boyfriend, Rory – and her, er, Alex,” Nadia introduced on cue.
“Nice to meet you,” Caro said, politely but dismissively. “Good quizzing,” she congratulated, before turning back to Nadia. “Are you coming?”
In response Nadia looked at Alex, expectantly; she really did want them to come, he realised. And why shouldn’t he go? It wasn't as if he had big plans for this evening. Besides, it felt very much as though the universe was telling him that he and Nadia Osipova were meant to be friends. He opened his mouth to accept.
“Another time maybe, girls?” Rory answered before he could. “We haven’t partaken of a tray of shots yet. Apparently it’s only a tenner here!” Nadia looked back at Alex, as if he might countermand Rory.
“Yeah, another time,” he echoed.
“Okay.” Nadia rose to her feet, her expression slightly disappointed. “I suppose an eight-quid cocktail can’t compete with a tray of discount shots,” she granted.
Holly stood too, seeing off the last dregs of her glass of wine as she did. “Great meeting you guys.” She smiled at them, teeth extra white against her red wine-stained lips. “Thanks for being excellent quiz-team companions.”
“We should do it again,” Nadia said, sincerely, as she zipped up her bag, still looking at Alex as if she was expecting him to say something.
“See you around,” Rory said cheerfully. And then, just as quickly and randomly as she’d entered his life, Nadia waved at him and left it.
Alex
The fourth Jagerbomb was sitting rather sourly in Alex’s stomach. Across the table, Rory had his face pressed into the space between Lila’s neck and shoulder, making her giggle and squirm against him. The PDA between them always got worse when they’d been drinking; Alex looked away.
The chair that Nadia had been sitting on had long been pinched by an opportunistic bar patron, dragged off to another table, but the empty space there remained, looming large between him and his friends, who – quite frankly – wouldn’t exactly be missing him if he had gone to Bison & Bird after all. As if to illustrate this point, Lila drew her body slightly back from Rory’s and murmured something meant only for him to hear, her bottom lip grazing his earlobe – not that Alex could have heard her over the noise of the bar anyway. Rory listened to his girlfriend patiently, smiled and moved his head to kiss her again as she finished speaking. Alex had watched Lila be kissed like that so many times by now he almost fancied he knew exactly how it felt.
Distracting himself from that maddening chain of thought, Alex pulled his mobile from his pocket and swiped the touch screen with his thumb to wake it. He tapped his fingers against its frame. Surely some of his old mates would be out doing something, somewhere in this great wide city? He scrolled through his contacts list – past old uni friends and colleagues and people whose surnames he only knew because they were linked through his Facebook app – looking for someone suitable to text. Nobody jumped out at him. He guessed he'd spent a lot of time hanging around with just Rory and Lila over the past year, and as a result he’d sort of dropped out of general circulation. Going through his phone was highlighting this rather painfully, and Alex suddenly wasn’t entirely sure whether watching Lila get kissed had been worth giving up the remnants of his social life for. He had to get the hell out of here.
The last two Jagerbombs sat between them on their sticky plastic tray, Lila having abstained, meaning he and Rory had been left with five each. Alex stood and reached for one; Rory and Lila didn’t budge from one another’s faces as he downed it purposefully, the combination of alcohol and energy drink streaming stupidity down through his body. He reached for the last one; that got Rory’s attention.
“Hey,” he protested, still half-pressed to Lila’s throat. “S’mine.” Alex did the final shot even faster than he’d done the one before and brought the empty doubles glass back down to the table top with a satisfying clatter.
“I’m off,” he said, without preamble.
Rory’s eyebrows creased together. “You’re off?” he repeated.
“Hang on a minute and we’ll come home with you, then,” offered Lila, reaching underneath the table with her foot for her handbag.
“Oh no, I’m not going home. I’m just going to meet up with some mates.” Alex waved his mobile phone as if to give the impression that it was crammed full of texts from exciting people inviting him exciting places. “Catch up with you guys tomorrow,” he said, before Rory and Lila could invite themselves along to his fictitious evening. “Have a good rest of the night.”
“Alex,” Rory called after him. Alex didn’t turn back, but somehow he could still picture his friends' incredulous expressions.
When he arrived outside on the pavement, the fresh air immediately washed some of the Jagerbomb impulsivity away; Alex swore under his breath. Now what? He couldn’t go home for a while after what he’d just said. There probably were friends in his phone book who’d be pleased (if a little nonplussed) to see him, but latching himself on to them just felt a little too much like that same old third-wheel lie.
Moving carefully around the groups of drunken merrymakers, the queues at the bus stops and snaking out of small fried-chicken shops, Alex steadfastly picked his way down the high street in the opposite direction from the bus stop to his flat. He slowed as he saw the neon sign for the Bison & Bird cocktail bar glowing in the distance like the answer that he was searching for. It had been about an hour. Surely they’d have moved on by now? Maybe it was worth checking it out. Or was he being a tad stalkery?
But he couldn't shake that sliding-doors feeling. Nadia had been so friendly. And nice. And really rather pretty. And wasn't life meant to be about taking chances – or something like that?
Being a lone guy, he had to queue for a couple of minutes whilst the bouncer waved small groups of half-dressed women in ahead of him. Then he was ID-ed for good measure. Finally, feeling markedly insignificant, he was waved through to the darkness of the bar beyond.
Bison was a long and narrow space, all done in dark, shiny wood with rows upon rows of bottles and optics gleaming on their backlit shelves behind the bar, harried-looking bartenders rushing between them. Alex looked for the paleness of Nadia’s hair in the darkness, but the open space in front of him had become an impromptu dance floor and he couldn’t see beyond the mass of whirling people. Doggedly he pushed through the dancers to reach the booths at the back of the room. A brunette in a red dress grabbed his hand and made him spin her around as she laughed, startling a laugh out of him too. Released by his impromptu partner, Alex moved into the clearer space beyond the dancers, still smiling. The energy drink and the bass from the DJ’s speakers felt as if it was drumming in his blood, making him feel as though he could do anything, be anyone, and as if, for once, he was meant to be exactly where he was.
He clocked Nadia almost immediately, standing out in the gloom with her blonde hair and sky-blue dress. She opened her mouth and he could almost hear her laugh over the boom of the music track. The guy she was with was tall – taller even than Rory – and fair-haired, with the sort of artful stubble that would make Alex look as if he was homeless. The guy bent and spoke leisurely into Nadia’s ear, touching one of his hands to her hip in a proprietary way. And just like that, the evening’s buzz left his veins, and Alex was just the third wheel once again.
Nadia
The guy’s Russian was so appalling, Nadia couldn’t help but laugh.
“Zdravstvyite,” she sounded-out the word for him.
“Zurdraztevee,” he repeated into her ear, causing her to laugh again.
“How long ago did you say this holiday to St Petersburg