‘Let’s have a toast,’ Greg said, holding up his pint, which dripped all over the table in sticky pools.
‘What are we toasting? Erica said.
‘New friends!’ Greg said, and they clattered their glasses together, spilling even more cheap lager. For the next few minutes as the group chatted amiably, Erin studied Greg surreptitiously. He had a lovely, calming aura about him. He’d only known these people for a matter of minutes but he was already making them laugh, treating them like old friends. He reminded her of Sam, in the way he seemed to find it easy to talk to anyone. She wished she could be more like that. She tried not to notice the sparkle of his eyes, the way his hands moved as he spoke, as though he had more to say than the actual words could convey and this was the only way to express it. And shedefinitelydidn’t notice how handsome his face was, and the fact that he kept glancing over at her every now and then.
‘Hey, this can be our song,’ Greg said suddenly, wiping froth from his top lip. ‘A reminder of the day we met.’ ‘Last Nite’ by The Strokes thumped from the speakers.
‘We?’ Erin said, snapping out of her daydream and tuning back in.
‘We,’ Greg confirmed, sweeping his arm round the table as the song went on about girlfriends and grandsons not understanding. ‘All of us.’ He gave Erin a look she couldn’t read.
‘Yes!’ Erica said, and Erin was saved the embarrassment of her misunderstanding, raising her glass once more to chink the others’.
‘To us,’ they chorused.
When Erica and Mike started snogging on the other side of the table, Greg turned to Erin, his arm resting on the back of the chair.
‘So, Erin-who-can’t-read-minds. Tell me about yourself.’
‘What do you want to know?’
He shrugged. ‘Where are you from? What music do you like? Do you have a boyfriend…’ He trailed off, his face hopeful.
‘Ah, right. Yes, I do,’ she said, and tried to ignore his look of disappointment.
‘Right.’ He gave a small nod and took a sip of his beer. ‘Well that’s a shame.’
She smiled back and shifted awkwardly in her seat, trying to think of a way to move the conversation onto another topic before either of them said anything they might regret.
‘He’s a musician,’ a voice piped up, and Erin turned in surprise to find that Erica and Mike had stopped chewing each other’s faces off and that, in fact, Erica must have been listening earlier when Erin had been telling her about Adam.
‘Is he now?’ Greg said, eyebrows raised. ‘What kind of musician?’
‘He’s in a band,’ she said. ‘A rock band.’
‘Oh right. Too cool for me then.’
‘Probably off shagging groupies most of the time,’ Mike said.
‘He isn’t,’ Erin said, indignant.
‘Yeah right. Course he isn’t.’
‘He wouldn’t do that,’ Erin insisted more firmly, feeling the colour rise in her cheeks and slamming her pint down onto the table harder than she intended. ‘He loves me.’
‘Well I bloody would if I was him, girls throwing themselves at me all the time. He’ll be shagging for Britain.’
‘He won’t!’ Erin yelled, the thought of Adam with someone else making her feel sick, the beer in her bloodstream making her more emotional than usual.
Greg put his hand on Mike’s arm firmly. ‘She’s said he wouldn’t do that so let’s leave it at that shall we?’ His voice was low. Calm but commanding.
Mike stared at him for a few seconds, then gave a lazy grin. ‘Yeah sure. Sorry.’ He looked at Erin. ‘He won’t be doing any of those things, I’m sure,’ he said, insincerely.
The trouble was, Mike had hit a nerve; it was all Erin thought about every night as she lay in bed, picturing Adam playing gigs in pubs and clubs. She knew girls would be throwing themselves at him, and as much as she told herself he would never cheat on her, that they loved each other too much for that, the truth was she wasn’t as secure in their relationship as she made out.
But as the night wore on she found her thoughts turning to Adam less and less, and began properly enjoying the company of her new friends. Especially Greg, she realised. Not only was he nice to look at, but he was funny, thoughtful and intelligent. He asked questions of everyone and seemed genuinely interested in the answers, and told self-deprecating stories about his middle-class upbringing. He admitted his secret love for Saturday nights in watching Casualty and how he really preferred drinking alcopops but had trained himself to like beer, and he made everyone laugh when he did a spookily accurate impression of Mr Bean. She found herself drawn to him in a way she hadn’t expected. He was, she realised, someone she could imagine getting close to, which, in the absence of Sam and Rose, was just what she needed to help get her through the weeks and months to come.
It wasn’t until much later, after they’d spent the whole evening chatting and getting to know each other and drinking too much weak lager, Greg buying endless rounds of tequila, and dancing sweatily on the sticky student union dancefloor, that it occurred to her that most girls would have been throwing themselves at this man if he’d have paid them even a fraction of the attention he’d paid her that night.
