‘You’re distracted,’ Anele said.
‘You never lose games, and you’re also no fun at the moment,’ Orion jumped in. ‘In fact, you’ve been no fun for the last few sessions.’
‘You’re not giving fun vibes,’ Jono said, and they all nodded in agreement.
‘You should talk to him,’ Sheila said. ‘He was really good-looking too.’ Everyone nodded in agreement again. There was a lot of nodding going on tonight, and suddenly I found my head bobbing up and down too.
‘Sooo good-looking,’ Orion agreed. ‘And I’m not even into men. But I think I might be persuaded to be into him, if push came to shove.’
‘You’d better not be.’ Anele smacked her on the arm playfully.
‘He looks like Henry Cavill,’ Sheila declared.
‘No, he does not,’ Orion spat, almost with disdain. ‘He looks nothing like that. He looks more like Tom Cruise.’
‘Tom Cruise! No! Stop!’ Sheila burst in. ‘He looks nothing like that. Tom Cruise is too short. And old. And weird.’
‘Harry Styles,’ Jono offered.
‘He does not look like Harry Styles – you wish he looked like Harry Styles,’ Anele said. ‘You wish everyone looked like Harry Styles.’
‘That is true,’ Jono said wistfully.
‘He looks more like Idris Elba.’ Sheila clicked her fingers at us all.
‘Idris . . . Ha!’ Orion argued back. ‘Idris Elba is black.’
‘But he has the same teeth. So perfect. So white,’ Sheila said, and everyone stopped. I imagine they were trying to picture it, like I was.
And then everyone nodded again. ‘He does have his teeth,’ Orion confirmed.
‘But definitely Henry Cavill’s hair,’ Anele added.
They carried on like this, piecing Andrew’s looks together one celebrity feature at a time. I zoned out as they continued to debate who Andrew looked liked. Honestly, that seemed to be the least important and interesting thing about him. His good looks seemed irrelevant when you weighed them against all his other qualities, of which there were many. I’d even made a list of his qualities, trying to figure out why I was thinking about him so often. Andrew had become something that preoccupied my mind. At work, I even found my thoughts drifting from the screen to him. I’d never had drifting thoughts at work before. He had many qualities that I admired: honesty, promptness, intelligence and excellent conversational skills. He was also kind, understanding and made me feel so much more at ease in the world when I was with him.
I thought about Andrew on the drive home. I thought about him in the shower, while brushing my teeth, while feeding the dogs and climbing into bed. I was thinking so much that while my brain was completely distracted by it, my fingers found their way to my phone and started sending messages.
Pippa:Hey.
I lay and waited for the response. I waited for over half an hour until the two blue ticks appeared. I then had to wait a further ten minutes before the typing dots appeared.
Andrew:Hey.
Pippa:I was just messaging you to tell you that you were right about Zane and Sheila.
This wasn’t actually why I was messaging him; it was just an excuse. I waited another minute before the jumping dots started again.
Andrew:Are they together?
Pippa:Yes.
Andrew:Told you . . .
Pippa:You were right about that.
Pippa:You were also right about something else too.
Pippa:Sex does complicate things.
