Chapter 41
Forty-One
T he crowd around the bar was thick and heavy. Sweaty bodies jostled one another, all vying for the attention of the man with the booze.
We fought our way through the crowd, Keira looking for any gap in the throng through which she might be able to order another drink. I, as always, was looking for Alfie.
I saw Riley first, perched on a bar stool, as relaxed as ever with a Guinness in his hand. Next to him was a man with the air of a bear woken early from hibernation.
“Where have you been?” he hissed as soon as I reached him.
“Bathroom, why? Did you want to come too?” He did not look amused.
In fact, he looked apoplectic. I sighed.
Alfie’s moods were exhausting. “We just went to the bathroom, what’s the problem?
” I lowered my voice, doing my best to keep our impending argument out of Keira’s earshot. I would not spoil this night for her.
“The problem is that I like to know where you are.”
“And now you do. I was in the bathroom. Drinks?” I turned to Keira, who raised her brows at Riley, who dutifully swivelled on his stool and signalled the bartender.
My gaze flitted between the two of them.
Riley was still kind of tricky to read, but my best friend of twenty years I knew like the back of my hand, and she was looking at the easy-going Irish man like she was going to trip him up and dive straight under.
I liked Riley, but Keira would eat him alive. She must be stopped.
Alfie snaked an arm around my waist, jolting me from my thoughts.
“Let me know the next time you’re going somewhere,” he said, low enough so that no one else could hear. I tried to shrug his arm off but his grip on my waist only tightened.
“Alfie, if you need me to play by your rules while I’m out then you need to share with me why you have those rules in the first place. You share, and I’ll play, otherwise it’s no dice.”
He glowered at me, his jaw stuck in that stubborn set that I’d seen a hundred times. The man was a long-sealed tomb and I was beginning to realise that I was going to need a damned crowbar to pry him open.
“Fine. Suit yourself.” I turned away and gave him the proverbial cold shoulder. Unfortunately, ignoring Alfie meant that I was paying attention to Keira, who was looking at Riley like she was about to maul him.
“Any chance I’ll get to see your lovely self in London?” she was asking as he handed her a drink. She all but fluttered her lashes, but to my surprise, Riley didn’t seem moved. Most guys tended to melt at her feet.
“Aye, I’m there from time to time. You’re excited to be getting out of this tiny town, are you?” he asked her as he handed me a drink.
“Yeah, I can’t wait. Especially if this one agrees to come with me.” She flung an arm around my waist, effectively yanking me out of Alfie’s grip.
Oh hell, Keira.
My stomach sank, as I knew exactly what would be coming next.
“You’re going with her are you, Lo?” Riley asked me, his eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise. “I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did I.” Alfie’s voice was low, cold, and laced with anger. I chanced a look at him and wished I hadn’t. The look on his face had me fighting the urge to hide behind Keira.
What the hell was wrong with me? I didn’t wilt at the first sign of trouble.
Pull yourself together, Lo!
“She just asked me. I haven’t agreed,” I said, doing my best to avoid the argument that was surely on its way.
“Yet!” Keira jumped in and kissed my cheek before turning a begging face towards Alfie. “Help me persuade her, will you?”
Oh god, Keira, shut up, shut up!
Stuck between the three of them, I felt like a deer in headlights. I needed out.
“Let’s dance,” I said brightly. I turned to Keira, giving her the ‘Code Red’ glare and praying she wasn’t too drunk to pick it up.
“Stay. Let’s finish up this conversation.” Alfie stepped closer to me, effectively trapping me. Riley’s gaze switched between the pair of us, eyeing his friend with curious amusement.
I looked up at Alfie, pleading with him not to cause a scene. He gazed down at me, his expression resolute.
Don’t you dare, Alfie Tell. You promised you wouldn’t.
He looked over my head to Keira and Riley.
“Unfortunately, Lola won’t be able to go with you. She’s leaving with me in two weeks.” I closed my eyes. I was going to kill him.
“What? Seriously? You’re leaving?” Keira rounded on me, her expression sobering very quickly.
“No!” I exclaimed.
“No?” Alfie arched an eyebrow at me.
“Yes. Wait…maybe.” I sighed in exasperation and turned to my friend. “I haven’t decided yet.” I felt panicked as I scrambled to avoid this car crash of a conversation.
“It’s pretty much settled.” Alfie put his arm around me. He might as well have urinated in a circle around me. Keira’s face was setting into stone. I knew that look. It was the I’m-about-to-raise-hell look.
“You sure about that? She doesn’t look settled to me.”
“Can we talk later? He just asked me last night,” I pleaded with her, my voice low, desperate not to cause a scene.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her brows knitting together. Alfie shifted beside me, effectively stepping into the space between Keira and I. He was about to speak but Keira got there first.
“Hey! Moneybags! Back off.” She shoved her drink at Riley, barged Alfie out of the way, grabbed my hand, and shoved her way through the crowd, dragging me outside.
The cool night air hit me and was a shock to my drink-addled senses. Keira, however, seemed impervious.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing! He just wants me to go with him and I’m not sure if I want to. He’s having a hard time understanding it,” I told her as confidently as I could, but even to my own ears it sounded like bullshit.
“Okay. I’m going to say this right now. My best friend alarms are ringing. You look upset and kind of scared and I’m wondering why the fuck you didn’t tell me?”
“It’s your night?—”
“Bollocks to that!” She cut me off. “When we were fifteen I cancelled a date with Tommy Bradshaw because you called me all upset about one of your boobs being bigger than the other. We’re best friends. Your drama is my drama, and my drama is your drama, you dig?”
“‘ You dig ?’ What the hell is that?”
“I’ve been watching a lot of 90s TV.” She waved a dismissive hand.
“Well, it’s doing wonders for your vocabulary.”
“Shut up and talk to me.” She took my hand and looked at me the way only your best friend can.
I felt this well of emotion bubbling up, a well that I kept buried when I was with Alfie, and which seemed to get fuller whenever I was with him.
My lip trembled, and just as I was about to burst the pub doors swung open and Alfie stormed through them looking beyond pissed.
I braced myself for impact but I needn’t have worried as Keira turned on him.
“No. No way. Fuck off. Right now!” She grabbed a beer mat off a nearby table and threw it at him.
He froze, stunned. He looked from her to me, sizing up the situation.
I waited for the battle but it didn’t come.
Instead, he turned and went back inside, but not before giving me a look that sent a shiver up my spine.
Keira turned her fierce gaze back on me. “Why are you scared of him?”
“I’m not, I’m just…overwhelmed by him.”
Keira arched an eyebrow, clearly not convinced. “Okay. So, he wants you to go with him? What’s the hold up? You’re mad about each other, maybe literally. What’s stopping you?”
What was the hold up, she wanted to know. The door to my dream had finally been opened to me. That was the hold up.
I’d made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t tell her tonight, but suddenly I was desperate to. The voice in my head that told me not to tell Alfie just didn’t exist with Keira.
My eyes darted back to the doors that Alfie could burst through any minute. I took her hand and dragged her around the side of the building so that we’d be hidden away from any prying eyes belonging to a certain someone.
“Ow! Bloody hell, Lo!” she protested as I dragged her into a tiny space between the building and some bushes. “Do you mind telling me why we’re hiding in a hedge?”
“Can you keep something to yourself?” I whispered.
Her round eyes widened, serious and curious.
“Does it need to go in The Vault?” she whispered back. ‘The Vault’ was a place where we kept each other’s secrets, a place where no one was allowed but us. Putting something in ‘The Vault’ was as good as taking it to the grave.
“Yeah.” I took a breath and went for it before I could change my mind. “I got in.”
“Got in? Got into what?”
I just looked at her, waiting for the penny to drop. After a moment it did, and the look on her face was everything I hoped it would be. I had no proud parents to share this moment with, only her.
“No…”
“Yep.” I giggled. She let out a screech and I clamped a hand over her mouth to keep us from being discovered. She licked my palm and I snatched my hand away, wiping it on her dress. “Ew! Keira!”
Then she attacked me, hugging me and kissing every square inch of my face.
“Have you lost your mind?” I squealed whilst trying to fight her off.
“You did it, Lo!” She was hopping up and down, which was no easy feat in skyscraper heels.
“And you’re congratulating me by covering me in tears and saliva?” I laughed, wiping her wet kisses from my face.
“What better way to congratulate someone than with a giving of bodily fluids?” She grinned, her smile growing wider when I grimaced at her.
“You’re disgusting.”
“And you’re amazing. You know you have to do it, right?” That right there was exactly why I hadn’t told her. Her joyful grin slipped a little as I hesitated and that sinking feeling returned.
“Lo, you can’t seriously be considering passing it up? For a guy ?” She scowled and I tried not to laugh. Keira could jump from ecstatic to outraged with the ease of an Olympic pole vaulter.
“He’s not just a guy. He’s the guy, Keira.” I needed her to understand, to not be disappointed in me for needing to think it over.
“Well, if he really is the guy then he’ll still be there when you’ve finished, won’t he?”
“I’m not so sure I want to take that risk, or that I can be apart from him for that long. Please don’t look at me like that.”
“Then start acting like someone I recognise.” This conversation was going downhill really fucking fast. “This is your dream. This was your mum’s dream.
” My chest constricted at her words. She was right.
“Lo, I love you, but it’s my job as your best friend to stop you from making stupid decisions because of a guy that’s willing to let you give up your dream so that he can keep you with him. ”
“He doesn’t exactly know about me getting in,” I said quietly. Her jaw dropped again and I tried not to look guilty. I had my reasons for not telling him, even if I didn’t fully understand them myself.
“What the hell, Lola! Why not?”
I rubbed my forehead in frustration–how could I possibly explain this to her? “I don’t know. I just feel like he might spoil it.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” My voice came out high and shrill. I was drunk, tired, and this conversation was taking a massive detour into the deeper recesses of my mind, the place where I kept all the concerns I had about Alfie that I didn’t want to deal with.
“Don’t you think that tells you something?”
She held my hand, her thumb stroking softly.
I looked down at where she and I joined together.
She’d held my hand the same way whenever I got a new unwanted gift from Adam.
I would call her upset, and she would come over, watch crappy films with me, and hold my hand.
She’d held it this way when my mum died, and years later, when I would sit up all night taking care of my dying grandma, she would sit by me and hold my hand, just like this.
It was strange how much emotion such a small gesture could evoke in a person.
“I just need to think. I’ve got two weeks either way, to confirm my place or to leave with Alfie. I just need to think. Please don’t tell him,” I begged, and her face softened.
“I won’t,” she promised and pulled me in for another hug. We stood that way for a moment, hugging in the bushes like a pair of weirdos.
“Hey Lo?” she said, her voice muffled because her face was buried in my hair.
“What?”
“If you go to college, that means that you can move with me, right?”
I pulled away, eyeing her warily. “I guess,”
She arched an eyebrow at me, her bright eyes shining with excitement. “Just imagine all the mischief we could get up to in London.”