‘Drinks?’ Jay asks once again.
‘Yes, we’ll have orange gin and tonics please,’ Jasmine replies and Cass nods.
‘Really? Cass, do you want Cazcabel too?’ her brother asks. ‘Birthday shots are tradition,’ he adds, shimmying his shoulders.
His sister shoots him daggers and assures him she’d just like the gin.
The evening passes in a flash, there are a lot of cocktails drunk, silly amounts of laughing and even more dancing. Cass is losing herself in the music, her arms above her head, her whole body swaying, Jasmine constantly watching her.
Jay and I have been careful, both embarrassed, I suspect, by the unintentional intimacy earlier, both aware that we are here with people who will notice.
As the lights come on, Cass and Jasmine come off the dance floor. Cassie appears happy although has been far more muted than Jay’s descriptions would have had me believe.
‘We’re off home,’ Cassie tells us, Jasmine’s arm around her waist. ‘I’ve had the best birthday, thank you. Thank you so much.’ She gives Jay a huge cuddle. Jasmine flashes him a smile but its insincerity is obvious.
As they trip out into the street all wrapped up in one another, Jay turns to me, a triumphant grin on his face, so different from that of Jasmine’s, so genuine.
‘That went well, didn’t it? Maybe Jas and her will come out with us – me, sorry, me – more often.’
‘Maybe,’ I say, I’m not convinced. ‘That would be nice. Look, I’m also going to make my way home. I can tell from here that those two –’ I point at Jinx still spinning tunes and Dan dancing like he is possessed, even with the lights on full ‘– are probably going to end up at an afterparty, but I’d rather get home. I know you’d be very welcome to join them.’ I turn to go and check with Dan but Jay lays his hand on my arm and I spin back to him, my eyes catching his.
‘Thanks, but nah. I feel a good ten years too old for an afterparty. But it’d be nice to... I’d like to...’
I stand rapt; he is stumbling a little. ‘How are you getting home?’ he finally asks.
‘I was gonna walk. I like walking the city in the dark.’
‘Uh-huh and what do Jinx and Dan think about that?’
‘Yeah, they assume I get an Uber.’
‘Because it’s not safe to walk across the city at night?’
‘I’d argue that. I don’t think it’s any unsafer here than in the country, say. I’ve got the streetlights and my phone and—’
‘How about I walk you home? I won’t come in, I’ll just walk you home and then get myself back to mine.’
‘You’re going to walk back to mine, all the way across the city, and then go back to yours? That’s going to take you a good hour.’
‘And I wouldn’t mind that but I’ll probably grab an e-scooter back to mine once I’ve safely seen you through your door.’
‘You really don’t have to.’ I mean, I don’t want to do ‘the lady doth protest’ stuff but I do quite like the thought of not having to say goodbye to him yet.
‘I’d really like to,’ he says simply and as he looks at me I believe him. ‘It’s good to take some time out now and again, walk, look around, look up at the sky, and breathe in the scents of a summer night. It’s good for the soul and would make me happy. Are you denying me a chance to be happy?’
‘You daft sod,’ I say and push him lightly on the shoulder but I know that a walk home with Jay would be the perfect way to finish off our evening.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lily
We have walked all the way from town up to mine. We have seen girls singing at the top of their voices, L-plates attached to them at all angles. We have helped a drunk guy get himself on the night bus home, our feet as quick as Fred and Ginger’s as he took time out to express his drunkenness, and his dinner, all over the pavement. We have seen foxes run across the road, marking the city at night as theirs. We have walked next to each other, occasionally bumping into each other and deep in conversation, our heads down as we discuss the night.
And finally we turn the corner close to home and I hear Jay’s intake of breath as he catches sight of Clifton Suspension Bridge sparkling ahead of us, the full moon low in the sky.
‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ I say as we pause, close to each other.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen it lit up at night.’
