Page 67 of House of Bass

He is wrong. I don’t have a problem. I can stop whenever I want.

He gives me a look that suggests he can tell everything I am trying to conceal. I should've known giving him access to my life again meant he'll keep prodding and probing until he gets the answer he wants. He’s like a dog with a bone.

Just as I am about to respond to him, I hear a familiar voice call out to me. “Saint Anne?”

Goosebumps ripple on my skin hearing the familiar beck and call of a childhood saying. I turn around in shock at the sight of the face of a friend I haven’t seen for years. Nicholas Lancaster.

There was a time when he was one of us, he lived right next door to me and was a year older. Then due to whatever unspeakable thing he did, his father shipped him off to some all-boys boarding school in Wales instead of going to TCA. Then after, he was sent abroad for university. We never really got to see him again, like he never even existed.

“Saint Nic!” I reply in the same manner. Jumping up at once to pull him into a hug, The grin I am holding could split my face from how wide it is.

The member’s club is his family’s so running into him here technically isn’t impossible but all things considered it is the last thing I expected. He never comes home even in the summer.

We pull back from the hug and we smile at one another, all the years we missed with one another in the words we don’t say. He is such a gem to look at. Eyes bluer than the sky, hair so blond under the light looks rose-gold. That jaw paired with his unmistakable smile alone has every person in the room with their sole attention on him.

“I missed your face,” Nic says, still smiling.

“If anything, it’s yours we should be saying that about.”

“Well, when you piss off your father so much that he ostracises you from society, that tends to happen,” he says with a shrug trying to appear nonchalant but I can hear the anger in his voice.

“Your father is the worst.”

“I know.” He puts his hands in his trouser pockets and rocks back and forth, then says, “Unfortunately for him, I’m now his one and only child. So, he has no choice but to deal with me.” Bitterness that he tries to keep hidden trickles out and there is a tick in his eyebrow.

My heart hurts for him. Everyone heard about the tragedy in the Lancaster home; his older brother, Christopher, had died earlier this year. I loved Chris, he was always so kind to me. The funeral had been a closed one, I didn’t even get to see him then.

Hugging him again, to make up for lost time, I somberly tell him, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Nic says.

The smile is back on his face like it never left, then he finally acknowledges everyone else in the room. Nic has always been more my friend than the others due to living next to one another, but he had spent a lot of time with Stassie too.

“Hi Nicky,” she says, giving him a cheerful wave.

“Stass, I heard about your June show and I have tickets already,” he replies with a wink.

He exchanges pleasantries with everyone in the room as he had gotten on well with everyone but considering it had been years I understood the polite nods and smiles. Although, it might have been a small reach to say everyone, considering there is one person resistant to his charm and that is Arden.

For as long as I can remember, Arden has detested everything about Nic. From the way he dressed to how blonde his hair is. He also hated how Nic spelt his name without a k, he thought it was pretentious. The gall of him to call someone else pretentious; this is the same man who refused to wear jeans for years.

The simple truth is that he hated how much I tried to split my time between the both of them.

When Nic gets to Arden his smile brightens but the glare on Arden’s face is cold cut. The venom lasering from his eyes could have turned him into stone. But Nic doesn’t care, he's always been able to brush off the cold shoulder that Arden gives him.

“The polite thing to do would be to also say hi,” Nic tells him.

“That would imply I have anything to say to you. You’re the last one to lecture me on manners.”

“Are you still pretending to hate me?”

“There is no pretence Nicholas, I do hate you.” Arden answers, bluntly. Nic laughs and I can’t help but smile at how familiar it all feels. Like we are ten again.

“Does that include the flowers you sent to my family?”

Arden pinches his eyes closed, annoyed at getting exposed doing something kind. “Nicholas, do you not have anywhere to be but here?”

Nic looks at the clock, and says to me, “He’s right. I have to go but we should meet some other time. Let me give you my number.”