school or when you start a new job and you have that new-girl feeling when you’ve missed the boat a little bit. I watch as Alex, Emma and Becky make themselves fajitas from the food laid out on the table.
‘Dig in, Jess,’ Becky says, shoving the bowl of guacamole towards me.
I’m still reeling a bit from the unexpected handsomeness of Alex, and trying not to look at him. Except I can’t help taking a sneaky look when I think he won’t notice, and he glances in my direction and our eyes meet and I think that there’s a very strong possibility that I might inadvertently shout ‘PHWOAR’ by mistake because really he is very handsome indeed and the other two seem to be completely oblivious.
Becky’s telling a story about something that happened at work and the two of them are listening and laughing. Becky’s always been the most sociable of my university friends. We met in fresher’s week and we’ve been friends ever since. I studied English lit, she studied law, but whereas I left and found myself back in Bournemouth working for a perfectly nice, safe little marketing company, and ensconced in a relationship with Neil, Becks headed to London where she got a job with a law firm and started working her way up the ladder. And then it all went slightly pear-shaped for me back home, and it turned out to be a (mostly) good thing and now, I still can’t believe that this – I look out the window at the rainy street below, cars splashing past and the streetlights lighting everything with an orange glow – is my new life.
I let the evening wash over me for a while, and because they’re all so chatty, nobody really notices that I’m not saying much. Emma hands me a drink. She’s still in work clothes – very neat in expensive-looking boots and a shirt dress printed all over with tiny foxes.
‘So. When are you joining us?’ she asks.
She’s very formal, I think, watching her as I take a sip. Alex and Becky have whizzed up some sort of pomegranate cocktail with the ice and tequila he brought. It tastes like something you’d drink by the pool, instead of on a rainy December evening in London.
‘Not until after New Year. I’ve got a holiday booked with friends – we’re going skiing.’
‘Ooh, lovely. Christmas skiing.’ She looks impressed.
‘It’s not quite as fancy as it sounds. My friend Gen got a last-minute deal through a contact of hers, so we’re going to Val d’Isère on a coach.’
Gen’s friend – an actor, like her – was working in a call centre for a travel company when the deal had come through. We’d been making promises to each other for years that we’d go skiing again, after a school trip to Andorra a million years ago, and when this came up it felt like the perfect time. As soon as I’d said yes, the prospect of living every moment on a twenty-one-hour-long coach ride had started to pall slightly, but that was a minor detail.
‘Ouch.’ Emma looked sympathetic. ‘That’s a whole day on a coach. Still, it’ll be worth it for all the apres-ski and the gorgeous posh ski totty. You might meet a millionaire.’
I steal a quick look in Alex’s direction, thinking that actually, I’d be quite happy with someone like him, thank you very much, but give Emma a smile of agreement. ‘You never know.’
Becky fiddles with her phone, changing the music. She’s wrapped some silvery Christmas ribbon around her head like a halo, and starts singing along as Michael Bublé begins crooning from the speaker on the shelf above the sink.
‘Oh God, Becks,’ I groan. ‘Do we have to have Bublé again?’
‘It’s Christmas,’ she says, pulling me up by the waist and waltzing me out of the kitchen door and into the hall. She puts a finger to her lips, shushing me before I can protest. The hall is painted an odd shade, somewhere between violet and grey, and hung with a collection of floral paintings that must’ve belonged to Becky’s grandparents. There’s a huge spiky-leaved plant towering over us in the corner by the stairs. I dodge sideways before Becky waltzes me straight into it.
‘What d’you reckon?’ Her voice is an urgent whisper.
‘They seem nice.’ I try to sound non-committal when what I want to know is why on earth she’d omitted to mention that one of our flatmates was ridiculously gorgeous. ‘How’d you know Emma again?’ I