"I'm serious. I'm not ready to settle down. Fuck that."
He's smiling again. Ellis and I have made a habit of coming out for drinks every Friday after work. We sit at one of the many pubs downtown and have a few casual drinks. It's never anything more than that. It feels like we're always on the brink of doing something crazy, but one of us usually calls it quits when the night is about to take a turn.
I, for one, am in the mood to go nuts tonight. We have testing all week at work and I need a release. I don't really know if Ellis is down for that. After our few meetups I've gotten the feeling there is more to him than he's letting on. Like a Hyde under the Jekyll. And I'm waiting to see what he's like when he lets loose.
"Don't you know that girl?" he asks, and I turn to see a familiar British blonde at the bar with another girl.
"Barely. That's the girl at the party the night you and I first saw each other here."
"That's what I thought. Why don't you invite her over?" he asks. My gaze lingers on him for a moment. I can’t tell if he's trying to wingman or if he wants her for himself. But the thought of trying to land this girl in front of him has me feeling inadequate again. Don't fuck this up, Nash.
Grabbing what's left of my drink and throwing it back, I feel the burn down my throat as I walk over to where Britta is sitting with her friend. Softly I rest a hand on her back before she notices me, and when she turns around, her eyes light up.
"Nash!" Her arm snakes its way around my waist before she introduces me to her friend whose name I don't even catch. After a short moment of small talk, I point toward the table where Ellis is sitting, and both of the girls freeze for a moment. Even I can appreciate how he looks like a god under the dim lighting with his arm resting against the back of the seat and looking as if he doesn't have a care in the world.
"Come join us," I tell them.
Britta looks at her friend with intensity and they seem to have a silent conversation with just their eyes before they both smile my way. As we make our way over, I notice the way Britta instantly takes the seat next to Ellis, leaving her friend to sit next to me.
Ellis is a smooth mother fucker. He puts his arm behind Britta, compliments her, finds ways to touch her without it being creepy and I'm too busy eating it all up to even pay her friend any attention. During a quiet moment I do have the good sense to catch her name, Alyssa, and she tells me a little bit about her job and how she's from Canada, but the conversation runs dry, and after a few more rounds of drinks, all of which she skips on, it becomes glaringly obvious she's not feeling it. A little after midnight she makes an excuse about needing to work in the morning and leaves.
Britta stays. None of us are really drunk, but we're far from sober. So, when Ellis suggests we take the party back to his apartment, a wave of nervous excitement manages to make its way past all of the beer and gin into my bloodstream. Should I bow out? Leave her for him? I don't exactly feel like a third wheel, and he did look at me as he asked it.
Fuck it. When we get up to leave, I stick with them, walking together to Ellis’s place which isn’t far.
Of course, Ellis lives in a beautiful fucking apartment outside the city center. It's not huge, and it's more of a row house squeezed between a collection of other apartments.
Once inside, he puts on some music and pours us all more drinks. I find myself staring out the window toward the canal in front of his house when Britta joins me. Ellis is somewhere else in the house for a moment when she whispers to me, "I can't believe I'm really here."
I laugh. "Why?"
When she looks at me, there's a hint of humor in her eyes. "You really don't know what he's like, do you?"