6
The bar that Emme’s marketing friends take us to is, as assumed, ridiculously expensive. You can tell when we arrive because they have an exposed brick wall and all the bar staff are wearing blue jeans.
We’re led over to a booth at the back and the girls promptly take selfies against the flower wall. I would join in but I wasn’t blessed with photogenic genes, as my mother likes to point out. Usually, as I am having my photograph taken, I might add.
We order from the ludicrously expensive cocktail menu and I get an exceptionally aesthetically pleasing bastardisation of a Pornstar Martini to sip while I try to keep up with the conversation going on about Jess, I think, and her Finance Bro ex who just texted her saying ‘What u doing?’
I bite my tongue to ask why he can’t spell ‘you’ out. I mean, maybe the world of finance is just too fast-paced, maybe he’s really pressed for time. But at 9pm on a Friday night, I somehow doubt it. I personally think it’s his attempt to get back into her bed but Jess seems to think he wants back into her heart, of all places… Maybe I’m too jaded.
Maybe I’m fucking right.
So, we’re about three expensive cocktails in and I am meandering my way up the deadly metal stairs to the toilet, thinking about how I might just sit there for a little while to pass some time, when someone calls my name.
I frown at the male voice and turn back, looking over the railing. Standing on the lower part of the stairs is Miles, the drug dealer, from the other night.
He looks just as attractive as he did last week, though maybe slightly more formal. Indeed, he’s wearing a white button-down shirt this time and his hair looks more in place. It’s pulled back in a half-up-half-down thing that is not a man-bun. It’s something far cooler. Far more Jason Momoa, far less 2010s Hipster Bro.
“Ah, the florist,” I say, trying very hard not to smile back at that familiar wolfish grin. Really, I want to squeal because I never thought I’d see him again, and if I did, I had assumed he would ignore me. I would ignore myself after the way I acted the other night, or so the crazy anxious lady in my brain tells me. She’s very cruel.
“Ah, the girl who doesn’t believe I’m actually a florist,” he retorts, coming to stand on the step below me. Even with the stair of difference, he still looks down at me which seems ridiculous when I’m almost six foot and rarely dwarfed by men .
“Oh, I totally believe it now I Urban Dictionary’ed florist,” I say, smugly.
He snorts, “Oh, and what does it say?”
“Drug dealer, duh,” I say, rolling my eyes and restraining myself from pulling out my phone to prove it. He doesn’t need to know I was that invested, right?
He laughs, “Wow. I think I could even show you my shop and you’d still think it was a front,”
I nod, “Probably,” I say, “I’m very hard to convince,” I add, hoping that in some parallel universe, a much cooler version of Delaney actually gets to see his shop.
He grins, “What are you doing here tonight?” he asks, with the air of a man who is trying to extend a fading conversation. Not that I’m complaining. The two minutes I’ve been conversing with him have been the most exciting part of this evening.
No offence, Emme. Your friends suck. Or maybe I suck and they think I’m boring too. Maybe I should start taking notes when I’m with them so I can be as awesome at being a girl as they seem to be and stop being so whiny that hanging out with them makes me feel crappy.
“My friend has dragged me out with her work friends,” I say, frowning and trying to convey how annoying I find them without seeming like a bitch. Or a Pick Me girl, for that matter. The result, I assume, probably doesn’t convey this incredibly complex emotion. It probably looks like I could do with a Rennie.
“You sound happy about it,” he says with a smirk.
“Oh, do I?” I ask, “I’m going to have to work on that. Can’t have men getting the wrong idea,”
He laughs again and I am about to ask him what he is doing here when someone comes up the stairs behind him. They call his name and clap him on the shoulder.
A guy about a head shorter than Miles appears. He’s wearing a short-sleeved black shirt that is straining over biceps the size of my thigh. His ankles are on show, so I know he’s a Finance Bro, or trying to be.
“I didn’t think you’d be coming tonight, mate,” the man says. He’s clasping the hand of a bored-looking girl behind him.
“Why wouldn’t I be here?” Miles asks him, wearing a smile that threatens violence. I bite my lip, trying not to grin.
“Oh, come on,” the man says.
Miles raises an eyebrow as if he’s happy to wait hours for a response. The guy begins to look uncomfortable and glances around for something to distract. His eyes land on me.
“Is this your new girlfriend, Miles?” the man asks, giving me the once over like I’m a car he’s considering buying. I raise an eyebrow at him and go to tell him that I’m actually just a girl Miles hid with at a party but Miles gets there first .
“Oh yeah,” Miles says, turning to me and giving me a hard stare that seems to say ‘play the fuck along,’ and then he turns back to the guy, “This is Delaney. Delaney, this is Seb, we went to school together,”
I’m trying very hard not to have a total meltdown and I assume Miles senses it too because he grins at me, eyes wide, and then adds, “This is Lara, his girlfriend,”
The girl, Lara, looks me over with the face of someone who just ate something bitter. I raise an eyebrow at her, take a deep breath, and then turn to Seb, “Hi, Miles has told me a lot about you,” I say, sensing Miles’s shoulders sagging in relief and beginning a mental list of ways I can murder him later.
“Nice to meet you,” Seb says, glancing between Miles and me as if he senses something is off, but then he shrugs, “We’re going inside, see you in there,” he says gesturing to the door on the landing.
He starts up the stairs, pulling Lara behind him, and heads towards a door. When he opens it, music and the sound of chatter blare out.
I wait for the door to close before rounding on Miles. He looks sheepish and pleading.
“What the fuck?” I ask, panic seeping into my voice because what the fuck?
“Oh my god,” he says, “I’m so sorry! I panicked,” he adds, looking the tiniest bit sorry. Not like he’s totally sorry, to be honest. More like he knows he should be.
“What exactly is going on here?”
“It’s my fucking cousin’s engagement party and I was totally fine and then I saw the way Seb looked at me,” he starts, “You know, all the pity. And, I mean, Seb has always been a bit of a bastard and he and Julian, my cousin, always got along which kind of tells you the type of guy Seb is at heart, but then you were here and it felt like fate,”
I raise an eyebrow, “Fate?”
He raises his eyebrow right back at me, “Fate,” he confirms, nodding vigorously.
“So, what now?” I ask, “I’m your fake girlfriend for the night?”
I try not to sound excited. While the prospect of spending an evening with Miles again sounds great, I don’t know how I feel about fake dating him. I mean, is anyone even going to buy that he would date me? And are all his friends Finance Bros? He doesn’t look like someone who cares about crypto and if he is, well, I’d rather live in my little delusion, thank you very much.
He grins, “Well, it’s not like you were having a great night out?” he says tentatively.
“Oh, and you’re going to save me, are you?” I ask because feminism dictates that I don’t admit he’s absolutely fucking right and as shitty as I’m likely to feel with everyone wondering why Miles would date me, at least he seems to think I’m not really weird, which is more than I can say for Emme’s friends.
“Well, we had fun at Daisy and Harry’s,” he offers.
I snort, “I’m going to go and pee, and then I’ll give you my answer,”
He nods, even though he looks concerned, as I turn on my heel and head up the last few stairs. There’s something about having him watch me all the way into the bathroom that I like a little too much.