I woke with my head slumped on the back the sofa, sitting upright, and my work clothes still on. I was cold, stiff, aching, and confused. The kitchen was offset from the main living room, but close enough for the smell of bacon and toast to drift through and tickle my senses.

As sleep dropped from me like a slow falling towel, I began to sit forward, look around, and allow the memories of the night before to catch up with me.

The party. Turning twenty-fucking-six.

The guests arriving. The guests leaving.

“Alice,” I whispered to myself, tasting the fuzz of alcohol on the roof of my mouth as I spoke. “Fuck.”

A clatter from the kitchen had me glancing towards the door. I could hear singing. Pushing myself up, I began to walk across the room, my bare feet slapping against the floor as I rubbed the sleep out of the corner of one eye before I turned into the kitchen and froze on the spot. When I saw Daniella Marston dancing while shaking a pan over my stove, I wondered if I was awake or still dreaming.

“And I swear…” she sang with all her heart, closing her eyes and scrunching her face up as she gave it her everything. “I don’t wanna hear your excuses.”

Her head bopped as she bit down on her lower lip and reached out for a spatula of some sort.

Bacon sizzled. Beans were bubbling. And right on cue, not far from where I was still frozen in place with a finger jabbed in my eye, toast popped up from the toaster.

Danni turned to reach for it and spotted me out of the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t stop what she was doing. Her smile just grew bigger before she started to sing again.

“You’re a man, not a boy. Don’t make a fool out of me.” Her singing grew louder as she carried on, acting as if I wasn’t even there while she went about her business. “This is your one shot… your one shot… your final chance to seek forgiveness.”

My smile grew as I walked forward, dropping my hand as I went to stand beside her to use the sink. Turning the water on, I never looked away from her as I washed my hands before I reached out to dry them off with the tea towel she currently had slung over her shoulder.

“Oh, baby. Don’t you seeeeee?” she shrieked, failing to hit whatever high note she needed, making us both cringe as she rode it out before her voice fell quieter—almost like a private whisper, her eyes popping open to stare into mine. “You’re worth more than them to me.”

Lifting a hand in the air, Danni wriggled her fingers like she was playing an invisible piano, allowing the last note to disappear into the sky before she yanked one of her earphones out, flashed me a wink, and began to curtsy.

I clapped with all the tired enthusiasm I had, unable to contain my grin.

“Bravo, pretty lady.”

“Why, thank you.” Danni rose back up, taking care of the food on the cooker with an all-knowing half-smile plastered on her face. “And good morning to you, sleepy.”

“You stayed,” I said, stating the obvious.

“That okay?”

“Absolutely.”

“I had no place else to be.” She shrugged. “Figured you could use the company.”

“Did you sleep on the sofa, too?”

“Are you kidding me? Danni scoffed, reaching up to a cupboard to pull down two plates like she’d lived here her whole life and knew where everything was. “With Snorey McSnoozles himself? Nuh-huh. I took your bed. Left you to mope on the sofa once we’d watched, like, a zillion reruns of Only Fools and Horses together.”

Memories of her laughter came flooding back.

“You slept in my bed, you plonker?” I asked, mimicking Del Boy Trotter’s voice to perfection.

“Stop it.” She laughed.

“I'm impressed a girl like you enjoys that programme.”

“Only a fool couldn't love it. It still blows my mind how good you are at doing his voice.”

“You should see what else I’m good at.” I wriggled my eyebrows as I rolled the sleeves up on my work shirt and pushed them up my arms.

“Oh, please,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Making me laugh doesn’t mean I’m going to roll over and let you tickle my tummy, Marcus. Besides, that still aches from all the laughing last night.”

I thought back to the two of us watching television until the early hours of the morning, and how she’d been quiet for much longer than she probably wanted to be before her need to alleviate the pressure of silence took over. After a lot of persuasion, and a few more beers, she’d coaxed my Del Boy impression out of me, and all I could remember after that was feeling really grateful that she had stayed.

“Who knew you were so talented?” she said, scooping the beans out of the pan and pouring them onto the plates she had lined up.

“Who knew you could sing?”

“I can’t.”

“I was being polite.”

“No, you were bullshitting. Totally different thing.” She reached for the bacon while she ordered me to butter the toast. “But just because I can’t sing doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t, right?”

“I’m all for doing everything people tell me I can’t do.” My hands got to work, spreading the butter over the toast before I placed them back down on the counter and waited for my next instruction. “Can’t say I recognised the song, though. Because of the lyrics, I mean. Not because of your caterwauling abilities.”

Danni gasped and flicked her tea towel through the air, hitting me sharply on the thigh before she turned back around and began to pour out two cups of coffee, not even caring to ask me how I took mine.

“I’m going to ignore that insult,” she ground out, narrowing her eyes at me. “And it’s a song by a local band. You’re probably too old to know them. They’re super trendy.”

“I’m only three years older than you!”

“On paper. But when you say twenty-two to twenty-six, it sounds like four years. Now that you’re over the twenty-five hill, you’re practically middle-aged, while I, on the other hand, am still a fresh-faced beauty.”

“Dammit.”

She turned to me with two plates full of breakfast food in her hands. “The band is called Shake. The song is called Our One Shot.”

“Pah!” I huffed out, taking my plate from her. “Are you kidding me? I’m their biggest fan.”

“Really? What’s the lead singer’s name?”

“It’s, you know… erm…” I spun around, opening the cutlery drawer to grab a knife and fork before I looked up at her again. “Tim. Yeah. Tim. Nice fella. Long hair and loads of piercings and shit.”

“Tim?” she quizzed, grabbing her own cutlery before she followed me into the living room to eat. “Tim as in Timothy? The guy?”

“That’s the bozo.”

Danni shook her head as she put her plate down on the coffee table in front of the sofa, waltzed back into the kitchen and returned just seconds later with those coffees she’d made. “Marcus?”

“Hmm.”

“It’s a girl band. The lead singer is called Evelyn. She’s a woman. Big boobs. Silver hair. She’s in her thirties, has zero piercings and used to sing with Charlotte Church. Total choir girl with a rock ballad edge.”

I paused, leaning over my plate as I eyed her to see if she was lying. She wasn’t. But she was smiling like she’d just screwed me over… again.

“I must be thinking of the other Shake,” I offered as an excuse. “Tim’s Shake.”

“Ahh.” Danni laughed, pushing her incredibly long, unbrushed hair behind her before she began to eat.

A silence descended over us for a few seconds then, and it was the first time since she’d been back that I began to realise just how little we knew each other. She’d always just been Sammy and Nat’s indescribably beautiful, confident, had-life-all-figured-out friend. Danni and I had always passed each other by like two ships in the night, never knowingly ignoring one another, just never quite stopping to dig a little deeper and find out what went on behind those masks we put on for the rest of the world.

“Thanks for this,” I eventually said, breaking the peace. “You didn’t have to go to this much trouble.”

“You deserved a good start to a new day after the bad ending to last night.”

“The distraction… your company, I mean. You helped. A lot.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled, tilting her head to one side and unleashing all her pretty on regular old me. “You want to talk about that Alice chick yet?”

“Nope.”

“Thank God.” She chuckled. “But I will say this… That girl has got some brass balls on her, that’s for sure. For someone who looks coy and innocent, she sure knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go for it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Kind of admired her for it.” Danni grinned right before she took a bite of her toast.

It was my turn to tilt my head and study her this time. “You see her as some sort of kindred spirit? Two determined, independent women in a world full of—”

“Natalies?” she offered, raising a brow.

“Ouch. Harsh.”

“Oh, c’mon. She knows what she is more than anyone. I love her. She’s one of my absolute best friends. I’d die for her. But let’s not pretend she’s always been strong. That’s definitely a recent development.”

“An Alex development.”

“Bingo.” Danni reached for her coffee, holding it to her lips before she took a sip. “And that’s how it should be, I guess. Whoever you’re with should be the person who wakes you up, who makes you see what you have always had the potential to be. There’s no science to it. It’s like fate.” She took a slow drink before she placed it back on the coffee table and exhaled slowly. “And the only thing I saw in that Alice chick that reminded me of myself was her love for All Saints clothing. I have her jacket… in red.”

“You scarlet woman,” I mocked.

“I’ll have you know that I’m a good girl.”

“A good girl who knows how to be bad, huh?”

Danni’s knife and fork cut through some bacon as she thought about her response. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, Marcus.” Then she slid the small nibble of food into her mouth, clearly enjoying every taste that tingled her tongue as she rolled her eyes into the back of her head and released a low grown. The unexpected sexual sound made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

I coughed to clear my throat. “Umm. Danni? You want me to leave you and Miss Piggy alone for a while?”

“Please,” she mumbled, keeping her eyes closed. “I’m throwing my dieting rules out of the window today, just for you, and I’m not going to regret a single moment of it. Let me enjoy it for one… more… second,” she breathed seductively.

It was a miracle I could even understand a single word she was saying because it was then that it hit me, as I stared at her moving lips and felt a tingling farther south... I had a model in my apartment making suggestive sounds, and I was as starved of sex as I’d ever been. This wasn’t a good combination.

“Who is the artist?” she suddenly asked me from a small gap in the corner of her full mouth.

I blinked hard, scowling as I tried to refocus and follow her line of sight.

She pointed at the wall farthest away from us by the window that looked down on the city. In the corner, next to my curtains and barely noticeable, was a small canvas picture I’d drawn of a beach when I was around fifteen years old. Mum had brought it round the day I moved into the apartment, telling me never to forget about my childhood dreams as she hung it in place with a proud smile on her face.

I hadn’t realised how much that should have meant to me until that very moment with Danni sitting opposite me.

I coughed lightly and swallowed back a sudden rush of emotion.

“That would be me.”

“You?” she asked as she swallowed her own food. I felt her stare on me, burning holes into my cheek.

“Me.” I nodded once, eyes still focused on the picture. It was a beach cove, all yellows, aqua greens, and blues—a place I’d created to escape to whenever I felt like the pressures of studying and being a good son were piling up on me. I’d shown it to my mother, telling her one day I was going to live closer to the sun and take her with me so she never had to worry where I was or what I was doing ever again. The four of us—me, Mum, Dad, and Sammy—would stay there forever, watching the waves washing in and out as we lived a carefree life, blissfully happy.

It was scary how quickly things changed in those teenage years. One minute you were a child, thinking life was simple. The next you were on your second heartbreak, a little lost and too afraid to admit a lot lonely. Your heart hardened, your imagination dried up, and your need for adventure got washed away down the dirty drains of the streets you walked upon every day. Reality, as awesome as it was to be alive, was often a bit of a bitch.

“Wow,” Danni breathed out, breaking me from my rather dreary thoughts.

I turned to look at her. “I was a kid when I drew that.”

“Natalie never told me you could draw.”

“She didn’t know,” I admitted, pulling my brows together as I studied Danni’s surprised reaction, which I was sure matched my own. “I hadn’t realised I’d never told her until just now.” My lips remained parted as I stared into Danni’s open and honest eyes.

“She never asked about the painting when she was here?”

I shook my head slowly. “No.”

“Did Alice know?”

“No.”

Danni smiled softly, her shoulders relaxing. “What a shame. You have a talent.”

“You think so?”

“I think you probably have many, Marcus. You just haven’t acknowledged them yet. Probably because you’re too busy focusing on everyone else’s.”

“Huh,” I huffed out, completely bemused at how easy this conversation felt, even though Danni wasn’t someone I knew particularly well. “Not sure what to say to that,” I told her honestly.

“Better stay quiet then before you say something you don’t mean.” She wrinkled her nose, laughed, and focused back on her food. “Forgive me, Kermit,” she muttered as she shoved more meat into her mouth.

That shouldn’t have been even remotely arousing, but I had a feeling Danni could make anything look and sound sexually appetising.

Clearing my throat once again, I scooped up my plate to take it into the kitchen, making it only halfway past her when her eyes flung open and she stopped me in my tracks. “Where are you going?”

“To wash up,” I croaked. “Then I’ve got to get ready for work. Shit. I don’t even know what time it is.”

“Nuh-huh. No work today. I’ve called in sick for you.”

“You what?” I coughed, taking a step backwards to get a good look at her to see if she was joking. Nope. Totally serious.

“Natalie told me where you worked so I phoned them. Marcus, you need a day. Just one. Let’s call it a rebalancing day, shall we? I’m no expert on relationships, heartbreak, women troubles, men troubles or any of that rubbish, but you don’t have to be physically sick to not be okay. And you, despite burying your head in the sand since I got back almost two months ago now, are not okay. Nat’s too busy with Alex and his dad’s upcoming trial, so she can’t take care of you. Suzie and Paul are always screwing. Sammy is… whatever. She’s your sister, and you wouldn’t talk to her anyway. Cameron…” She stopped to release a dreamy sigh. “He’s a guy. You won’t talk to him the way you need to talk to someone. So that leaves me. I’m intervening. I’m interfriending, or whatever they call it.”

“A friendtervention?” I raised a brow.

“That’s it!”

“Why do you even care? You barely even know me.”

“Why do you have to know someone to want to help them?” Her eyes met mine with a sincerity that surprised me. “I take my friendships very seriously. You should know this. And I like you, Marcus. You’re a good guy.”

I studied her for a moment, aware that I was probably scowling when, for the first time in a while, I actually felt light.

“Sometimes the joker needs someone to make him laugh. Sometimes being funny just isn’t enough to cover up the stuff going on behind the smiles. But those things aside, I don’t actually need a reason to be nice, do I?”

“No,” I told her quietly, swallowing down the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. “You don’t need a reason.”

“Good. That’s settled then. You go wash up. I’ll dry. Then you can go shower and clean yourself up because we have more Del Boy and Rodney to watch.” Danni gave me a sharp nod before she swept out of the room like she owned the place, her singing soon floating through from the kitchen, once again, while I remained standing in place like I was in the middle of a China shop, not daring to move for fear of the bull that had just charged into my life.

Occasionally life changes quickly.

Other times, it’s a slow evolution.

One minute you lose everything and don’t know how to rebuild your walls on a foundation of nothing. The next, you’re surrounded by a different kind of life than the one you thought you’d end up with. There are no certainties anymore, just possibilities of what you can achieve if you just keep moving forward, stacking one brick on top of another, day after day. The only guarantees you have are those people around you who continue to show up, show you that they care, and help you make yourself a new home.  

With my friends around me—new and old—the first quarter of the year passed by in the blink of an eye. One minute it was January and the snow was causing chaos all around us. Then February hit, and the horizontal rain, sleet, and bitter cold kept the world indoors with their noses pressed up against windows, daydreaming of a time when they could feel the sun on their faces again. March, the month of nothing as I liked to call it, was filled with a mixture of fun, laughter, and plans being made for the summer. Work was work. The weekends were the weekends. The days were routine, a mixture of doing enough to pay the bills, hitting the gym to keep the muscles from drooping, and drinking enough beer to take the edge off the fact that I had no one to go home to. And the nights… they were as boring as ever.

Alice hadn’t been in touch again since she’d left my apartment the night of my birthday, and I hadn’t had the energy to contact her. What was there to say to a woman who broke your heart then got back in touch a few years later, expecting you to wait for her until she was ready for you? I knew, somewhere deep inside, that I should have been flattered. My mum had always taught me that a woman’s love was an honour to have, no matter what form it came in, but all I could feel was resentment.

Resentment for her audacity.

Resentment for her almost breaking me for a second time.

Resentment at myself for still missing her every Sunday— the day we used to meet for lunch every week.

Maybe one day I would get my head together and call her again to make things right. For now, I just needed more time for myself first.

I’d barely finished work one Friday afternoon, and I was halfway through throwing my satchel over my head and shoulder when my phone rang.

“Yes, Miss Pretty,” I answered, wondering what instruction I was going to receive next from Danni who had, by all accounts, lingered around in my life like a never-ending tornado, making me take notice of her. It was easier to do as she said than to ignore her. I’d learned that the hard way in the last couple of months… several times. She checked in on a night, she checked in with me on a morning. She texted me while I was at work, often meeting me for lunch or sticking her head in the office to see if there were any fit colleagues I hadn’t told her about. In a way, she had replaced Alice. There just wasn’t any confusion or blurred lines with Danni. She was honest. She was refreshingly brutal. She was relentless, and quite frankly, a pleasant, bloody lovely distraction.

“Where are you?”

“Just leaving work, boss lady.”

“Good. Don’t go home.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Alex’s father, Nicholas?”

I tensed, stopping in my tracks as I looked up at the busy street ahead and saw nothing but blurred images of passersby as the first scratches of white noise began to fill my mind.

“Please don’t tell me he’s destroyed any more innocent families?”

“Nat just called. It’s good news, actually. Well… depending which side you're on.”

“Jesus, Danni,” I blew out, pressing my free hand to my chest. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Don’t be dramatic, Del Boy.” My new nickname. Obviously.

“What’s happened?”

“He’s got the all clear. The charges have been dropped.”

“What?” I gasped, not knowing if that was, in fact, good news or not. Part of me would have been a lot happier knowing that arsehole was locked up behind bars.

“I’m confused how to feel, too. Son-of-a-bitch was in that car that night, so something happened, but apparently a witness has come forward, completely out of nowhere, and said he saw Nicholas there that night, but he wasn’t behind the wheel. Some guy offered to take him home apparently. Next thing Nicholas knew, he was waking up beside the car that caused the accident, and there’s no evidence to suggest that Nicholas even knew the guy who was driving was drunk before he got in the car.”

“But I thought there were no witnesses. Not one.”

“Someone must have wanted to talk all of a sudden.”

“Or someone has been paid to talk,” I spewed. The circles Nicholas ran in weren’t exactly saintly. A woman had died because of someone’s negligence, and if my senses were on the money, Alex’s father played a part in it and was now getting off scot-free. The guy had more lives than a fucking cat.

“The good news is that Nat and Alex are now completely free to get out of here again. So we’re meeting in half an hour at the pub near your work. The Foxglove.”

I looked up, seeing the sign for the pub just a few metres ahead of me.

“I’m right outside it now. Meet you for a few?”

“You’re on. I’ll have a—”

“Pint of Peroni. I know. I know.”

“And a packet of crisps.”

I hung up the phone and made my way inside, walking over to the bar and wondering how any man on this planet could ever try to tame the whirlwind that was Daniella Marston.

After Natalie and Alex had arrived, I’d given them a hug and a handshake, not really knowing what to say when I saw the sombre looks on both their faces. Natalie had her arm linked through her boyfriend’s, and her eyes were, as usual, aimed up at him as if she was watching to see if the glass he was made out of was about to crack. Alex just looked fucking drained. His skin was paler than usual, and the scruff on his face was getting longer and longer every time I saw him. Despite everything that had gone on between us, I’d actually started to feel sorry for the poor guy. He’d had a life much harder than any one of us knew, and sometimes, when he didn’t realise you were looking, his mask would slip and the young boy that he’d lost within himself a long time ago would shine out from his eyes and stare at the floor, like a prisoner who had been trapped inside too long ago and knew there was no way out ever again. It never lasted long, though. Maybe a few seconds and that was it, and when he blinked away his sad past and forced a bright smile to his face, his strength came back to the forefront, and it almost always sought to protect Natalie.

Once Danni arrived with Suzie and Paul in tow, we sat around a small table, our bodies pressed too tightly together in a dimly lit corner near the bar as the pub began to fill with the regular Friday night delights of Leeds City Centre.

“... then I head back out on April the 15th,” Danni told everyone as she pulled out her notebook and poised her pen over it.

“April the 15th,” Natalie whispered.

The date her sister Lizzy had passed away.

Alex pulled her closer to him and kissed the top of her head as he enveloped her in his arms, not saying a word. He didn’t need to.

“I want you guys to come with me,” Danni said. “The villa is rented out to me for a month. My agent flies in a week after the fifteenth, giving me time to settle in, and with everything that’s gone on this last few months, I don’t want to leave you guys. I don’t want to be alone. And I think you could all use the break.”

“You want us to go with you?” Suzie asked, as if she needed Danni to confirm it one more time for her to believe it was true.

“I really do.” Danni smiled. “I’ve missed you guys. The other models are stuck-up, and I get so bored of their company after, like, five seconds. Travelling for work is hard. It’s lonely. It takes it out of you. I’ve got a mental spring and summer coming up. The travelling is going to give me a million new wrinkles. I think having you guys with me before it all starts could give me a real boost. Set me off on the right foot. It wouldn’t cost you anything, just the money for your flights. And I’ll cook every night if I have to, to save you guys money.”

“Count us in,” Suzie squealed, quickly wrapping her arms around Paul’s waist and falling against him.

“Marcus?” Danni asked, looking over at me as I held my pint in both hands on the table. “You in?”

Was I in? Was I ready to go on a couple’s holiday and be the only one not in a couple?

“Sure,” I answered quickly, not wanting to let Danni down. Her eyes were sparkling with excitement, and her cheekbones were high as she waited expectantly for me to say no. I never liked being predictable.

“For real?”

“Why not?” I shrugged, offering her a turned down smile. “I’ll clear it at work on Monday.”

“That just leaves you guys,” Danni said, turning to Natalie and Alex who were sitting beside her.

“April 15th,” Alex said through a sigh, blowing the air out of his cheeks before he tilted his head down to make sure his eyes were connected to Nat’s. “Sounds like a good date to end one journey and start another, don’t you think?”

Nat’s eyes filled with tears as she stared back at him, and it was completely overwhelming to see just how in tune they were with one another.

“Most definitely,” she whispered before she turned her attention to Danni. “We’re in.”

Danni’s eyes roamed over the table to mine before she picked up her drink and held it in the air. “That’s sorted then. Greece, here we come. To living life Danni-style.” Danni nodded. Everyone raised their glasses to clink them against hers, except me.

When I realised she wasn’t going to back down until I joined in, I raised my glass as well as my eyebrow, and gave her a small nod of approval.

“To living life… Danni-style.”