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The night rolled on. Deepak Patel reappeared, having failed to get into the pub, DJ Music Melvin turned out to be half decent, and Quinn danced and drank and laughed with his friends. At one point a few girls came shuffling over to dance next to them but Matt scared them away with his version of breakdancing.
‘If you want to pull, you’ll have to ditch pizza-face,’ Deepak said, pointing at Matt, who by this point was staggering around the dance floor, sloshing his drink down his T-shirt, shouting out lyrics to ‘Bootylicious’ by Destiny’s Child. ‘Those girls clearly want to get to you, but Matt keeps leching on anyone who gets close.’
Quinn hadn’t thought about trying to kiss anyone tonight. He never tried to kiss girls, it just happened sometimes without him doing very much. His school was all boys, but whenever he and his friends hung out with girls, it was usually his louder, more outgoing friends who did all the talking, while Quinn, without trying to, came off as the quiet, interesting one.
A group of girls wearing crop tops and faded denim were watching him from a line of plastic chairs at the side of the room. They all clasped disposable red cups between both hands. One wearing too-red lipstick smiled at him. She was pretty but, even with the vodka, he wouldn’t know what to say if he went over there alone.
At ten to midnight, Quinn slipped off the dance floor and hid in the corridor by the loos. He didn’t want to be exposedat midnight. Music Melvin would start playing ‘Lady in Red’ or some other saddo slow dance. There’d be the awkward shuffle as people tried to line themselves up with someone to kiss, his mates nudging each other, merciless in their mocking of both success and failure. He couldn’t deal with that kind of pressure. He replied to another text from his mum, the fourth of the evening, ‘Happy New Year, Mum. Honestly, go to bed, I’m fine.’
When he looked up from his phone there was a girl standing in the corridor opposite him. She had straight blonde hair, soft freckled skin, and a bright, cheerful face.
‘Don’t mind me,’ she gave a little shrug and leant back against the wall, resting one foot up behind her. ‘I’m just hiding from lemming o’clock on the dance floor.’
Quinn gave a nonchalant nod.
‘Don’t you hate how everyone just gets off with whoever they’re standing next to at midnight? It’s such a meat market. I bet most people don’t even know the name of the person they’re kissing. So gross,’ said the girl, shaking her head and making a disapproving little scowl.
Her checks were flushed and she rubbed her neck with the heel of a palm. Music Melvin was playing ‘Two Minutes to Midnight’ by Iron Maiden – not so predictable after all.
‘Yeah, gross,’ Quinn said quietly, then after a pause. ‘Did you say lemming o’clock?’
‘Lemmings all copy each other, don’t they? They don’t think for themselves.’
She gave him a coy smile. Then she looked off down the corridor and pushed her foot away from the wall. Quinn feltas though she was about to leave. He didn’t want her to go. He tried to think of something else to say.
‘Apparently there are like, thirty different species of lemming.’
Of all the things to say, why had he gone with that? How did he even know that? He must have picked it up from one of the nature documentaries his mother watched. This is exactly why he didn’t talk to girls. He glanced up at her face, convinced she was going to laugh at him.
‘Good knowledge,’ she said, leaning back against the wall again, ‘I love a lemming fact.’
Quinn felt his shoulders relax.
‘What species do you think is out there on the dance floor then?’ she asked, fiddling with a strand of blonde hair.
‘Probably the lesser-known urban species – Teenagius Drunkerus,’ he said.
She let out a laugh like a garden sprinkler, firing out little bursts of joy. The sound sent a fizz of energy through Quinn.
Voices back in the hall started shouting in unison, ‘Ten, nine, eight … ’
Quinn was suddenly filled with an overwhelming compulsion to kiss this girl. His mates wouldn’t have noticed someone like her, with her DM boots, roll-neck top and high-waisted jeans, but something in her face stood out to Quinn. She was luminously pretty, but clearly had no idea that she was. Her whole way of being felt magnetic to him.
‘Six, five, four … ’
He tried to catch her eye. He’d overheard Toby Sampson in the locker room once saying that was the key to it, justlook at them long enough without blinking and they’ll know you want it. She looked back. He looked away. He was no good at the looking game. He took a step towards her, pretending to be intensely interested in something on the wall behind her shoulder. He put a hand up against the wall by her head, then he just stared at his hand, unsure of what to do next. God this was awkward. She was going to laugh at him, ask him what he was doing. She’d tell all her friends about this weird lemming-fact guy who’d tried to kiss her by the loos.
‘Three, two, one – Happy New Year!’
He dared another sideways look at her. She was looking up at him, her pupils flushed wide. Then her eyes darted nervously from side-to-side.
‘Um, hi,’ she said.
‘Hello,’ he mumbled, dropping his gaze to the floor. ‘Can I … Would it be OK if I …’ Oh god, what if she said no? He wasn’t sure any kiss was worth this level of stress.
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice breathy and nervous, her cheeks flushed pink.
She shut her eyes, and tilted her head up towards him, as he closed the space between them. Quinn felt his stomach flip as her soft full lips pressed gently against his.
