‘Have you seen the guy with the tattoos?’ Lou said, her mouth against Ella’s ear. ‘Might not have been such a bad shout after all.’
It was the last night they’d all be at home before Christmas and they were in the club five minutes from their house. Lou had wanted to go somewhere else – she thought it was horribly cheesy with its LED lighting, exposed brick and chrome bar – but it was near, played decent music, and the drinks weren’t stupidly expensive, so she’d been overruled. Exams were over, uni was winding down for Christmas, and they’d all (apart from Paige, who was working, as usual) decided it was a good time to go out and get hammered.
Ella shook her head and then tried to follow where Lou was pointing. Eventually she saw him. He was small and wiry, but hot, wearing a sleeveless black vest and with tattoos all down both arms and across his chest.
‘Will you be OK?’ Lou yelled.
Ella glanced over her shoulder at Liane and Issey and then nodded at Lou. ‘Go get him, tiger.’
‘What?’ Lou yelled.
Ella shook her head. She hated trying to have conversations in clubs.
‘Where’s she going?’ Issey yelled into Ella’s other ear.
‘Tick off someone with tattoos.’
‘Ohhhhh. He is HOT,’ Liane said. ‘Wish I’d seen him first.’
‘Let’s dance!’ Issey shouted, grabbing Ella around the wrist. Ella let herself be tugged out onto the dance floor and told herself to relax. And then she downed some of her beer to help.
Issey danced like a toddler after too much candyfloss and before long Ella found herself letting go and letting the music take over. Liane was an amazing dancer and seemed to be somehow effortlessly sexy; she moved like a cat, Ella thought. A sexy cat.
‘Is Paige coming?’ Issey yelled after a few songs and another beer.
‘I don’t think so,’ Ella shouted back. It felt wrong to have their last night out without Paige. But Paige had insisted she had to work; she needed the money. Which was fair enough. But still.
‘Get it, Lou,’ Issey said, pointing.
Ella looked past her to see Lou and the boy with the tattoos. He had her pressed back against the railing of the raised platform, his hands on her waist, his mouth on her neck.
Ella wondered what Lou had said when she’d gone over. And then she wondered what she would have said if she’d decided she wanted to get off with him. Probably something ridiculous and embarrassing. Or the way things had been going recently, she probably would have tripped up the step and headbutted him or something. She realised she was still staring at her best friend getting off with some random bloke, so let her eyes drift away.
They landed on the boy from the bookshop – Nick – who was standing right next to them, holding on to the railing and looking directly at Ella.
‘WHAT?’ Liane bellowed in her ear.
Ella wanted to turn and leg it off the dance floor. Possibly out of the club. The city. The country. Instead she forced herself to look back at him again. He was still looking at her. She smiled. He smiled back and raised his hand.
‘Who’s that?’ Issey yelled. She’d actually turned all the way round to look at where Ella had been looking.
‘Iz!’ Ella hissed. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
‘He’s cute!’ she shouted.
Ella shook her head. She should go over. Should she go over? Like Lou had done. Just walk over and say, what? ‘Fancy seeing you here’? ‘I’d really like to lick your face’? She was still staring at him, oh my god.
‘Go over,’ Liane said, giving her a little shove in the small of her back. Once they were home and sober, Ella was going to have to talk to her friends about appropriate behaviour, god.
She took a couple of steps, but then realised Nick had disappeared from the platform. She looked around a little wildly and then spotted him on the dance floor. He was weaving between the dancers, but still looking over at Ella.
‘Fucksticks,’ she said again. She turned to her friends for some moral support, only to find they’d both disappeared, the absolute bastards.
Paige was trying to decide between a packet of cherry tomatoes for 99p, some marked-down bananas, or a packet of noodles. The noodles would last longer. But the tomatoes and bananas were healthier and she didn’t want scurvy. Maybe the marked-down bananas and some cheaper SuperNoodles would be a good compromise? She wasn’t sure. She’d decided to definitely get the bananas and was heading for the aisle with the noodles when she saw Sharda. She was standing in front of the chiller cabinet, a supermarket basket over one arm, a black beanie with ears pulled down low.
‘Hey,’ Paige said, without moving.
They hadn’t seen each other for months and Paige couldn’t actually remember how they’d left things. So she was relieved to see that Sharda was already smiling as she turned round.
‘Heyyy!’
One of the things Paige had really liked about Sharda was how she’d always been pleased to see her. It had never seemed false or fake. It made something tug in Paige’s chest now. She couldn’t remember why she’d stopped calling. Because she was pretty sure she was the one who had stopped calling. It seemed like something she would do. She took a few steps until she was standing right in front of her.
‘How’s things?’ Sharda asked.
Paige noticed her glance down at her basket and was briefly embarrassed about her sad, browning bananas. Which was ridiculous.
‘Not bad,’ Paige said. ‘You?’
Sharda sighed, looking down at her own basket. ‘Buying a meal for one. Should we go and get dinner somewhere instead? I haven’t seen you for ages.’
Paige bit the inside of her cheek. ‘That would be really good. But I’ve literally got, like, a pound. I can totally offer you a banana. But that’s it.’
‘I can pay,’ Sharda said instantly.
Paige was already shaking her head, when Sharda reached out and grabbed her arm at the elbow. ‘Come on. I’ve got some money. I can’t let you go home and eat a banana. I’d feel terrible. You can pay me back when you’ve got some funds. OK?’
Paige wanted to say no. She couldn’t believe she was even considering it. But Sharda was great. She’d definitely been great. Most of the time. And Paige really hadn’t been looking forward to a SuperNoodles and banana dinner.
‘OK,’ she said.
‘You’re hot,’ the boy said, his lips on Lou’s ear.
‘Come and dance?’ Lou tugged at his arm.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t dance.’
‘Not even at Christmas?’ Lou pointed at the mistletoe hanging above the bar, the huge tree where there were usually two sofas and a low table.
‘S’not Christmas yet,’ he said, his eyes sparkling.
‘Come on,’ Lou said again.
He shook his head and pressed her up against the pillar. ‘We can just dance here.’
Lou laughed. She wanted to dance. She did. But he didn’t. And he was hot. And she liked how his fingers felt on the back of her neck. So she tipped her head back and brushed her lips across his jaw. He groaned and dipped his hips, rubbing against her.
‘Want to get out of here?’ he said.
‘Bloody hell!’ She ducked out from under his arms. ‘You’re keen!’
‘You’re so hot!’ he said again.
‘Dance first and then maybe we can go,’ she said.
He shook his head, rolling his eyes. ‘OK.’
‘OK?’
‘OK.’ He let her tug him down the steps to the dance floor. She twirled under his arm, laughing. He was actually a pretty good dancer, and Lou slipped her fingers into his belt loops to pull him closer. His hands pressed into the small of her back and he swung her around, laughing.
Which was when she spotted Kyle.
She stopped dead. ‘Shit.’
‘What?’ the guy said. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No. Sorry. Just …’ She didn’t know whether to tell him or not, but she liked him so far. And she didn’t want to make things weird. ‘Just my ex. He’s kind of a dick.’
‘The guy in the Kappa shirt?’
Lou squinted. She hadn’t noticed that, but he was indeed wearing a Kappa shirt: black with a high neck. It made him look a bit French. She would’ve been into it this time last year. And she knew Kyle knew that too. Was he here cos he knew she’d be here? Or was it a coincidence? He wasn’t looking at her; she didn’t even know if he’d seen her. She wanted to leave, but at the same time, why should she let Kyle spoil her fun? She turned around so her back was to him and carried on dancing with tattoo guy.
Ella kept staring at Nick and he kept coming closer. He had a small smile on his face, but Ella wasn’t sure what her own face was doing. He was wearing tight black jeans with the knees ripped out and battered brown boots. His hair was even higher than it had been in the shop and she wanted to stroke it. She was staring at him. Still staring at him. And he was still coming towards her.
‘Hey!’ he shouted when he was just a few feet away.
Ella tried to make herself smile, but she couldn’t seem to manage it. ‘Hi,’ she said, but not loud enough for him to hear. She hoped he could read lips. Or got the gist anyway.
He was still coming closer. He was standing right in front of her. She could hook her fingers through the belt loops of his jeans. She could just press right up against him. She could loop her arms around his neck and press her face into the curve of his shoulder. She could see one of his collarbones where the neck of his T-shirt was stretched out and she thought about putting her mouth on it, running her tongue along the length of it.
‘Are you stalking me?’ Nick said, his mouth right against her ear.
She shook her head. Still couldn’t speak. And then she turned a little. ‘I could ask you the same!’
Nick grinned. ‘Maybe we’re stalking each other? Can I get you a drink?’
They were still standing in the middle of the dance floor, bodies moving around them. Ella felt like she was in the eye of a hurricane. Or in a film where the main characters see each other and the world stops while they just stare. No, the opposite of that – Nick and Ella had stopped and no one else had even noticed.
She wanted to look for Issey and Liane, but she didn’t want to burst the bubble.
‘Yes,’ she answered. Finally.
And then his hand was on her arm, just about her elbow, his fingers curving around, pressing heat into her bare skin. He steered her through the crowd. Someone was flailing their arms around, laughing, head thrown back. Two boys were pressed up against each other, dancing but barely moving, their hands pressing and pressing. Two girls were pretending to grind on each other, one of them bent at the waist, the other pretending to slap her arse, while they both laughed hysterically.
Ella glanced up at Nick – he was so much taller than her – and he was looking down and smiling. He raised one eyebrow and Ella wasn’t sure whether she wanted to run out of the club and never look back or jump up into his arms like a monkey and tell him to take her home.
They walked up the three steps to the raised area and then he guided her to the bar, his hand large in the small of her back.
‘What can I get you?’ he said. Ella leaned against the bar for support, curling her hands around the metal bar running along the edge.
‘Beer!’ she yelled back, mostly because it was easier than wine. Wine usually involved further questions, some sort of conversation.
Nick nodded and then stretched across the bar to yell at the guy behind it. And then he was laughing, they were both laughing, having a conversation, even though Ella had no idea how they could possibly hear or understand each other.
The other guy passed Nick two beers and Nick handed one to Ella before reaching out and tapping the neck of his own bottle against hers.
‘Do you want to go outside?’ he said.
At least, that’s what Ella thought he’d said. But where?
She nodded. And then they were moving again, towards the main doors, and then out into the lobby. Ella hadn’t even thought about the lobby. It was still pretty loud, but nowhere near as loud as the club itself, and red velvet seats curved around the walls.
Nick wasn’t touching her any more, but he glanced over to her to indicate where he was heading – which was the sofa in the darkest corner. There were a few other people around – a couple of girls talking to the security guys on the door, a clearly too-drunk guy sitting on the other side of the room, alternating between hanging his head down between his knees and leaning back against the wall to groan.
‘Here OK?’ Nick said, gesturing at the sofa, and Ella nodded.
They both sat down. They both drank some beer. They looked at each other.
‘Do you have someone?’ Nick said.
Ella frowned. Had he come over because he thought she was alone? Had he come over to take care of her because he thought she couldn’t look after herself? Oh my god, was this a charity thing? Some sort of intervention? Was he going to ask her if she’d ever thought about taking Jesus into her heart?
‘I came with friends,’ she said, her voice sounded strained and feeble. ‘I was dancing with them just before you came over. I don’t know where they went.’
Nick’s eyebrows pulled together in a small frown and he shook his head. ‘No. Not tonight. I mean … You have a boyfriend? Or … girlfriend? Someone …’
Ella shook her head. She was frowning too. She tried to stop, to straighten out her own forehead, but she wasn’t sure how successful she’d been.
‘I …’ Nick shook his head again, laughed a bit. ‘I wanted to find a way to ask you that didn’t involve me saying “I earwigged when you were on the phone the other day” but I’ve got nothing.’
‘Oh!’ Ella said, her face heating when she pictured herself standing in the street, pink hair plastered to her head, talking to Dylan. She’d been talking to Dylan.
‘No! No, that was my brother. I was talking to my brother. I don’t have … I’m not seeing anyone.’
She was half expecting Nick to do what so many boys had done in the past – pretend they were only asking casually, not that they were really that interested – but instead Nick’s face broke open into a huge smile. His mouth was massive. Ella hadn’t noticed before. She stared at his bottom lip and thought about grabbing it between her finger and thumb. Or maybe sucking on it. Was that weird? That sounded pretty weird.
‘Oh hey, is your brother OK? I know it’s none of my business, but I just remembered you saying something about drugs? And you sounded worried.’
Ella shook her head. ‘He’s fine. He was with friends and I just … worry about him. When he’s drunk or stoned he gets very … affectionate. And I worry someone will take advantage of him.’
‘You sound like an excellent big sister.’
Ella laughed. ‘He’s older. He’s just … I’ve always been the sensible one.’
She wanted to kick herself immediately. Why had she said that? She didn’t want Nick thinking of her as sensible, for fuck’s sake. She wanted him to be thinking about pushing her back on the sofa and getting his hands in her pants.
She looked at him and caught him looking at her mouth. His eyes immediately flickered back up to hers, but something had changed. Something was crackling between them. She could feel it. It felt so strong that she was amazed she couldn’t actually see it. In her mind, there were white jagged lines joining their bodies and actually vibrating with electricity. She could tell Nick felt it too, and even that was odd because normally she wasn’t good at picking up those kinds of cues.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’ Nick asked.