I picked up the glass Leigh put in front of me, sipped and pretended I hadn’t heard Matty. I put the glass down again. “That’s vodka and Coke.”
Leigh grimaced.
“So?” Jazz asked and shuffled a stool across from another table so she could squeeze in next to me. With Leigh on my other side and Matty and Noah opposite, I was surrounded with no means of escape.
“So…” I glared at her, and she gave me a smug grin. She knew exactly why I’d been avoiding alcohol. But she also knew I was a secret dieter and wouldn’t kick up a stink in front of Leigh, Noah and Matty. Well, I could probably have told Leigh, and they’d have accepted what I was doing, even if that acceptance came with a lecture.
I moved on, or back, in fact. “What about Twitter?” I asked Matty.
“You don’t use it.”
“I’ve got an account.”
“But you don’t use it.”
“Because I’ve got nothing interesting to say.”
“Correction. You had nothing interesting to say.”
“Cheers, Matt.”
“I think you’re interesting,” Noah butted in.
“I second that,” Jazz said.
“I didn’t mean he wasn’t interesting,” Matty argued, and then to me, “I didn’t.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“But now you can tweet about your campaign.”
“OK.” That sounded easy enough, except Jazz was side-eyeing me. “What?”
“More than once,” she said.
“How many times?”
Jazz and Matty looked at each other and hummed thoughtfully. “What d’you reckon, Matt? Five?”
“Yeah.”
“OK. Still doable,” I said.
“That’s five times a day,” Jazz explained.
“Five times a day?”
They both nodded.
“Every day?”
More nods.
“I haven’t got time to do that.”
“It’s only 140 characters, Jess,” Matty reasoned.
Noah snorted in disbelief. “Have you seen how long it takes him to get his essays under the word limit?”
“OK,” Jazz said. “What about Instagram? You’re on Instagram, yes?”
I shook my head.
“Have you been living under a rock?”
“No. I’ve been doing GCSEs, then A’ Levels, then my degree.”
“And what? We’re all in the same boat. All right, plan of action…”
I covered my face with my hands. I appreciated they were doing this for me, but it all felt a bit out of my control. Was it too late—or early—to sabotage my own election campaign?
“Hey,” Leigh whispered in my ear.
“Hey,” I said.
“You OK in there?”
I let my hands drop into my lap. “Yeah.”
Leigh smiled and looped their arm through mine, leaning their head against my shoulder. “Sorry about the vodka.”
“Meh. One drink isn’t going to do me any harm, and I know it wasn’t you.”
The tug on the lip stud confirmed I was right, but Leigh wasn’t about to tell tales on Jazz. They tilted their head towards the other three, who were still discussing my plan of action. “Do you need me to step in?”
“W…” I paused, a bit choked up by Leigh’s offer. I could usually hold my own with my friends, but I was feeling ganged up on, and I loved Leigh for noticing. Just loved them, full stop. I changed what I’d intended to say—would you do that for me?—to “No, it’s OK. Thank you, though.”
Leigh sat up straight again; I got it all clear in my mind before I took charge.
“Matty.”
“Yep?”
“I’ll send you my login details for Twitter.”
“OK.”
“You’ll need to coordinate with Jazz, who’s going to start an Instagram account on my behalf.” I turned so I could see her.
She nodded. “Sure thing.”
“Noah…” I studied his face for a moment. “I’m not giving you a job.”
“Why not?”
“We’ve got too much work.”
“Fair enough.”
He didn’t look happy about it, but I wasn’t going to say ‘you’re already well on your way to a breakdown’ in company. I said, “If you can manage to crack a smile when people come over to talk to me…”
Noah gave me the fakest, toothiest grin ever. I shook my head in dismay, as did Leigh, which made us both giggle.
“Seriously, though,” I said, because Noah was still put out, “there’ll be loads of little things that’ll come up. It’d be really good to have your help with those.” Having his support was enough for me.
“Whatever you need, mate.”
“Cheers.” I stopped to have a drink, aware of Noah watching me carefully, whilst Matty and Jazz were already in deep cahoots over their social media strategy. Noah’s thoughts drifted and his eyes lost focus. I looked sideways at Leigh. “Can you think of anything else?”
“Um…leaflets…posters…logo—I can do those if you like?”
“Oh, wow, really? That’d be brilliant.”
“Course!” Leigh beamed. “And—you’re gonna hate this, but…”
“A photo?” I guessed.
“Uh-huh.”
Anxiety burbled in my stomach. I ignored it and focused on my breathing and Leigh’s presence. “I’ll figure it,” I said.
“I believe in you, Jesse.”
I exhaled slowly…
“And I want a copy of that pic.” I turned so I could properly see Leigh’s face. Their smile faded, their eyes…heavy lids, dilated pupils…and their lips… No one had ever looked at me like that before. My God, it was intense.
Wow.
Wow.
Leigh sighed shakily and closed their eyes as they leaned against me again. “This logo…” The words came out as a husky whisper.
“Hmm?” I really wasn’t thinking about logos, and I needed to make some spatial adjustments.
“It might be a silly question, but have you got any thoughts on the colours you want?”
“Ha. Not really.” This was a good distraction. I wriggled in my seat under the guise of getting into a more relaxed position. “Blue’s a bit Tory, isn’t it?”
“Depends on the shade. If we went with a lighter blue with yellow…”
“Yeah, I like that.”
“Cool. I’ll get some rough ideas together before Saturday and send them to you. We can talk about it after the movie.”
“Awesome.” I squeezed Leigh’s arm against my side. “Thank you for being here tonight.”
Leigh kissed my cheek. “It’s where I want to be.”
***
I was dating a creative genius, no exaggeration, and it wasn’t just that Leigh’s designs were professional and stylish. They were…me. It was hard to explain, but it was like Leigh had captured my personality and converted it into colours and shapes. I couldn’t stop looking at them.
The email was waiting in my inbox, nine o’clock Saturday morning; by midday, I reckoned I’d spent about ten minutes working and the remaining two hours and fifty minutes flicking through the nine images Leigh had put together: three logo ideas, a banner, two leaflets, two posters and a sketch of a couple cuddling under a tree. It was kind of abstract and intentionally smudgy, drawn with pastels or coloured pencils. It was the most beautiful picture I’d ever seen. Probably not blue and yellow.
“How’s that introduction coming along?” Mum asked when, at one-thirty, my empty belly drove me to the kitchen. “Oh, Good Lord. Are you still looking at those pictures?”
“Nope,” I lied with a grin and put my phone away.
Mum tutted and started gathering stuff for lunch: chicken risotto. I was so sick of chicken and brown rice. But at least I could have popcorn and Diet Coke at the cinema later and not worry about it. That was the only ‘cheating’ I’d be doing before we went to Cornwall. One week to go… Yes, I was finally excited, and not for the surfing.
“So, do I get to meet Leigh at some point?” Mum asked me over lunch.
“Yeah, totally. Have we got to do an official introduction?”
“Well, I was thinking, if it suits you both, you could invite Leigh to join us at your grandma’s tomorrow.”
I’d been joking about the official introduction, but apparently, that was how we were going to play it. There again, it might be better than meeting my mum on her own. I still recalled the inquisition she’d subjected Noah to the first time he came over, and he was only a mate—I think it was a side effect of her job rather than any malice on Mum’s part. My grandma was much more easy-going. She’d give anyone a fair chance if they ‘had a kind heart’.
Once lunch was eaten and the dishes were done, I went back to my room and got down to some serious work. I was using my mum’s laptop; she’d only had it for a few months and it was for work mostly, although when I started the web browser, I discovered it was logged in to Facebook. Rather than log her out, I used it to deter me from wasting time online, which ultimately meant I was on Facebook on my phone instead. Out of curiosity, I went on Twitter and nearly dropped my phone in surprise. All those tweets! All those followers!
I’d spent most of the previous day drafting a full manifesto, which I’d sent to Leigh, but I’d forgotten to send it to Jazz and Matty. However, he’d obviously got hold of a copy of my nomination form and had typed out each bullet point, word for word. He was responding to people, too, which was above and beyond what I’d expected. He’d have made a brilliant official inclusion officer. He knew his stuff and had a great way with people. I sent him a direct message to say thanks for his hard work. If I’d had to deal with all that twittering, I wouldn’t have been able to focus on anything else. Ha, like I’d got much work done with Leigh’s artwork there to distract me. I was kind of marking time until our cinema trip, anyway.
We’d booked VIP tickets for a six o’clock showing—I couldn’t remember what we were going to see. Our criteria had been family or comedy movie that finished before the last bus back to the farmhouse. When it was Noah and me, he’d usually stayed at mine after a night out. After Matty moved into the farmhouse, it would’ve meant getting a taxi, which was too expensive, so we worked around bus times instead.
If it had just been the two of us this evening—Leigh and me—I might’ve asked my mum if Leigh could stay—they could have had my bed and I’d have slept on the sofa. I wouldn’t have been sneaking into my room in the middle of the night, either, despite how often I was getting caught up in fantasising about what it would be like to do more than kiss—pity I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm for my dissertation. But we needed to talk about it first, figure out how we both felt, if it was what we wanted…and if Leigh would mind doing it in the dark. Maybe I could get drunk first. No, that wasn’t a good idea.
And I still hadn’t finished that introduction!
I gave up on the pretence of work and went for a shower, trying to figure out what to wear while I was in there…and wondering what Leigh would be wearing…and then trying really hard not to wonder what Leigh would be wearing, because there was no lock, and my mum was in the room next door, and I wasn’t a teenager anymore, and should I really be thinking these things about Leigh right now? Alas, resisting temptation had never been my strong point, and the pictures in my head got the better of me.
I stepped out of the shower slightly giddy and lightheaded, and had to use the bathroom mirror so I could see what I was doing with the clippers, or I’d have taken my ear off.
Ugh. Damn chipmunk cheeks. I blew them out and then slapped them to expel the air. It escaped my lips with a loud farting noise. This was exactly why I avoided mirrors, although…
“What the hell?” I smoothed my right eyebrow, released. Ping! A stray hair stuck out like a cat’s whisker. I licked my finger and tried again. My brain provided a cartoon sound effect—doy-oy-oy-oing—and the hair sprang free of the spit glue. Whether we were going to be sitting in the dark for two hours or not, that really wouldn’t do.
“Mum? Can I borrow your tweezers, please?”
“Yes,” she agreed warily, because I wasn’t good at returning things to their rightful homes. “Dressing-table drawer.”
I went to fetch them, briefly catching my reflection again in the large dressing-table mirror before I shut my eyes. I refused to torture myself today and returned to the much smaller mirror in the bathroom, where I plucked out the errant hair, stifling the accompanying yelp, and blindly darted into my mum’s room to put the tweezers back.
“Did you have a splinter?” she called.
“No. Weird eyebrow hair.”
“Goodness!” She was outside the door as I emerged from her room. “It must be serious.” She looked very amused.
I didn’t respond, or not beyond blushing, and dodged around her to reach my own room, mulling over what she’d said while I got dressed. It wasn’t as if I’d never engaged in personal grooming before, just…not to the same extent.
I’d also thought a lot about the whole diet and weight thing since Leigh told me they liked me as I was. They probably wouldn’t have cared about my eyebrow tentacle, either, but I did. I wanted to look the best I could so Leigh wouldn’t feel ashamed of being seen out with me. OK, I knew, conceptually, they wouldn’t feel that way, but did that mean I shouldn’t make an effort in all the ways that were possible?
“I’m off, Mum. See you later.”
“All right, love. Don’t forget to ask Leigh about tomorrow.”
“I won’t.”
“You look very handsome.”
I paused in the doorway. “Thanks, Mum.” I wasn’t feeling it this evening, but I thought, overall, I was maybe winning the fight.
* * * * *