I cast a glance behind me, still so loud, still so crowded, disappointed but understanding. ‘Things are kinda hectic, I guess it could get damaged.’
‘True,’ he tips his head to one side and ruffles the dark blond waves, ‘but it’s not just that. Whenever people see me with this thing, they want me to play and I’m not really in the mood to play for an audience.’
‘Tomorrow then? So I can give the iPod back.’
He looks like he’s considering it and my chest starts to tighten. Did I sound desperate? What if he has other plans? What if he doesn’t have other plans but he says he does because he doesn’t want to hang out with me? I’m one inhale away from retracting the offer when Oliver shrugs.
‘Go on then,’ he says, hitching his guitar case higher onto his shoulder. ‘Meet me at The Snug at six?’
‘The Snug at six.’
Not necessarily a date but notnota date.
With one last glance, he saunters away, and I wonder if he can smell me on the leather the way I could smell him. Just as he’s about to turn the corner, he looks back and raises a hand in a wave before disappearing from view. I’m high on the interactionand gutted that it’s already over, full of anticipation for tomorrow and impossibly anxious. It’s an unsettling, fluttery feeling, not entirely terrible but a long way from fun. Most importantly, it’s what I wanted, I remind myself before turning back into the bar. Oliver is everything I wished for.
Now all I have to do is not mess things up.
12
Ethan
I’m starting to wonder if there’s anyone else staying in this flat other than me and Meyers, because it’s completely empty when I get back from a late-night study session at the library.
‘Hello?’ I call out when the front door closes behind me.
No answer.
Not that there’s any reason for people to be hanging out in the hallway. It’s ten thirty on the first official day of school. My new neighbours are probably meeting friends, making new ones, hanging out. They’re definitely not standing in the middle of a hallway, talking to themselves.
Back home, I was never alone, even when I wanted to be. There was always someone around. Bre, Chris, one of the guys, or my mom, usually armed with food, which probably explains why I’m suddenly starving. No one has attempted to feed me today. It was cool of Clive to drop me off in town so I could pick up some essentials. Not so nice of him to stare at me like I’d just suggested he sell me his soul when I asked if he wanted to grab something to eat together. A sad, solo McDonald’s is not enough to keep me going for the whole day.
My empty stomach growls and sends me directly to the miniscule kitchen. It’s smaller than our laundry room at home, but there’s a stove, a microwave, and a hot water kettle but no coffee maker,toaster oven or air fryer. This could be a problem because toaster oven cooking is my speciality, and you’ve never truly tasted a pizza roll until you’ve cooked them in the air fryer. One of the top ten inventions of this century, if you ask me. Since I don’t fuck with a stove, I go for the easiest option. Ramen. Or at least I think it’s ramen. In the cupboard I’ve claimed as my own via a piece of electrical tape with my name written in black Sharpie, I have a dozen plastic white cups labelled Pot Noodle. The woman in the grocery store said they were a ‘student speciality’, and no, it didn’t exactly sound like high praise, but adding boiling water to instant noodles is something even someone as culinarily challenged as me can manage. In theory.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I hiss as boiling water spills from the kettle over the rim of the plastic cup, scalding my hand as I search for the peel off lid. How was I supposed to know the lid needs to go back on while it, um, develops? Stews? Marinates? I could’ve read the instructions before I started but it’s goddamn instant ramen, how hard can it be?
I’m squatting down, carefully rotating the cup to check how long this damn thing needs before I can eat it, when I hear the front door open. With almost embarrassing speed, I leap up and sprint out to see who’s there.
It’s Meyers.
She looks happy. Her cheeks are flushed, makeup smudged, her long brown hair pushed out of her face. I’m still pissed at her, but I can’t help but return her smile when she walks in.
‘Oh, hi.’
She raises a hand, awkward and flustered. Good. I hope she feels terrible.
‘Hey.’ I hold up my fork, my body wedging the kitchen door open. ‘I was just making dinner. You want anything?’
‘No one cooks in the kitchens.’ She pops out a pair of wired earbuds, wraps them around her weird silver phone and sticks it in the pocket of her jeans. ‘You didn’t eat at the ref?’
‘Missed dinner. Did you know it isn’t open twenty-four hours?’
‘Yes.’
Of course she did. Meyers knows everything.
‘Well, I didn’t. I was studying, lost track of time, missed dinner.’
She looks at her watch then back at me.
