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I take my phone from where I’d stashed it in my skirt’s waistband and Sam almost yanks it from my hand.
‘What are youdoing?’ he hisses. ‘We could be disqualified too.’
‘Right,’ I say, keeping my phone out of his reach. ‘I’m just going to pop to the ladies’.’
I weave through the tables to the bathroom. Leaning against the tiled wall, my fingers hover over my screen. I think about texting Josie, but she’s working late as usual, and probably far too busy to care about any of this. I open up a fresh text thread.
I am STRUGGLING on this date
Who is this? Please delete my number
I roll my eyes and send a response.
do you have plans tonight?
You can’t expect me to hang out with youany time a date goes sour
I won’t be your little bitch boy
Within seconds, two more texts come through.
But no, I don’t — little bitch boy at your service
What are you thinking?
you wanted to go on a boat right?
Is this gonna be another thing like the bus tour where you completely ignore my wishes and change the plan to something you want to do instead?
if the little bitch boy is scared just say so
A few moments pass.
Where do you wanna meet?
Round four has already begun by the time I return to the table and whisper a hurried goodbye to Sam, who barely notices I’m leaving.
‘In what year did rock band Blink-182 officially release their album Enema of the State?’ The voice rumbles through the room and Sam furiously scribbles a number on our answer sheet.
‘I’m pretty sure it’s 1999,’ I tell him. ‘And the demo versionwas 1998.’
He looks up at me, pupils dilated, drunk on the power of being a grass, I assume.
‘It’s 2000,’ he says with a roll of his eyes, turning away from me so he can pay better attention to the next question. The answer was definitely 1999.
Finn leans against the wall outside Vauxhall station with the same nonchalance of the early evening shadows sprawling across the ground between us. Under the golden-hour sun the blue of his shirt pops against his skin, and I realise he’s more tanned than he was when we first met. As soon as he spots me, he pushes off against the wall, Cheshire Cat grin making a home on his face.
‘Nice of you to show up.’ He saunters forward and for a split second I wonder if he’s about to give me a hug, but then he shoves his hands in his pockets, a picture of ease. The light has turned his brown eyes to amber, somehow making them even warmer than usual.
‘Sorry,’ I reply, ‘the bus took longer than I expected.’
While the sun’s been blazing all day, there’s a static threatening to lift the hairs on my arms, a heaviness in the air that hopefully means the heat is going to break soon.
‘It’s fine,’ he shrugs, following my lead as I take us across the street, once again trusting I’m taking him to a bucket list activity and not anything sinister. ‘I was enjoying people-watching.’
‘Did I pull you away from anything when I texted?’
‘Nothing interesting,’ he waves a hand flippantly. ‘I was having a beer at home. Do you want to talk about your date?’
