Skip to main content

Friendly Drinks - Part 2: Rendezvous

Ok, so what now? The train is quite literally leaving the station. And so am I.

I’ve been thinking about this meeting for, like, the last five days now. I’ve been trying to decide what I want to say to him for five fucking days and here I am, closing on these turnstiles, still as clueless as I was when...oh shit...where did I put that ticket?

Right, this is going to take a more thorough search than first thought so let’s move out of this queue. Don’t you sigh at me, you dick. How much of a hurry can you possibly be in that this six second delay to your day has put you out? Especially since you cruised up the escalators, you fat prick.

God I hate digging through this thing. How much of the crap in this handbag do I ever even use? Better safe than sorry I suppose. Oh, there it is. Right where I’ve never once put it before. That makes sense. I didn’t even know it had that pocket.

Ok, take a breath, calm yourself, regain your composure. You’re back on street level now and the pub’s just round here - but I’ll just take a seat for a second. There’s no rush. He’s probably not even there yet and this is definitely not a scenario I want to approach without sufficient nicotine in my system.

Light, draw deep, exhale slowly...it’s not helping, not even a little bit.

How did I get myself into this situation? How do I always seem to get myself into this situation? I like him - that’s not even the issue, of course I like him - but...but there’s always that ‘but’.

If only we could just go back, go back to when we just liked each other. Before...

‘You got a light, sweetheart?’

‘Uh, yeah, sure.’

This is as good a time as any to head on. I get my lighter back and head round the corner. There it is. Just head right in there now, suck it up.

It’s not too busy, shouldn’t be too hard to...there he is. And he’s spotted me. No way out now. Do I want a way out?

His eyes are wide and he actually gulped as he stood up to greet me. Good grief, who gulps nowadays outside of cartoons? God, he really can be adorable every now and then. I kiss him and step back, his voice cracks slightly;

‘Hi’ he warbles.

Ok, deep breath. Here goes.

Read part one here

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Timmy the Inquisitive Gopher

There once was a young gopher named Timmy whose bright, eager eyes saw nothing but beauty everywhere he looked. He had an insatiable thirst for knowledge and loved nothing more than to go for long walks with his mother, discovering more and more about the forest. One day, because Timmy had been very good and had kept his room nice and tidy, Timmy’s mother agreed to take him on a walk. Timmy was overjoyed and practically dragged his mother away as they said goodbye to papa and set off from their den. As they walked, the young gopher chattered at his mother with a seemingly endless stream of questions about the oaks and the dandelions, the butterflies and the reeds. He eventually broke away from his mother who, weary of being tugged this way and that by her excitable little boy, let him go with a quiet warning to stay where she could see him. Deeper and deeper into the forest they went, Timmy scampering gleefully back and forth around the comfortable amble of his mother. He would run to...

Full HD

Ted could hardly believe his luck when he spotted the camcorder at the car boot sale. He'd been keeping an eye out for a Full HD device for months and had seen the Acorn H3 on a couple of websites. It had always been way beyond his price range but suddenly there it was, sat innocuously between a grimy TV/VCR combo plastered with Alf stickers and a tattered and sun-faded VHS Thorn Birds box set. A Post-It note had been taped to the side of the camcorder with one hastily scrawled word. "Defective". "What’s wrong with it?” he asked the woman stood behind the table. She leaned in closer to Ted and brought with her the sharp aroma of cheap perfume coupled with a musty tendril of last night’s wine. “What’s that, sweetheart?” “The camcorder. What’s wrong with it?” She looked at him blankly for a moment and then followed his gesture. “Oh that,” she said pursing her lips in distaste, “that thing never did work right. My Dale was forever fiddling with the damned thing, sayin...