“I let my niece pick my costume,” he explained. “She was obsessed with the show growing up in America, and she kept watching it when she and my sister moved back to the UK, even as she got older. I think it made her feel less homesick.”
His sister lived not far from me, actually, just across the Severn in Ledbury, and he visited her a lot. There was a moment when I thought he was going to suggest we meet up– he looked at me meaningfully, scanning my face as if looking for the go-ahead– but he seemed to bail out, looking down at our feet instead.
“Oh shit,” he said, as if remembering something suddenly. “I’m sorry about your skirt.”
I gathered the fabric in my spare hand and turned to show him. “All fixed.”
He nodded as he admired the handiwork, reaching out as if to touch it at one point before thinking better of it. “Impressive. You’re good at that.”
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “It was that guy who yelled at you to be more careful. Sorry about him.”
He nodded. “I remember him fondly. Or, well, I remember him, at least.” I chuckled, then watched as Dan’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Your boyfriend?”
I tipped my head back and laughed. A week ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about saying yes, and keeping up our charade, even to a stranger; that’s what we’d agreed, after all. But Phil had been so distant for the past week, and so easily aggravated with me so far today, and I was annoyed. He’d felt like my boyfriend all summer, even if it was a ruse, but now? He really, really didn’t.
Still, I wasn’t quite prepared to tell Dan the whole truth, so I just settled for the truthiest truth I could manage.
“It’s complicated.”
Dan nodded, as if he’d been expecting that, but it wasn’t a deal breaker. “The kind of complicated where you wouldn’t want to give me your number?”
“Maybe I don’t want to give you my number because you nearly skewered me.”
“In public?” he said back to me, smirking. “I would never.”
I felt genuinely conflicted, even putting aside whatever nonsense was going on with Phil. Under normal circumstances, I never would have met Dan. And yeah, him panicking after the whole stabbing debacle had been a bit of an ick. But I wasn’t feeling the ick now. He seemed nice, and normal, and funny. And I wasn’t ready to jump his bones, but that could have been the cosplay. He was definitely attractive, and if I squinted hard enough, I could even convince myself he looked a bit like Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
Not for the first time in my life, I felt annoyed at Phil for the irreparable damage he’d done to my ability to gauge attraction. I’d found other guys cute, and I’d even wanted to sleep with them, but there had never been the kind of electricity I felt with Phil. Even with Chris, it had been more about the social dynamic with the others than it was about him as a person. Was I only capable of feeling palpable attraction to people I’d known for most of my life? Because if so, I was screwed.
But no, I refused to claim that. There had to be the possibility of something with literally anyone but Phil. If he didn’t want me, I needed to learn to spread my wings– and maybe my legs– with other men.
I smiled, making a decision. “No, not that kind of complicated.” Then I held out my hand for his phone, and he nearly dropped it trying to pull it out of his own leather pouch at his waist.
Just as I finished typing my number in and handed the phone back to Dan, I heard my name being called from somewhere behind me. I looked around for a few seconds before zeroing in on the figure striding purposefully across the grass.
It was Phil, again.
“What the hell, Amy?” he shouted as he came near. “I’ve been looking for you for more than an hour.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know the signal wouldn’t work,” I said, very intentionally not facing him. “Phil, this is Dan. Dan, Phil.”
“Good to meet you, mate,” Dan said, standing up and sticking out his hand, but Phil ignored it.
“Yeah, I fucking remember you,” he sneered. “Now come on, Amy. The others are waiting.”
“Don’t be a twat, Phil,” I said, standing, then turned to Dan. “I’m sorry about him. He’s clearly forgotten how to be a human.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dan said, raising his hand. “I’ll leave you to it. Goodbye, Amy.” I smiled apologetically and waved.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I asked, turning on Phil. “He was apologising.”
“It looked like he was doing more than just apologising,” Phil said, pointing at Dan’s retreating form. “Did you just give him your number?”
“So what if I did? What’s it to you?”
Phil sighed, looking over his shoulder. “The others saw you, you know.”
I looked back in the direction he had, where our friends were walking across the grass too, though tentatively, clearly trying to figure out if it was safe to approach. But I didn’t care. I was so done with Phil’s moodiness. He could be mad at me, but he needed to be a fucking grown-up and explain himself to me if so. Otherwise, what was the point? Why was I even there?
