“Obviously,” she repeats.
“Has he done something like this before do you think?”I ask, picking up my coffee.
“Said he did a lot of theatre at college,” she says, “but we had so little time to plan we couldn’t really get into it. He mentioned stage combat though, but then loads of people here have done stage combat.”
“True.”
I think about how naturally he moved around on the stage, and his little pep talk before I went on. There’s no chance I would have gone on without his words pushing me. I pick up my phone.
“I wonder where he’s from. I can’t work out his accent,” I say.
Roxy pulls up Insta, then rolls her eyes.
“We’ve never asked his actual name, have we? That’s so bad,” she says, shaking her head. “We’ll hang with him more.”
I nod and grab a pecan twist from the napkin on the side table, reminding myself to ask him what his real name is.
“Whoa.”
“What?” I ask, looking up from my pecan twist. (OK, lies. The pecan twist is not there. I ate it up in one mouthful.)
“Nothing . . . nothing . . .” she says.
Not remotely convincing that she’s looking atnothing, Roxy’s eyes zigzag across the screen, her thumb moving around like she’s in a texting competition. I open Insta and frown at the little red dots over the heart and the paper aeroplane thing; I never get any notifications or messages on Insta.
“Vivian’stagged me in a photo?” I say, a feeling of desperation suddenly giving me the urge to pee (my bladder is like the canary of my general wellbeing).
“No, I mean, yes, but not in the way I know your imagination and bladder is leaping to right now.” See. “She’s posted pics from last night.”
Roxy holds up her phone, showing a photo of me from behind, sitting at the drums, lifting my drumsticks high above my head. I’m the focus of the photo, and the droplets of water hanging in the air plus the illuminated phones everyone’s holding up makes me look like I’m headlining a concert.
I blink at the photo then look back at my own phone. They’re great pictures. Amazing,amazingpictures. Each one is taken from backstage: me in position, waiting for the music to start; me slamming my sword down onto the drum; me frozen in the air as I jump off the stage.
“They’re really . . . cool.”
“Right?” says Roxy, putting her coffee down and bringing her legs up behind her on the bed.
I scroll down. Hundreds of people have liked the images, and some have even shared them to their stories. I scroll through the names, my heart fluttering a little, until I get to one sandwiched between a couple of cosplayers I follow.
charlie_lfc
Something inside me feels like its blooming as I press on the name and see a photo of me sitting on the drum stool. I’m looking over my shoulder and smiling at the judges, but it almost looks like I’m smiling at the camera. It’s a closer one than the others, framed around me and the drums, but you can still see the lights of everyone’s phones in the background, blurred and twinkling like drunken stars. I’m glistening with dampness, but, thankfully, my hair and make-up look amazing.
It’s a contender for a new profile pic if ever I saw one.
“You OK, babe?”
“Yeah.” I nod and look up from my phone. Roxy’s smiling at me, watching me like she knows something. I hold up my phone.“Don’t you think this is a cool photo of me? Loads of people have shared it.”
“Loads of people like . . .” She takes my phone and looks down at it. “Charlie Chamberlain?”
I swallow.
“What?” she says, tilting her head.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Vivian’s posted loads of photos from the con,” she says. “She must have done a little Insta admin session last night. She didn’t seem as drunk as us.”
