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‘You’re welcome,’ he tells me, his words slow like honey, his voice smooth. His mouth tilts up again with another halfway smile.
Before I can drown in that smile – or do something ridiculous like kiss this complete stranger, because he makes it look so tempting – I turn away from him to face the dance floor again, eyes scouring the room for my new friends and soon-to-be colleagues. I spot Burnley standing on a table by a booth, slut-dropping his heart out. He’s acquired a lurid pink feather boa from somewhere – I can only assume there’s a hen party nearby – and a security guard is shouting to him, trying to politely coax him back down.
Clearly, it’s not working, because three more of the group clamber up to join Burnley. The security guard sighs and kneads his knuckles to his forehead before trying again.
Cute Boy follows my gaze and says, ‘Your friends look like real party animals. That not your style?’
I shrug. This would be my opportunity to say something enigmatic and flirty, but my mouth is working faster than my brain so what I actually say is, ‘I don’t know what my style is. I don’t get out very much.’
He laughs again and even though I don’t have a drink, he lifts his bottle in a toast. ‘Wow. Brutal honesty. I like it.’
‘It wasn’t for your benefit,’ I point out. ‘Clearlyyourstyle is creepy loner lurking at bars and trying to play the hero.’
‘Ha-ha. Not a loner, for the record – my friends are over there,’ he tells me, pointing to a group of boys near the DJ booth, who look about my own age – still younger than most of the twenty-somethings in the club. They’re all singing along loudly, moving in a way that’s more jumping and punching the air than it isdancing. Boisterous, rowdy, and clearly having a great time.
‘They look … fun.’
‘It’s not really my style, either,’ Cute Guy tells me, and it feels like a secret. Then he gestures back towards the gang of interns on the table. ‘Although they’re not as much fun asyourfriends, from the looks of it.’
Burnley is, somehow, on the security guard’s shoulders now, whipping the feather boa around like a lasso. I don’t know whether to laugh, cringe, or go overthere and try to help. Two of the girls on the table intervene before I can decide what to do, grabbing at Burnley to pull him back and starting to climb back down themselves. They all seem to be apologizing now. One of the boys who was dancing up there with them has collapsed on the tabletop in fits of laughter, clutching his ribs and rolling from side to side.
Part of me wishes I was over there with them, part of this moment. There’s an all-too familiar sting of being left out – of beingcut out, not included – and I have to remind myself that’s not what’s happening tonight, and that it’s all in my head.
A much larger part of me is happy to have both feet on the floor, watching from a distance. Whatever my ‘style’ is, I think it’s not quite as wild as that.
But still … There’s that little piece of me … The little voice in the back of my mind that makes me say, ‘I wish I was more like that. I wish I was the kind of person who did things like that.’ Or, I guess, there’s the stupid, tipsy voice in my mouth that says it very loudly, to be heard over the noise of the club.
Cute Guy looks at me and shrugs one shoulder. ‘Then go for it. Nobody’s stopping you. Well, the bouncer kind of is, but I reckon you could get a good thirty seconds up there before you’re carted off and banned forever.’
I crack a smile and lean a bit closer so I don’t have to shout so much. My arm presses into his and I get a whiff of cologne that’s so intoxicating, so sultry, it makes me dizzy. I don’t think I’ve ever met a guy who smellssultrybefore, but this one does. I tap his wrist with my fingertips absently, trying to ignore the way I can feel the muscles in his arm as I lean against him.
‘No, I mean, I wish I could let go like that. Not worry about what other people think. Be myself. Go a little crazy. No inhibitions, you know?’
I feel silly even as I say it out loud, heat creeping over my cheeks and down my neck.
‘It’s not like I don’t ever have fun, but … But, you know,’ I try to explain, trailing off uncertainly. I look down at the floor and scuff the toe of my sandal against it.
It’s just that there are bigger, more important things to focus on. That this time in my life feels so make-or-break, and I can’t let myself miss out on that. What would I regret more – missing a night out, or missing out on an opportunity that could change the trajectory of my future career, potentially my wholelife, for the better? It’s a no-brainer.
It’s just that I’m not always included much, anyway, and it’s a little easier to ignore that fact when there’s atwenty-four-hour library on campus to hide out in and coursework or exams to concentrate on.
‘Work hard, play later. Focus on the big stuff and let the rest fall into place afterwards. But at the same time, it’d be nice not to take yourself so seriously, sometimes,’ my mystery guy from across the bar says, and my eyes flash up to his.
But this time, he’s not looking at me. He’s looking over at his friends with a wistful expression and something else I recognize, too – resignation. Acceptance, of being an outsider.
There’s something so serious about him, a weight suddenly on his shoulders, and even though I never really finished explaining myself, I just know. Hegetsit.
He’s lonely, too.
Cute Guy offers me a small, strangely reassuring smile. I return it, even as I look out at the dance floor again; there’s something in his features, in his words, that feels too heavy, tooreal, for casual conversation at the bar of a club.
My stomach roils again, sending a rumble through my body that’s completely out of time with the bass pounding throughout the club. I regret the fact that I left a couple of slices of pizza earlier, trying to look ‘polite’. (Which, what? What was so bloody polite about depriving myself of some food I wanted, justbecause some of the others did? I got way too in my head about trying to make a good impression, clearly.)
I definitely need some fresh air. Maybe some food. Possibly my bed, too.
Icebreaker evening has been fun, but I think it’s time for me to call it a night. As far as good impressions go, I don’t think trying to keep up with the others and ultimately having Elaine hold my hair in a toilet stall while I throw up is exactly the way to go about that.
I swing my bag around from where it’s sitting against my bum to root through it for my ticket for the cloakroom.
