“You wanna help me fight fire with fire?” I held my hand out to him, palm up, and he took a long time to decide what to do with it, looking back and forth between it and my face.
But clearly he decided he was up for a little drama, because he not only took it but laced his fingers through mine.
He opened the door for me, and I was barely inside before I heard an ear-piercing scream that I knew from experience was Niamh’s. She was rocketing towards me before the door had even shut behind me. She completely ignored Phil and wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me tight despite the fact that I made no move to reciprocate the gesture.
Chris had once said we looked alike, which was ironic in hindsight. It was also untrue; we both had blonde hair and green eyes, but where my hair was waist-length and straw-coloured and unkempt, Niamh’s was a perfectly highlighted platinum kept in a tidy bob. Where she’d grown up in designer clothes, I had always tried to imitate her as best I could via the high street. I’d never felt more “not like other girls” in my life than when I’d hung around with Niamh and our other friends– or rather,herfriends, I supposed– despite the fact that I knewshewas the anomaly. And whilst I would have staunchly defended her right to designer clothing and expensive jewellery to any man who dared denigrate it, it did feel oddly out of place in my hometown after ten months apart. Like she was the villain in a Hallmark film come to try to drag her boyfriend back from the local bakery owner he’d fallen for.
“Who’s this?” Niamh asked in her Irish lilt as she leaned back from the one-sided hug, finally acknowledging Phil and our still-clasped hands.
“Phil,” he said, holding out his other hand to shake hers. She shook it.
“Oh. My. God.” She turned her head back to me slowly and dramatically, her mouth hung open. “ThePhil? Are you telling me you finally got with your brother’s hot friend?!”
I felt my face go instantly scarlet, and I didn’t dare look over at the smug smirk I knew Phil would be wearing.
“Sure did,” he offered, and nope, I was absolutely not going to look at him. I could hear the taunt in his voice. Sure, it was no secret that I’d had a thing for him growing up, but as far as he knew, that night five years ago had been the end of things. I’d worked very hard to give that impression, anyway. So this was about as humiliating as it could get.
“That’s so exciting. How long have you been together?”
“About ten months,” Phil said, almost too quickly; quickly enough that it took me a couple of seconds to realise that was almost the exact amount of time it had been since I’d moved home. He was implying that I’d been so unbothered that I’d jumped straight into a new relationship.Good boy.
“Well, it sounds like we’re celebrating all around! Come sit. Champagne on me!” She flagged down a passing waiter and ordered a bottle of something I’d never heard of.
“Just water for me, thanks,” Phil said as he pulled my chair out. “I’m on call for my nan, and I’ve already had one this evening.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” Niamh said, sitting down next to Chris, who still hadn’t said a word. “Chris is on water too, so he can drive us back later. Is your nan okay?”
“He’s her full-time carer,” I offered, determined to get involved with the conversation so I didn’t seem like a startled deer in their presence.
Niamh cooed, bringing her hands to her heart. “That is SO lovely, isn’t it, Chris?” She turned to her other half, who looked so uninterested in being there that I almost felt bad for her. Almost, but not quite. “Chris, say hi. Phil, this is Chris.”
“Good to meet you, man,” Phil said, so casually I was actually impressed, given his anger on my behalf outside. They shook hands across the table.
I felt something graze my skin on the side furthest away from Phil, and it made me jump before I realised it was his hand; he’d snaked it around my waist. I turned back towards him to find he’d brought his face in close enough that his beard tickled my ear.
“This okay?” he whispered, and I nodded subtly, trying to conceal the gulp in my throat. I looked down at the table, but I could feel him smile next to me. He was locked in, alright. I was the one who would need to keep my shit together.
“Now, I’m so sorry,” he said, turning back to Niamh and Chris. “Remind me, how do you two know Amy?”
I felt my eyes go wide as he said that, but I bit back my smile. Damn, he was good. And I could tell his attempt to catch them off guard had worked; the two of them looked at one another in confusion, and Niamh stammered a bit as she answered.
“Well, Amy and I lived together in Manchester, isn’t that right?” She looked at me as if for confirmation.
“That’s right.”
“And she and Chris dated for a bit too, though I think it was pretty casual, wasn’t it?” She and Chris were nodding like a couple of bobbleheads.
Again she looked at me to affirm what she was saying. It was egregiously revisionist to describe it that way– we’d moved in together, for fuck’s sake– but I didn’t need to correct her. I could fill in the gaps for Phil later, and she knew what she’d done. I could see it in the panicked look in her eyes as she waited for my reply. I settled for squinting my eyes slightly in reproach until I saw a flush spread across her pale cheeks.
“More or less,” I said, my voice light and even. I chanced a look at Chris, who was narrowing his own eyes at me. He knew what I was doing, making sure Niamh felt bad, and he was trying to do the same to me. I wouldn’t let it work though.
“Oh!” Niamh exclaimed, loud enough that the table next to us looked over in annoyance. “Sophie and Maya say hi, by the way. We all miss you so much.”
Sophie and Maya were our other flatmates, and Niamh’s uni friends. I hadn’t heard from either of them since the day I’d left town, so I doubted they’d actually asked Niamh to say hi to me.
“That’s lovely,” I said mildly. “Tell them hi back.”
We talked for a couple of minutes about the things people always talk about when they meet: Chris bragged about getting promoted at the consulting firm he worked at, and Niamh used an absurd number of acronyms when describing her marketing job, and they talked about the summer holiday they had planned to the French Riviera. Chris was predictably condescending about the part-time data entry work Phil did around caring for Ethel, but I wasn’t having it, and I played the part of the proud girlfriend well. It wasn’t hard; I’d always thought Phil was a better person than most for how dedicated he was to Ethel. Otherwise though, I let Phil carry the conversation until the waiter came with two flutes of champagne and two glasses of water.
