Page 37

I give her a dry look. “I’ll let you work that one out. Like many women, I have my ways.” And vibrators, I add internally.

“Fair enough.” She takes a drink. “Sex aside, though, why don’t you date?”

Trust Emmy to slide the real question in behind the cheeky one. I look at my cocktail. How do I explain something I can barely explain to myself? In the end, I reach for the easiest half-truth.

“The business is where I want to focus my time and energy for now.”

Emmy looks at me for a long time, and I can see her considering whether to push me on this. But then the opening bars of “Mr Brightside” ring out, and a cheer goes up across the room.

Glancing at the stage, I see the band are done. A DJ has taken their place.

“Oh my God,” Emmy says. “It’s our song!”

It is—the one we play when a mountain of orders means stop talking and start cutting.

“Come on.” She grabs my hand. “We have to dance to this. It’s the law. Finish your drink. Quickly!”

I laugh, gulp down the last of it, and let her pull me to my feet. “Fine, but one dance only, and only because it’s this song.”

The floor is filling fast. Emmy finds us a space near the middle, and for the first half of the song, I’m painfully aware of myself—my arms, my hem, the strangers around me, the fact I haven’t done this since college. I settle for the small side-to-side shuffle of a woman hoping very much that nobody is looking at her.

Emmy, meanwhile, has no such inhibitions. She throws her arms up, sways her hips, and mouths every word with her eyes shut.

Then the chorus comes round again, and the whole room bellows it at the ceiling. Something in me lets go. I lift my arms, stop worrying about my hem, and dance properly. I mean, what the hickory. You only turn twenty-five once.

One song becomes two, then three, and somewhere along the way I stop counting. I sing along with Emmy, neither of us in tune, neither of us caring.

My curls do whatever they like, and I let them. The skirt of my dress, it turns out, was made for twirling.

You know what? This is fun. I’d forgotten it could be.

After a while, Emmy leans in close. “Got to go to the loo. Two minutes.”

“I’ll get us that drink I owe you,” I shout back.

She disappears into the crowd, and I head for the bar. I’m not having another cocktail—I’m tipsy enough, thank you—but one more of something won’t hurt. A white wine spritzer, maybe. Practically a health drink.

The bar is busy. I find a gap, plant my elbows, and settle in to wait with my most hopeful face on.

“Here. What’s a wee thing like you doing at the bar on your own?”

The question comes from the man beside me. He’s good-looking enough, even if his shirt is open one button too many. He’s drunk, though. I can see it in the sway of him, the way his eyes take a second to arrive where he’s pointing them.

“Just waiting to get served,” I say politely, then angle myself back towards the bar.

“I’ll get you served, nae bother.” He clicks his fingers, not that anyone behind the bar pays him any attention. “What’re you having?”

“I’m okay, thanks. I’m getting drinks for me and my friend.”

“Aw, come on.” He leans closer to me, and his gaze makes a slow, deliberate tour of my body. I really wish I was still wearing my denim jacket. “One wee drink.”

“No, thank you.”

I decide the spritzer can wait. I turn to go and find Emmy, but the man catches my arm.

“Come on, sweetheart. It’s only a drink. I’m no gonnae bite.”

His fingers squeeze, then he pulls me towards him, hard enough that I stumble and end up crashing against him.