Chapter Twenty-Six Soundtrack: FU In My Head by Cloudy Jane

Somehow he is already charming my friends, and while I would once have found this insincere—and yes, it's a little annoying that they're so much more charmed by him than by me—I now find it a little endearing. It seems like he can't enter a room without working it.

'Sorry to interrupt.' I insert myself into the small group: Nas, my university friend Tom, his new girlfriend Alicia, and a former colleague Sierra. I'm between Nas and Mei, and I try not to notice how he turns slightly towards me, opening up, like I could lean against him if my feet ached. I do not succeed in not noticing.

'Mei, this is Nasir, my colleague. He hates me.'

He laughs. 'Hi, Mei.'

'Nasir, this is my best friend Mei. She hates men.'

'Someone has to.'

Nas extends his hand. 'Thanks for your service.'

'You're Nas?' Mei asks, as though she didn't have a shirtless poster of him in her pre-teen bedroom.

'Uh huh.'

She looks at him appraisingly. 'I get it.'

'Get what?' His expression tells me he already knows.

'Oh-kay,' I say, mentally preparing to kill her. 'I think that's enough introductions.'

'Tom was just telling us about his crypto investments,' Nas helpfully informs us. I can physically feel him trying not to roll his eyes. It's like his body is tensing up with the temptation. 'And then he was listing the tech founders he admires.'

Tom is my friend, but he is also an asshole.

Mei thinks so too. 'Oh, really Tom? That's great. Any women?'

Tom stutters, and shoots her a look clearly signalling 'Don't embarrass me in front of my new girlfriend.' Mei ignores this look.

'No? Any women you admire at all?'

He hesitates. 'Hilary Clinton?'

'The war criminal?'

'Okay,' I interject, 'let's wrap that up too.'

'Careful, Ellie,' Sierra cautions me. 'That almost sounded like criticising someone.'

I am about to defend myself—just to prove a point—when Mei cuts me off. 'Ellie loves to criticise. Just ask Nas.' The look she shoots me is so pointed that I nearly laugh. Subtlety has never been Mei's strength.

Luckily, Sierra is too tipsy to decode this. 'Ellie? Criticising? You're deathly allergic to pineapple, and you once downed two and a half pineapple daiquiris at my birthday party because you didn't want to hurt my flatmate's feelings. We had to rush you to hospital, remember?'

Well, this has not gone how I expected. 'I am not deathly allergic to pineapple,' I protest, 'and we did not go to hospital.'

'No, but we should have. Your whole face swelled up. Like a pufferfish.'

I am used to this teasing from them, but it feels different with Nas here. Personal.

Alicia cuts in. 'I think it's a good thing, arguing. You only argue when you feel safe. Okay, well Ellie does, anyway. Not you, Tom. With you, the challenge is getting you to stop arguing.'

Tom starts to argue.

Why is Nas being so quiet? Nas is never this quiet. It's ominous.

I sneak a peek to find him biting his lip, literally, like he's having to physically restrain himself from laughing. It warms his eyes, behind his glasses, and brings up that dimple he tries to hide. It's hard not to smile back.

'Don't you think, Ellie?' Tom is asking me, about... Tom is asking me about something.

Now Mei is trying not to laugh, too. 'Don't you think that jealousy is normal?' she whispers to me. 'That's what we're talking about.'

I don't care about this at all. 'I don't really get jealous.'

'Sitting on the fence again,' Sierra teases, just as Mei snorts and says, 'You're notorious for jealousy,' and Nas asks, 'Are you?' and I elbow Mei, hard, and say, 'Never,' and Nas offers to top up my drink. So this has gone terribly.

'So,' Tom says as Nas walks away. 'He's nice.'

'He's my enemy.'

'Are all of your enemies at your house parties?'

I look pointedly at him. 'More and more.'

'Because he clicks his pen a lot at work, right? That's what you said last time. Kind of a weird thing to notice.'

'I notice everything he does. And everything he does annoys me.'

'Slightly obsessive, don't you think?'

'We're obsessed with annoying each other.' What is this, a cross-examination?

'Hmm,' Tom says. 'Sure, that sounds normal.' Mei is keeping her thoughts to herself, which is never a good thing.

It's even worse when she chimes in, a moment later, asking, 'You know Tina at my work?'. My stomach drops.

'The one with the shitty boyfriend?' I ask.

'Not anymore. She finally dumped him. I might set her up with Nas.'

'What? Why?'

She grins at my completely calm, not-at-all-stressed questions. 'Why not?'

'Because...' Why? 'Because Nasir's awful. Do you hate her?'

'At least he's hot.' I can't argue with this. 'Does he like brunettes?'

I resist observing that he likes anyone who's breathing, and instead glance at the extremely gorgeous, extremely brunette woman with him, who is now twirling her finger around the top of an empty beer bottle. 'He's already got a date.'

Mei looks at me like I'm speaking another language. 'Riiiight.' Then her eyes widen, slightly, and she smiles. 'Right. Well, I'm not sure that's a love connection. You wouldn't care, right? If I set him up with Tina?'

Tina. What kind of stupid name is Tina?

My fists tighten.

Oh my God. I've become a misogynist. I'm now wondering if a woman is attractive enough for a man—a woman I don't even know—for Nas. Nas, who I hate.

Well, not hate, but definitely don't like. Alcohol has brought out a new side to me, but I won't let it linger. Tina can have him if she wants him. I will applaud Tina for it.

'Course not.' In my opinion, this sounds casual and cool. It does not sound like someone has released a starling in the space behind my sternum and let it flap there, rustling against my heart, feathering my throat, which is closer to how I feel. Explaining that feeling would seem like I cared. And I don't care.

Thank God, Sierra is too drunk, because it's finally enough to pull Mei's observant gaze away from me. Alas, the consequence of that drunkenness is her breaking my TV as she attempts to backflip across my carpet, and her loafers catch the stand and pull the entire thing on top of her. She isn't hurt, I discover, as I check her vision for a concussion, but I can't say that for the TV, which is bent down the middle where it hit the coffee table and is emitting a low, mechanical groan. The screen flickers once, then dies. Sierra is soon taken off my hands by Nas, who offers her some water and an Uber home—nice—and Mei, who scolds her for ruining my evening—less nice, and also untrue. I'm still having a good evening, which is only slightly ruined by Nas's mystery woman leaning against the counter beside me and sighing loudly.

'Sorry, this must all seem a bit mad,' I tell her.

'Does it?' she asks. 'This is kinda tame.' Okay, so she's used to wilder parties.

I revert to small talk. I'm good at small talk. 'How do you know Nasir?'

'I'm his cousin. I'm staying in town this week and I guess he didn't want to ditch me tonight. Not that I'm not having fun. I'm having so much fun.'

She misinterprets my enormous smile, but I don't care. 'So nice to meet you,' I tell her, and I mean it this time. 'Help yourself to another drink.'

*

i saw the eras tour on friday!! it was so surreal and i'm still floating on cloud nine... fearless was the first album i ever bought and taylor was the soundtrack to my adolescence, so it felt like healing my inner child. have you seen it?