Ishaana woke up to the smell of cigarette smoke wafting in from the open balcony, a chilly breeze fluttering over her naked body that was covered by little more than a sheet, her skin prickling in the cold. Rolling over, she seemed to anger the headache that had settled in her brain, suddenly throbbing when she moved and she let out a groan. She had drunk a little too much last night and now she felt the effects, a jackhammer of a headache pulsating behind her eyes, and it was agony to lift her head to squint at her phone. Just about hanging on with six percent battery, the bright screen showed her that it was already twenty past ten in the morning.

That wasn't the only thing that popped up. Beneath the clock was a message from a contact she had saved as cdsety, a text that had buzzed into her phone at half past one in the morning. She vaguely remembered giving him her number, laughing as she had put it into his phone and he had added his to hers: clearly it was him who couldn't spell his own name and the message made little sense either. He'd wanted to check if it was fake, and she had proved that it wasn't when she had received his text. So he had her number, she thought. It usually took more than one night for her to let someone have that.

For a moment, she lay perfectly still with her hand clasped over her forehead and her eyes shut, willing her hangover to wait until later, when she could curl up on the sofa with Melody for a day of recovery in front of the television. Any time she went out, she tended to have to write off the next day as time to recuperate with plenty of water and usually a hefty supply of terrible food. The house was often littered with takeaway containers after she'd had a night out, and she could always be found wrapped up in blankets on the sofa.

But today she would have to find her way home, which meant over an hour on the train and a two mile walk, unless she could face the bus. The thought alone turned her stomach, and she groaned in hungover pain as she pushed herself up, eyes screwed shut as she dragged leaden legs over the side of the bed. She didn't move from that position for several seconds as she hung her head in her hands, willing herself to stand when all she wanted to do was sleep.

Cold and shivering, she squinted at the floor in search of the clothes she had discarded last night and stumbled over to her jeans. She didn't think twice about pulling on yesterday's underwear before she tugged on her jeans, shuddering at the chilly denim on her skin, and she had to lean against the wall with a sigh as she glanced around the room for her t-shirt. She hadn't worn a bra, she remembered that much, but there had been a t-shirt at some point.

And there had been a man, too, but there wasn't one anymore. She had fallen asleep beside him, passed out in an orgamisc drunken haze, but he was nowhere to be seen. Though the door to the balcony was open, there was no-one standing on the narrow ledge and with an arm across her breasts, Ishaana crossed the floor to swing the door shut, drawing the curtain to protect the last of her dignity while she searched for her top. Plenty of Casey's clothes were strewn about, draped over the chair and the desk and slipping off the bed, and she scowled a sigh.

As she bent over a pile on the floor, breathing deeply to stop herself from throwing up, the door that connected rooms twenty-one and twenty-two swung open and she jolted up, forgetting her semi-nudity for a second when her headache raged.

"Who the fuck are you?" she asked, staring at the man whose face held a vague shred of familiarity at the back of her mind. Wracking her brains, she recalled supper with Melody last night, fitting the face of Casey's bandmate to the man in front of her. Bishop, with his dreadlocks tied back off his face. She remembered Casey yelling at him last night when he had walked in on them and while she hadn't cared at the time, she was suddenly aware that after catching her completely naked several hours ago, she was now giving him an encore. Several seconds too late, she crossed both arms over her chest.

"Right back at you," he said, averting his eyes from her breasts. His voice was softer than she had expected, a slight nervousness in his gaze. "Sorry. Bishop. From the band."

"I figured," she muttered, taking a deep breath through her nose. "Ishy. And don't worry, I'll go." Rubbing her temples, she spotted her t-shirt and grabbed it, moving a little too fast, and she had to steady herself against the chair as she pulled on the top. The cold had stiffened her nipples, which stood to proud attention beneath the thin material, but she didn't care when Bishop's eyes dipped down for a fraction of a second. "Where's Casey?"

"He went for a fag," Bishop said, pointing his thumb at the door over his shoulder. "He got yelled at for smoking on the balcony. Went up to the roof, I think."

"Oh." Ishaana tucked her phone into her pocket, pulling on her boots without socks. They were nowhere to be seen and she couldn't bear to bend down again to root through the mess in the room, resigning herself to being down a pair. "Well, I'm gonna head off."

Her bag was slumped on the floor and she dropped onto the edge of the bed, picking it up to root through the contents for her purse. When her hand didn't instantly find it, she frowned at herself and pulled it onto her lap, using her phone's torch to rifle through it.

"You ok?" Bishop asked, still awkwardly hanging in the corner like a groupie who didn't know what to do. Ishaana's frown deepened when she upended the bag on the bed but amongst various coins and wrappers and bits of lint, as well as her disarray of make-up, there was no purse. "Lost something?"

"I don't have my purse," she said, almost to herself, and it was only then that last night rushed back to her. "Fuck. I gave it to Mel."

"Your purse?" he asked. Ishaana's shoulders slumped and she wanted to cry, horribly hungover a hundred miles from home with no money. She always carried cash as well as her card but now she had neither, her purse having gone home with Melody last night.

"For fuck's sake," she muttered, rubbing her face with both hands. Then, to add insult to injury, her phone buzzed on her lap when the torch drained it of the last dregs of its battery. Ishaana stared at the dead mobile and her empty bag, with no way to contact Melody or even call an Uber.

"Where d'you live?" Bishop asked, a little helpless. "I have a car. Maybe I could give you a lift?"

"No, no, no," Ishaana murmured, shaking her head. "I live in Manchester. It's, like, a hundred miles away. Fuck."

"I could drive you to the station, if you need," he said, lips pursed as he tried to come up with a solution for the poor girl, who was very much feeling sorry for herself as she sat hunched over her knees, trying to will her nausea to go away. "It's not far. I can give you a lift."

She looked up at him, trying to suss out whether he was being nice or whether this was some kind of ploy, something Casey had set up. No matter how aware she was of her state, it was still true that she was a vulnerable mess with no money or phone, and she would be shooting herself in the foot to decline a lift. "I don't have a ticket. For fuck's sake." Raking a hand through her hair, she let out an irritated sigh and tried to turn her phone on, but it refused to cooperate. It was impressive enough that it has lasted the night, only dying when she needed it the most.

"How much is a ticket?" Bishop asked, digging out his own phone before Ishaana could even come up with a figure. She had no idea, never having taken the train from Birmingham to Manchester before. Melody had been in charge of the tickets, finding them a deal that she had paid for before she'd even told Ishaana of her plans. "To Manchester Piccadilly?"

She nodded. The only thing of use she had in her bag was her bus pass, which would take her from the station to home, but that was no good unless she could actually make it back to the right city.

"It's only fifteen quid," Bishop said with a shrug. "I can get it for you."

"You don't need to do that," she said, closing her eyes as she shook her head and massaged her temples. "You don't even fucking know me."

"Well, yeah, but you're kinda screwed if I don't, and it's only fifteen quid. Not exactly gonna break the bank. If I'm ever in debt, I'll know who to come to first."

She gave him a dry laugh, a short chuckle that burnt her throat, and gave in when she couldn't see any other way out of the situation. She didn't know anyone in Birmingham, her closest contacts being in Farnleigh, but that was still a thirty minute train ride away. "Ok," she said at last. "If you're sure."

"Yeah, no problem," Bishop said. "Sorry about coming in, by the way. When Casey went outside, I figured you'd already gone."

"Nope. Still here." She lifted her bag onto her shoulder, dropping her useless phone into it, and she followed Bishop to the lift. They were only two floors up but she couldn't face the stairs, the thought of looking down at her feet enough to churn her stomach and inside, she leant against the cool mirrored wall. "Look, I was just going to slip out," she said, her eyes on Bishop. "I'm not a big fan of the morning after the night before."

He held up his hands, an understanding smile on his lips. "I won't say a thing," he said. "If Casey asks, I'll just say you headed out."

"Thanks," she said, closing her eyes and hugging herself. It was a cold morning but she hadn't brought a coat: she hadn't wanted to have to carry one at the concert, which she had known from the outset would be too hot and too crowded. Now it was chilly and goose pimples pricked her skin on the short walk from the hotel door to the old car that Bishop unlocked with the click of her key.

"Sorry about the mess," he said, clearing a pile of papers off the front seat, reaching behind himself to tuck them in the back pocket of his own seat. "It's usually just Casey and me in here."

"It's fine," Ishaana said. When she was putting Bishop out enough as it was by having him drive her to the station, she didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to the mess in his car. It wasn't real mess, anyway: the footwell was strewn with lyrical notes and stray guitar picks, the debris of an artist, and it reminded her of the chaos Melody left in her wake whenever she decided to paint.

It was too much effort to play nice and make conversation when her head was screaming at her to lie down and have something to drink, or to eat something incredibly greasy and fattening. Her nausea was replaced by hunger, the desperate need to scoff a burger and chips before the clock hit eleven, and her stomach groaned its emptiness.

"The station's not far," Bishop said as he shifted into gear and eased out of his narrow spot, following the signs that pointed them towards Grand Central. Ishaana hummed her appreciation of his help and rested her cheek against the cold window, the pane delciously icy against her skin when her head was burning up. Closing her eyes, she gave into the bumps of the road, praying that she would be home soon. Melody never got hungover, not badly: she would be a little sleepy, and very happy to curl up in front of a film, but she had never thrown up the morning after. She just turned into Tigger, a little lazy and a little slow, sleeping and eating her way back to normalcy.

The huge display boards in the centre of the station blinked that the next train to Manchester Piccadilly was due to depart in twenty-one minutes, and Ishaana could have cried at the thought of adding another third of an hour to what would already be a long journey home. With no earphones and a dead phone, she would be forced to listen to the mundane conversations of everyone else in the carriage. Music – good music, as opposed to the inanity of bands like South Season – was what got her through each tedious bus journey and every bumbling train, but it would be unable to accompany her today. That realisation did nothing to raise her hopes for what was turning out to be a bad start to the week, and she let out a heavy sigh as she stared at the display board.

"Here," Bishop said, handing her a ticket. "Got you an anytime day single. That ok? I figured you probably wouldn't be rushing back anytime soon."

"That's perfect," she said, and he followed her gaze. It didn't take long for him to register the panel she had her eyes on, with twenty minutes to go before the train would leave.

"Hungry?" he asked, and Ishaana's automatic reaction was to nod without considering the implication behind the question: it was a simple truth that she was hungry, but her agreement wasn't her way of suggesting that Bishop buy her food. But he didn't see it that way. He nodded over at the doors, on the other side of which sat a greasy little café, and Ishaana's stomach rumbled again. "Come on."

She couldn't protest when he led her over to the door, holding it open and ushering her outside, towards the café that clearly catered to commuters in a rush and the painfully hungover. As soon as she stepped through the door, she was hit by the scent of frying meat and hot oil, and that smell had never been so welcome before.

"Let me get you something to eat," Bishop said. "I have paracetamol, too, if you want. I promise it's not laced with anything. Except maybe ibuprofen, I'm not sure. Might be one of those double-whammy painkillers. But they usually help with a hangover, if you've had something to eat."

It was impossible to say no when she had been exposed to the food on offer, her nostrils tantalised by the greasy stench. "Thanks," she said quietly, her voice scratchy after the night had parched her throat.

"Burger? Or a breakfast burger?" he asked, heading over to the counter.

"Whatever you have," she said, and Bishop laughed.

"Well, I was going to have a double cheeseburger and fries," he said, and Ishaana nodded.

"Sounds good. And water. I need water."

He raised his eyebrows a fraction, as though in disbelief that she would be able to put away that much food. There wasn't much of her, a narrow frame with little in the way of a figure, but she had the appetite of a whale, especially when she was hungover. On many an occasion had she made her way through an entire large pizza, plus chocolate and biscuits, when she'd drunk too much the night before.

Taking a seat by the window, she slumped over the table with her forehead on her arms while Bishop ordered. Even the gentle noise of life going on around her was too much, each sound drilling into her brain as loud as last night's concert, and it was an effort to lift her head when Bishop returned with a tray that he set down on the table, passing her a bottle of water that she instantly glugged, screwing off the top and finishing off a third of the bottle in one go.

"So," he said, passing her a burger and a paper bag of chips, "enjoy the concert?"

She wrinkled her nose and bit into a hot fry, relishing in the oily, crispy skin on the fries. "I hate South Season," she said. "They're hot, but they can't sing."

"Why'd you go then?" He dug into his pocket and took out a packet of painkillers, popping two out of the blister pack. Passing them to Ishaana, she swallowed them with another generous gulp of water and munched on three chips at once.

"My friend's obsessed. She wanted me to go."

"Oh, ok. Mel?"

Ishaana frowned, staring up at him and straightening her back. "How the fuck d'you know that?"

"You said you gave your purse to Mel," he said. "I put two and two together. I think I got four."

She eyed him as she bit into her burger with a contented sigh and nodded. "Yeah. She went home with someone. I ended up with Casey," she said, focusing on her food for a while. It was filling a hole, and she tried to trick herself into thinking that the painkillers were already working. "Look, I really appreciate you doing this, but is this some kind of ploy?"

"Huh?" Bishop looked clueless, biting into his own huge burger, and a dollop of ketchup drizzled down his chin. "What d'you mean?"

Ishaana shrugged, trying to find a way to put her thoughts into words without having to think too much. It hurt her brain to think, in desperate need of a nap. "You know, Casey fucks the girls and you get the info. Because that's shady as fuck."

"Oh." He laughed quietly, almost to himself. "No. Not that I know of. Like I said, I thought you'd already left. I didn't come in with the intention of getting info. Sorry. I can go, Ishy. It is Ishy, right?"

"Mmhmm."

"What's that short for?"

"It's long for Ish," she said, so drily that Bishop appeared to believe her for a moment. She was too tired to put much effort into her sarcasm, and it wasn't obvious enough that she was joking.

"Oh," Bishop said. "Really?"

Lifting her gaze, she stared at him as though he was the stupidest imbecile to have ever graced the space before her. "No," she deadpanned. "Ishaana. I take it Bishop's not short for anything."

"It's long for Bish," he said, catching onto her sense of humour, and he even earnt a short laugh that hurt Ishaana's head.

"Funny," she said, chowing down on her burger. It was doing its job, satiating her aching stomach, though she couldn't guarantee how long it would stay down for. Perhaps sitting on the train for ninety minutes would help, giving her an excuse to not move for the entire journey, long enough for the painkillers to kick in so she could face the bus that awaited her at the other end. "Bishop Knight."

"That's me," he said. "Were you there for our set?"

She shook her head, sipping her water again. Her mouth was still uncomfortably dry and even though she was almost full, her stomach sloshing with the four hundred millilitres she had already imbibed. "We got there in the interval," she said. "Sorry."

Bishop shrugged. "No worries," he said. "Seems like you got a private show anyway."

She snorted on a chip, almost choking, and she pressed her lips into a thin line as she nodded. Pausing her eating for a moment, she rested her arms on the table and lifted her eyes to Bishop. "What's your music like?" she asked. "I'd Spotify you guys but my phone's dead."

Bishop pursed his lips and mirrored Ishaana's position, scratching the name of his neck. "It's a bit of a stylistic fusion," he said. "Nothing like South Season. To be honest, I don't really like their stuff, but it was one hell of an opportunity to front them, even if it was only for one night."

"What's the fusion?" she asked, stuffing a few fries into her mouth. Bishop took a deep breath and she decided that he probably wasn't the face of the band. Casey wasn't much of a talker, but Bishop was even less so.

"Kind of, like, blues and folk. Indie, I guess. Casey sings. Sometimes I do. Not much. He plays guitar."

"So what do you do?"

"Keyboard," he said. "And drums, and I play the guitar too. Sometimes the violin, and the bass."

Ishaana raised her eyebrows at him, slowly blinking. "That's a lot of jobs for one man."

"Yeah," he said. "Not on stage, of course. But we've done a couple of albums, layering the tracks. Doesn't always translate so well when we do it live."

"What's your name again? Your band?"

"Two degrees," he said, his hand returning to the back of his neck, and Ishaana got the distinct impression that he didn't like to talk about himself. He seemed to want to shrink into the shadows, and she wondered how he and Casey had managed to book a gig with England's band of the moment. He shook back his sleeve to check his watch, glancing down at his wrist. "Twelve minutes until your train."

"Thanks," she said, and she lifted her burger up. "And thanks for this, too. Just what the doctor ordered."

He gave her the slightest of smiles, full lips pursed, and resumed eating his own food. "You don't have to hang around just because I'm here," he said. "You can go. Or I can go. I just wanted to make sure you got to your train ok."

"Thanks," she said. "You didn't need to."

He nodded to himself, dark eyes finding Ishaana's, and he gave her a hint of a smile. "I know."

A little over two hours later, Ishaana leant against her front door as she tried to navigate the key in the lock, twisting the stubborn metal a couple of times before the door gave way and swung open heavily, chipping the plaster. Stumbling into the house, she hardly had time to lifted her eyes from her feet before she was attacked by Melody, who threw her arms around her.

"Jesus Christ, Ishy! I've been scared shitless!" she cried out, dragging Ishaana into the sitting room, where she dropped onto the sofa. "God, I'm so fucking sorry, Ishy. I didn't realise I literally had your whole purse. Oh my God. Are you ok? How'd you get home? I've been ringing and ringing for, like, two hours but your phone was switched off and I was freaking the fuck out. Thank fuck you're ok."

"I'm alive," Ishaana said, though the words came out as more of a groan as she lay down on the sofa, curling up in one of many blankets that permanently lived there. The house was blessed with ugly furniture, two horrendous black sofas in the sitting room that Melody kept covered with bright throws and blankets in an attempt to soften the house's corners.

"Did you go back with that blonde guy? The one from the band? Shit, Ishy, I really feel terrible."

"Me too," she said with an ache of a chuckle, wrapping the blanket around herself. "Yeah, I went back with Casey. Didn't see him this morning. Forgot I gave you my purse so I didn't have any money. His bandmate took me to the station, bought me a ticket. And a burger."

"His bandmate?" Melody asked, furrowing her brow. "Oh, yeah, the black guy?"

Ishaana nodded. "Bishop. Not a murderer, evidently."

"That's nice of him," she said, sitting down on the coffee table opposite. "D'you want a cup of tea? Oh, and give me your phone. I'll put it on to charge."

"In my bag," Ishaana said, sighing her exhaustion against the cushion. She could always rely on Melody for a dramatic homecoming, and a welcome one. "Thanks, Mel. You rock."

"I'm so sorry."

"It's fine, really. Got a free meal, and a night with Casey," she said as Melody rifled through her bag and found the dead phone, plugging it into a charger that permanently lived in the sitting room. The two of them and Pearl all had identical phones, so the lightning cable never left the room in case someone needed a quick charge.

"How was it?" she asked, trotting over to the kettle and flipping it on before she pulled out a couple of teabags and two mugs.

"Good," Ishaana said. "Very good. He's a cute piece of arse, not gonna lie. Not much of a talker but he seemed to know his way around a woman."

With a chuckle, Melody leant against the counter and waited for the kettle to boil, tapping her fingers against her arm, and Ishaana closed her eyes as she snuggled up on the sofa. That was exactly what she had needed, what she had dreamt of all morning. The train journey had seemed to take forever as she had sat squashed agains the window beside someone who believed he needed twice as much leg room, and she had delighted in accidentally kicking him when she had got off at her stop. The bus had almost been too much to bear, an extra twenty minutes of bumping along in traffic jams before she had stumbled the last few hundred metres back to her house.

"What about your girl? Jade, was it?" she asked, blearily opening one eye to catch any reaction. Melody's cheeks flushed pink and she grinned.

"Pretty good for a baby lesbian," she said, laughing. "Maybe it's just because my virginity is practically growing back, but she was pretty fucking great, actually. I may have got fingered in the back of a taxi. And we may or may not have got a free ride because of it."

"Oh, shit, Mel," Ishaana said, laughing properly for the first time, as much as it hurt. Her headache wasn't so bad anymore, a while since she had taken the painkillers Bishop had offered her, but she was exhausted and beginning to realise that she was a little sore after last night. It had ached to sit down on the train for so long, as much as she had enjoyed being off her feet. "So it went well?"

"You could say that," Melody said, her grin growing wider. "She said she's never slept with a woman before but I reckon she's done a lot of research, or a shit ton of practise because, fuck, she knew exactly what she was doing. I came four times. Four fucking times!" Her eyes widened, the entirety of her grey irises visible until she turned around to pour two cups of tea. "I have never come four times in one night. I swear to God, at one point I couldn't even see anymore. And that wasn't just because I wasn't wearing my glasses. I think I actually blacked out."

Snorting a laugh, Ishaana slowly unfurled herself from the blanket and stood, padding over to Melody and pulling her into a hug. "Congrats on losing your virginity again," she said, teasing her friend. It had been a while since Melody had last shared her bed: the last time she'd had sex, she had only just finished her first year of university. Now she was just a few months away from completing her second.

"Thanks, Ishy. Congrats on fucking a cute singer."

"Cheers," Ishaana said, wrapping one hand around her hot mug and holding it close to her face, steaming her skin. Behind her, her phone buzzed as it woke up with enough charge to power it to life. "Reckon you'll see her again?"

Melody pursed her lips and nodded slowly, holding her elbows. "I think I'd be an idiot not to try an actual date," she said. "Though I can't complain about last night. Got her number, so we'll see."

"Nice," Ishaana said with a smile, slinking back to the sofa and rolling herself up in the blanket once more, blowing on her tea to cool it down. Melody came over and sat in the chair beside her, crossing her legs and tucking her hair behind her ears, catching on the arm of her glasses.

"How about you? Gonna hook up with Casey again? Or Bishop?" She wiggled her eyebrows, dancing above her glasses, and Ishaana chuckled.

"I don't know. He has my number. He can call if he wants another episode of the Ishy show," she said. She didn't care either way, as long as he didn't drag feelings into it. While she felt no attachment towards him after a solitary night, she only hoped the same could be said for him. Feelings complicated everything.

For almost thirty minutes, she lay in comfortable quiet as Melody sipped her tea and quietly reminisced on her night with Jade, her narrative only interrupted by the arrogant buzz of Ishaana's phone on the coffee table. Reaching out for it, she unlocked the screen to see another text message from the same number as earlier, the one that had to be Casey.

She held out the phone to Melody, who scanned the messages in less than a second.

"So?" Melody asked. "D'you want to see him again?"

Ishaana shrugged, her lips pursed. "Might as well," she said. "He's in a band: he travels. He's not gonna want to stick around, is he? Perfect arrangement."

Melody chuckled, sipping her tea, and Ishaana's thumbs worked on a short reply.

With a sigh, she pushed her phone back onto the table and closed her eyes, not giving the messages a second thought. It was just sex. It didn't mean a thing.

+ - + - +

proud to have got another 5k chapter up (almost) within 24 hours! hope you enjoyed this one and i'd love your theories on what's to come!