Alesha snorts out her wine. ‘No way! He actually said that?’
I nod and then we both giggle like children.
‘Are you going to do it?’ she asks.
‘No. Of course not.’
‘But maybe they’d do pretty special editions,’ she says andfor a moment I’m tempted. I mean, I do rather love a special-edition book, especially if it has a fancy sprayed edge.
Later that evening, Cesca – baby sister, all round pain in the ass, and my best friend in the whole world – calls me and I duck outside to take her call.
‘Yo!’ she says as I answer.
Now, I should probably tell you that Cesca is deputy head of science for a rather prestigious all-boys school in west London, owner of a master’s in physics, and an absolute contradiction of every possible stereotype. A lot of people assume she deliberately breaks all the rules, but it’s more that she just doesn’t believe there should be rules in the first place.
‘Is the whole event total bullshit?’ she asks. ‘Has anyone puked yet?’
Cesca’s work colleagues are the ‘strait-laced, go home to their wives and never have more than a single glass of wine’ type of boring bastards. Mine are the ‘cannot help themselves with a free bar’ kind of nerds. They look the same on the outside, but put warm Pinot in their proximity and you can separate them with ease.
‘No. But guess who’s here?’
‘Tyler fucking Adams,’ she deadpans.
‘Yep. And Dean wants us to work on a project together.’
‘Noooo. But he’s such a twat.’
‘I know. Such a twat.’
Someone clears their throat behind me. I turn, heart in my mouth. Because of course Tyler Adams is standing right there, arms crossed, leaning against the door frame, staring at me with one eyebrow half raised.
‘Gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I whisper into the phoneand then hang up on Cesca. I cringe as I try to stammer an excuse ‘I … um …’ The eyebrow rises to full mast.
‘I wonder if there’s a universe out there where you came back with a witty retort,’ he says.
I take a few steps backwards to try to put a bit more distance between us. ‘I wonder if there’s a universe out there where you aren’t a—’ But my amazing comeback is caught short as my foot slips from beneath me. Everything slows down, each nanosecond lasting an aeon as I fall to the floor, unable to do anything to alter my fate. And then I’m lying sprawled at his feet, my glass of wine sloshed down the front of my top, turning it humiliatingly see-through, my black lace bra fully on display.
He reaches out a hand to help me up, but the fall has knocked the wind from me and I struggle to string a coherent sentence together. ‘I’m … fine … nothing …’
‘Just take my hand, Raven,’ he demands. It makes me bristle. Who does he think he is to dictate to me? ‘I’m trying to help here.’
In the end I let him pull me up. Begrudgingly, mind.
‘See, I told you you needed me,’ he whispers and then turns on his heels and leaves me on the balcony, wine dripping onto the shiny marble, face brilliant red, and something stirring in places that are not meant to stir.
Not for Tyler Adams anyway.
Chapter Two
As I’d expected, Cesca finds the whole story about me falling over in front of Tyler Adams hilarious, so much so that she snort-laughs down the phone for almost five minutes when I call her the next morning.
Eventually she pulls herself together sufficiently to speak, but only then to ask a million questions so she can really get the fullest picture of my shame and revel in the story one more time. ‘So exactly what was going to be your brilliant comeback?’
I bite my lip. I mean, yes, I said there was a particularly impressive response on the tip of my tongue but we all know that’s rubbish. ‘I was going to say that I wonder if there’s a universe out there where you aren’t a total twat.’ I groan inwardly. It sounds even worse when I say it out loud.
‘Hmm. Probably better that you fell over and flashed your boobs at him instead.’ Cesca sounds absolutely serious about this, as if she’s undertaken the appropriate level of scientific study into the matter and drawn the only supportable conclusion.
‘I didn’t flash my boobs, just my bra.’ I groan again, but this time I don’t bother to keep it inside. ‘I’ll never be able to look at him again.’
