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A muscle ticks in Lloyd’s jaw when he tries to smile to dismiss it; it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but he laughs like that’ll make up for it. It doesn’t.
‘That? Nah, that was … It doesn’t matter. And anyway, this isn’t a date, so you don’t have to worry about making anybody jealous.’
‘That’s not – I’m not – I just thought you might be seeing her, that’s all.’
‘Well, I’m not. Free as a bird. Unless you have better plans?’
Literally, anything.
‘Yes, I do,’ I tell him. ‘Goodbye, Fletcher. Have a nice weekend.’
I leave before he can try to convince me to stay.
Butdamn it, he makes it impossiblenotto think about him, especially when I’m trying so very hard to forget about him. I keep replaying the conversation, the smile on his face – the flicker of hurt in his eyes before I stalked away.
Maybe he reallydoesn’thave a lot of friends, I wonder; I can sympathize with that. And he really did seem to just want to hang out, no ulterior motives – I don’t think Lloyd is capable of ulterior motives of any kind, quite frankly – he’s too earnest and open.
Elaine and Louis are both out tonight, so I can’t rely on them to distract me. Instead, I end up stalking Lloyd’s Instagram – which is basically just an advert for the young, rich and famous. It’s pictures of him at fancy bars, in fancy clothes, or pseudo-advertisements for Arrowmile, or doingactualbrand deals for gadgets or expensive hair products. There aren’t many pictures of him with friends, though he must clearly bewithpeople in most of them. There are hardly even any photos of him with Will, which I think is a little odd.
Worst of all – it’sfamiliar, because it’s a glossier version of my own social media: except mine consists of lonely coffees or family dinners, attempts to show people Idohave a life … even if the reality is pretty lonesome and ordinary.
Oh, bloody hell.
Fine.
Fine, he wins.
I scroll through my work emails looking for one from Lloyd, and find his phone number from his email signature.
So, theoretically, if we were to go buy cake instead of stealing it, where would we go for that at eight o’clock on a Friday night?
I get a read receipt within a couple of minutes, and then his reply is immediate.
Annalise?
Do you invite a lot of people to eat cake on a Friday night?
And here I was starting to worry you didn’t have any friends
I’m just realizing that ‘eat cake on a Friday night’ sounds like a euphemism for something
It’s not
Or at least, it better not be.
Hahahaha def not a euphemism
As you know, I am deadly serious when it comes to food
There’s this cool late-night cafe place I know near Southbank. It’s kind of like a bar, but they only serve coffees and soft drinks and stuff
They have live music sometimes too
Can meet you there in half an hour?
He sends me a link to this not-a-bar-cafe, Keye & Shore. It’s much more up my street than an actual bar as I’ve never been a big drinker, and I agree to meet him in half an hour before I can think better of it.
I get changed out of my leggings and University of Leeds Netball Club T-shirt, and try not to think too much about my outfit. It’s not like it’s a date. It’s not like I care what he thinks, or that I even want him to notice how I look.
