyes half-lidded, as their hands moved her hips along with the sway of their own, pulling her in tighter. She’d had people do that to her before, it wasn’t always unwelcome or unenjoyable. This time, however, all she could think about was Neve.
Their relationship wasn’t romantic. It wasn’t something she was going to force into being romantic, either. Alba really did just want to be friends with her. But, when faced with someone hitting on her, Alba couldn’t deny the way her mind cataloged all of the ways they weren’t Neve. Probably because, as everyone kept pointing out, Neve was her type, but still, it wasn’t the best realization when she’d been trying so hard to deny having feelings for Neve.
But, you could fancy someone and still be friends with them. There was no rule against that. In all likelihood, it would make the crush go away sooner.
The person holding her clenched their hands tighter on her hips. Alba, almost having forgotten they were even there, wrenched herself away from them. “Taken. Sorry.”
She stepped away, frowning at herself. She hadn’t planned to say that. She’d used it before to get out of awkward situations. Being in a relationship generally invited fewer questions or follow-ups from people who thought you simply needed convincing, but saying it while she was thinking about Neve felt like betraying her.
So did someone else holding her hips, but that was just nonsense.
Alba watched them move away, standing still in the middle of the dance floor, the crowd moving around her. She pulled out her phone, unable to stop the swoop in her stomach at seeing Neve had replied.
Okay, so she definitely had a little bit of a crush. But she wasn’t going to do anything about it. She was going to be friends with Neve and that was all. And she’d be the very best friend she could.
Sorry for the slow replies. Just out celebrating a friend’s birthday—she’s wearing a birthday tiara. It’s amazing!
It didn’t take long for Neve to message back. Sorry! I didn’t mean to interrupt you! I hope your friend has a great birthday and that you have fun! I can talk to you another time!
Alba smiled at the exclamation points ending every sentence. She smiled at the apology. She smiled at Neve.
No one else I’d rather talk to from the middle of a packed dance floor
She glanced up as the dancing crowd jostled her, still smiling, only to see Zainab’s gaze on her.
She smiled wider, mostly to annoy Zainab, but also to cover for herself. In her peripheral vision, she’d spotted Neve’s reply arrive, and she smiled at the fact that she was absolutely going to hell. But at least she’d have a great time on the journey there.