I’d taken updated measurements last week, so I could afford to check out of the conversation until they made up their minds. So instead I was focused on Amy, who had taken Fatima’s phone again and was looking down at the picture of the guy they wanted her to go out with. I felt my jaw tense at the idea of it; maybe it was just overprotectiveness from knowing her since she was little, or maybe… no, it was definitely just that, I told myself. It would be hypocritical to be jealous, given that she looked after Ethel every week so I could go on dates, right?
I pulled my own phone out to distract myself.
“And not a single phone in sight,” Jack said sarcastically, which alerted Chloe to what I was doing.
“Ooooh, gimme!” she said, holding her hands out. “Swipe time!”
I groaned. “Not now, Chloe.”
Amy frowned. “Swipe time?”
“It’s Thursday,” she said, still holding her hands out towards me. “Phil needs to find his date for Saturday. Thursday is prime swipe time for that.”
“No way,” I said. “The last time you ended up matching me with someone I dated in school.” I was watching Amy’s face, which had gone a bit red, maybe from the beer she was drinking.
“It’s not my fault you’ve been through the majority of this town’s eligible population.”
I wanted to remind her that the only reason I went out with so many people was because she and Ethel were obsessed with me finding someone to settle down with. As long as I kept meeting up with new people, they stayed off my back. If I were intentionally keeping those people at arm’s length, or if I sometimes pretended to go out on a date when I actually just went to the cinema alone, that was quite frankly none of their business. I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to date properly with everything else I had going on.
Chloe was right, though; I did still need something to do on Saturday.
It had been months since I’d actually let myself go on a proper date. I’d met up with Hinge matches, sure, at the only good bar in town. And until a few months ago, I’d gone home with some of them from time to time. I was only human, after all. But once Amy had taken over Saturday night shifts with Ethel, I’d thought it would feel too weird to come home from a hookup to find Amy in my lounge.
But Amy wouldn’t be there on Saturday night. And based on the tension I felt in my chest every time Amy looked my way, I could do with a proper night out, and all that entailed. And I knew there was one person I could message for a true no-strings-attached evening.
PHIL
You free Saturday?
Poppy’s reply came in less than a minute.
POPPY
Sure am. Usual time and place?
Chapter3
Amy
My horoscope had warned me that morning that I’d make some controversial moves, but I hadn’t thought it would be in a game of Dungeons & Dragons.
I knew Phil wasn’t trying to punish me for the unintentional p on p– or whatever he’d called it– but watching him on his phone knowing he was looking for a date made my stomach churn unpleasantly. I tried to focus on the conversation the rest of the table was having, but they’d started talking about some festival they were going to in a few weeks.
It was easy to forget around my brother Jack’s friends that they were, in fact,hisfriends. Especially with Chloe and Phil, whom I’d known most of my life, and who treated me like part of the group. But Chloe was like that with everyone she met, and Phil… well, he and I had enough tension in our shared history that I could never quite work out if he actually wanted me around or not. Though I didn’t hate the idea of being able to annoy the shit out of him in-game if I carried on playing. And then there was Jack’s girlfriend Morgan, who was far too good for him, but if she didn’t realise that, then I wasn’t about to be the one to tell her.
I hadn’t spent much time with Grey and Fatima until moving home ten months ago, but they were lovely to me, too. Grey was Phil’s best friend from university, and their biker vest and buzz cut, the latter of which changed colour regularly, were a direct contrast to their golden retriever personality. Their bestie Fatima seemed like my kind of girl– whip smart and hilarious but incredibly pulled together– but I hadn’t spent much time with either of them, so they didn’t feel like my friends, really.
Plus, there were fairly regular reminders that I was not, in fact, part of The Group, like the nerd fest they’d been talking about. I’d been home for months before they decided to go, and they talked about it in front of me all the time, but they’d never even casually mentioned that I could come. Not that I wanted to; I didn’t really understand the appeal of meeting up with thousands of other people wearing nerdy costumes. But I was jealous of the fact that they were doing it together, and that they were so excited. They’d even started talking about another trip to America next year for a different Renaissance Faire, and it was everything I could do to ask questions and act interested without letting on how envious I was.
At least they wanted me to be a regular part of their D&D game. As much as I’d resisted, it had actually been fun, pretending to be a different person with magical powers. And if I got to use those powers to antagonise Phil, even better.
I set my beer down on the table in front of me practically untouched and pulled out my own phone to distract myself, earning a groan from Jack.
“Chill out,” I said. “Some of us are actually getting notifications. Don’t be jealous.”
“Everyone who would text me is around this table,” Jack retorted. “Unless Mum and Dad chime in.”
“I’m not sure that’s the flex you think it is.”
