the punchline his audience collapsed, once more, into flirtatious giggles. One of the women, holding her throat as she tipped her head back, made eye contact with Daniel as she regained her composure. She held it for a moment, pointedly, and then just as quickly looked away.
‘You’ll be popular with the only person who matters, though,’ Gaby said. ‘The woman of the hour should be here any minute. She was going to walk from the office to get her steps in.’
‘Very sensible,’ said Daniel, not sure of what else to say. The pair stood, suspended in the awkwardness of not really knowing each other, and not really in the mood to feign wanting otherwise. Drink. He decided on drink. ‘I’m going to go to the bar – can I get you anything?’
‘No, no,’ Gaby said. ‘I just need to go say hi to someone over there. ‘I’ll come find you in a minute. I’m so glad you came.’
Daniel held up his hand in Lorenzo’s direction, as if guzzling an imaginary pint, the universal sign for ‘Do you want another?’ Lorenzo held up his empty glass in response, the universal sign for ‘Yes, I do!’
It was four or five drinks later when Daniel realized he’d somehow, at some point, draped his arm around a woman’s bare shoulders, and that it had dropped to dusk outside. Gaby had never come back to introduce him to anyone – in fact, he hadn’t seen her in ages. But it didn’t matter. He’d had his second pint to steady his nerves, and his third because the second had tasted so good. Once the penny dropped that there wouldn’t be a big introduction to a stranger to navigate, he supped at the pint Lorenzo handed him a bit later too. He was accidentally quite drunk by then, and hadn’t really said much as he’d continued to watch Lorenzo’s performance to his audience of admirers – but he hadn’t needed to. He knew his role when it was the two of them out together: in the handful of times they’d gone to a bar Daniel often became the silent one, which, he’d been told by women more than once, made him seem brooding and mysterious.
That was laughable to him – not least because they’d all have no idea he was tipsy instead, not brooding – and his mum would soon set anyone who thought that of her son straight, but on occasion it had worked in his favour. The woman he’d made eye contact with earlier on had continued to catch his eye across the group of them, eventually leaning in as he headed to the bar again to say, ‘Order me a large red, would you?’ He’d looked at her and nodded. She was pretty. He was thinking about what the dating guide had said about having options, about not putting one person at the centre of your affections, about shopping around to take the pressure off. It was around that time he’d put his arm around her.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said to him, not long after, hot and breathy in his ear. Daniel looked at her. Somehow, they had peeled off from the group and were pressed into a corner together. Her hand was suddenly on his chest, the flat of her palm cool against the cotton of his shirt. He knew if he looked down, she’d be looking up at him and it would be an invitation to kiss. She was offering to go home and have sex with him.
In another life, ten years ago – five years ago! Or, to be frank, even last year – he would have said yes. He would have taken her home and had sex and seen her for a few dates afterwards, both of them trying to make the pieces of themselves fit, even if they didn’t. But after his dad, he knew life was too short to waste it on people he wasn’t crazy about.
‘Sorry. I …’ he began, taking his arm off from around her.
The girl looked disappointed, but also undeterred. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
‘No,’ Daniel said.
‘Because I don’t kiss and tell …’ the girl continued, stepping closer to him again. Daniel put his hands on hers to lift them off his stomach, where she’d lightly rested them in a way that was, Daniel wasn’t so drunk as not to notice, quite nice.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, firmly, and to her credit the girl simply shrugged and walked off.