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“I know, but it’s your birthday.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“You can get the next one,” she says, and then she’s gone, weaving towards the bar before I can say I was thinking of stopping at two.
Alone again, I pick up my phone to check the time and see there’s a message from Innes.
Innes
Your neighbour is set for a huge fight. In Glasgow!
He’s sent a link, which I tap. The page loads to a photo of Ryan and another fighter standing shoulder to shoulder, stripped to the waist, arms folded, both glowering into the camera. Across the bottom, in enormous letters: Sloan vs Kovac, Braehead Arena. The date of the fight is six weeks from now.
My eyes go back to Ryan. I know that torso. I’ve seen it in the flesh. My brain skips to that morning in the back court—Ryan hot and sweaty and topless, all hard muscle and tattooed skin, like something out of a very specific, very inappropriate dream.
There’s some melted ice at the bottom of my glass. I drink it. It does nothing to cool me down.
“Why are you looking up Ryan Sloan?”
I jump. Emmy is standing beside the booth, a fresh drink in each hand and one eyebrow close to her hairline. I didn’t see her come back.
“Oh, I—” I lock my phone, even though she’s already seen it and it only makes me look guiltier. “Innes sent me a link. Ryan’s got a fight coming up, here in Glasgow. It’s just been announced.”
Emmy sits. “Well? Are you going to show me? Or are you the only one who gets to look at his pecs and abs?”
“Er…” I unlock the phone again.
Emmy studies the picture for a long time, sipping her drink. She even zooms in and slowly pans across his torso. Eventually, she says, “I’ll give him this. He’s hot.”
I neither confirm nor deny that—out loud, at least. Internally, I’m screaming my agreement.
“He’s definitely got big dick energy,” Emmy says. “Probably got a big dick too.”
“Emmy!” I gasp.
“What? Don’t you think so?” She actually pans down to his crotch. “Hmm, can’t really tell in those shorts.”
“You’re terrible!” I decide not to mention that there’s at least one photo online of Ryan in compression shorts, and that I once studied said photo far longer than necessary.
“He is attractive, I suppose,” I say. Is this the alcohol talking? Why am I admitting I find Ryan attractive? “In a very full-of-himself, dangerous sort of way,” I quickly add.
“Dangerous can be fun. Some of the best shags I’ve ever had were with bad boys.” Emmy grins. “Or bad girls.”
“Oh,” I say, because I don’t know how else to respond. I can’t say “Me too!” because I’ve never been with a bad boy—or any sort of girl.
“So.” She leans closer and nudges me. “How long has it been?”
I take a careful sip of my drink. In the eighteen months I’ve known Emmy, we have discussed her love life on numerous occasions. Mine? Never. I always change the subject, and that’s what I should do now. But instead—I blame the alcohol—I say, “A long time.”
“Come on, you can tell me. Was it at Christmas? That PhD student?”
“Jason? God, no.”
I only went on a date with Jason because Mum, who knows him through the university, spent weeks insisting we’d be perfect for each other. It was easier to go than to keep saying no. He was perfectly nice. Pleasant. Polite. But the chemistry between us was zero.
“Jason and I didn’t even kiss,” I say. “The last time I was remotely intimate with anyone was years ago, not months.”
Emmy’s eyes go wide. “Briony. I knew it had been a while, but not that long. How do you let off steam?”
