the flatmate of my flatmate’ s friend. We got on well enough that when he told me he was going to a pre’ s, he didn’ t have a problem inviting me. This worked out nicely. Two double vodka coke’ s for eight quid, then I could head home and watch the end of 30 Rock. What I didn’ t expect was to meet Zara. She was everything to everyone. Everyone wanted to speak to her because she was cool, she wasn’ t at uni, she had dropped out to get a job working on film sets. She had no reason to pay me any attention. But we had what I can only call chemistry, in that she liked my accent, and I liked her attention. Even better, I got so drunk I actually knew how to talk to her.
The one downside being I’ ve forgotten most of what happened. To this day I’ ll never know what happened in the photo booth. She kept the pictures. Anything could have been on them. But the one bit I do remember is conveniently the best bit of the story. It all comes back to Danny. Chekov’ s Danny. He invited me out of politeness, and props to him he seemed happy I was there. But no good things are allowed to happen to me. The adrenaline rush of being around people who seemed to like me, meant my one liners were off the scale, and things got so far that they were even at the expense of people. Mainly him. The best one was when we were all desperate to leave, and he was telling us a boring anecdote with a painfully obvious punchline about a sonogram. The power of alcohol gave me the confidence to say to his face:“ Danny, it’ s time to do what you do best with that story and finish early! Coats on everyone, time we were off.”
The rest of the night I continued on that high. We wound up at the pub Red House Farm, maybe the last traditional pub left in the world, with sticky floors, and that special pungent smell only brandless pubs know the secret of how to make. By this point me and Zara had already been flirting, and the chemistry was off the scale. The smell of the pub had become so overpowering, we were sitting in the beer garden. It was warm enough to sit in, but you could see our breath in the air which only added to the atmosphere.
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