Chapter Twenty-Five Soundtrack: UFO by Olivia Dean

The party is off to a shaky start. The music is too quiet, I think, but I'm not confident enough in my taste to risk anyone actually hearing it. I've laid out food, but too much, and everyone is awkwardly avoiding the pizza and crouton-heavy salads and are instead picking at the olives. Assuming my guests would bring booze, I've not got enough wine, and the empty bottles in the recycling look accusingly at me. No one is tipsy enough to have fun.

Only eight people are here, I remind myself, and it's still early. But yes. Shaky start.

And that would be fine, normal even, if it weren't for—

A knock on my door. 8.30 exactly.

My hand hovers on the handle, and I pause for a breath. In. Out. My fingers are trembling and I don't know why.

I swing open the door.

Nas is waiting in my hallway, and the music and the food and the drinks don't matter at all, because he's smiling, that smile that he saves for when he's truly happy, and he's smiling at me. His dark eyes crinkle with it. He seems taller, standing in my doorway, wearing an oversized jumper, and his hair sticks up at the top, like he's just run his hands through it. I'm close enough to smell his cologne.

I inhale, deeply. Cloves. Warmth. Nas.

Then he chuckles, and I realise how weird it is to silently smell someone, and now it's too late to be normal. Do we hug? His arm is half extended, maybe for a hug, but instead, I shake it. I shake his hand.

'Welcome.'

My humiliation is complete.

'Thanks,' he says, and I realise that he can't come in because I'm blocking the doorway. I stumble back, nearly tripping on my feet, and now he's inside my flat. Someone is with him, but I'm too distracted to care.

His eyes take in the crocheted throws strung between my shelves as makeshift tapestries; the ferns hanging in rattan pots from the ceiling; the piles of dog-eared books that I use as coffee tables. The next words out of his mouth suddenly matter more than anything else. I can't even process who is standing beside him as I watch him look around. His eyes land on my engagement photo and the vein in his neck pulses.

'We brought you this.'

He offers me two bottles of wine—finally—and now that the welcoming is done, I look at the woman beside him.

'You're so gorgeous.'

Did I just say that?

It seems I did.

She is gorgeous though, so beautiful that to acknowledge her in any other way would be dishonest. 'Hello' wouldn't have covered it. I've always comforted myself with the thought that models are airbrushed, but meeting this woman, I discover that some people really don't have pores.

She rolls her eyes, which, great, cool, I guess. That's nice.

Nas gestures her in and, with a crooked smile, asks 'Can I have the grand tour?'. The woman wanders towards the kitchen counters, ignoring my friends and searching for a drink.

Just us, then. 'Sure.'

I gesture expansively around my living room/kitchen/precariously-stacked library. The dual temptations to put on a stupid voice and pretend I'm an estate agent, or to clam up and refuse to let him in, war within me: I can perform or I can conceal, but neither are normal things to do with house guests, so instead I drop my hands and say, 'This is my living area.'

Politely, he doesn't say how obvious that is. Instead, he looks around as though he's genuinely curious. It's a large sitting room, with a wooden kitchen island dividing it from my kitchen—rarely used, as I can hardly boil water for pasta, but liberally decorated with curling photographs, a wilting bouquet in an empty wine bottle, and flickering candles on every available surface. Other than the TV and the massive, squishy couch, my living room is mostly books, stacked and stuffed and annotated, and a worn-out antique rug, and soft lamps lighting the room. The French doors only lead out to a rusty fire escape, but on an evening like tonight, with the curtains half-drawn and the rain pattering on the windows, it could almost pass for a balcony.

Through a half-open door, I gesture to my bedroom. Only my bedside lamp is on, so he can hardly see anything through the doorway, but I'm conscious of my silhouetted bed. 'The bathroom's through the bedroom,' I tell him, and mercifully he doesn't ask any follow-up questions.

'It's beautiful,' he says, sounding plausibly sincere. 'Thanks for inviting me. Well. Thanks for letting me invite myself.'

I laugh. 'Invite yourself anytime. I'm not sure about beautiful, though. It's pretty small, but it's only me, so it's not so bad.'

'Only you?' I can't understand his tone. I thought I knew all of his voices, but this is new.

'Yeah.' This comes off snappier than I intend, and his face shutters. 'Let me grab you a drink.' He nods stiffly and the conversation is over, for now at least. Another wasted opportunity for... friendship? I can't tell anymore. Why should my living alone surprise him?

'I'll help myself.'

Okay then. No problem. He can just wander over to his astoundingly gorgeous date and pour her a large glass of wine and laugh without looking over at me, and I can just feel absolutely fine about that. That's a normal thing for friends to do.

Luckily I did not throw a party for Nas (perish the thought), so I have other guests, all of whom talk to me like normal people and ask me normal questions, and slowly fill the flat with clinking glasses and polite laughter and, as more drinks arrive, louder laughter too. It's easy to ignore him in the sea of bodies. Not that I am looking for him, anyway.

'Who are you looking for?'

Mei appears at my elbow and, thanks to the gin in my veins, I hug her a little too hard. 'Hi, darling.'

'Hey, turtle.' She greets me with my nursery nickname. 'Who are you looking for?'

'You, of course. Is Gabriel around?'

'Probably.' She gestures vaguely towards Gabriel's blond curls poking over the back of the sofa. 'Great party.'

'It's okay.'

'Stop being so critical.' She elbows me lightly. 'I brought you some wine, but I think your neighbours are trying to shotgun it. It's pretty gross, actually.'

'Savages. Fancy a different drink?'

'No thanks.'

Her tone is a little off: not enough that she wants me to realise, but two decades of friendship make secrecy impossible. 'Everything okay?'

'Yeah,' she says, but she's still avoiding my eyes. I see the faint flush climbing her cheeks, her fingers tapping lightly against her legs, and then, quickly, she glances over to Gabriel, as though the sight of him will calm her down. She continues, 'I'm actually not drinking. At all. Anymore.'

I pause to listen, and she continues, 'Not that I'm pregnant. A lot of people think I'm pregnant, but I'm definitely not.'

'Okay. Anything you want to talk about?' I ask her as calmly as possible. With Mei, even after two decades of friendship, it's best to approach her feelings from the side, like a skittish deer.

'Drinking just didn't bring anything good.'

I file that away into 'Worries to Keep Me Up at Night'.

Should I have noticed something was wrong? Has she been trying to tell me? If I were a better friend, would she let me help her? Was she drinking at the pub when we met? Thinking back, I realise she wasn't.

A few months ago, I would have asked. Now, the questions loop through my mind, but I don't speak them aloud. She'll share when she wants to, I remind myself. I cannot change anything now.

'So,' Mei asks, transparently changing the subject, 'when are you going to introduce me?'

'Who to?' I ask, but I know this is weak.

She only smirks, so, with a sigh, I grab her hand and lead her to Nas.

*

@chroniclesoftatiana is going to be mad because i originally planned for them to hook up in this chapter. but now that i'm writing it i've realised they're both still morons. so we have more time to go. it's a sloooow burn and i'm just as sad about that as you 🫶