Truth Or Date

I frown.

‘Needles,’ I tell him. ‘Nope.’

‘You’ll only feel a little prick – stop it,’ he snaps at me, before I have the chance to reply with a ‘that’s what she said’.

‘So is that how you spend you free time?’ I ask him.

‘I wouldn’t call it a hobby,’ he replies. ‘But blood donation, platelet donation – what’s twenty minutes or a couple of hours to make a difference?’

I feel my eyes widen with horror.

‘Mate, do you want me bleeding dry or something?’

‘Mate,’ he replies mockingly. ‘It looks like someone beat me to it. You’re looking very pale this morning.’

“Mate” is one of those words that has crept into my vocabulary – something that happens to me all the time with slang words. At first I’ll use words sarcastically, then as in-jokes, then suddenly, that’s it, words like “mate” and “BAE” and “on fleek” are in my day-to-day vocab.

“Mate” is definitely something I have picked up from Millsy, who calls everyone from me to his mum to his doctor it.

Hanging out with Millsy and my brother Woody growing up, I do worry that I’ve turned out “more boy” than I should have. Maybe that’s why I don’t have too many female friends. It’s like when a kitten gets in with a litter of puppies and thinks it’s one of them. It will act just like its adopted siblings, play like a dog, eat like a dog, truly think like a dog and feel like a dog…but at the end of the day, it’s still a cat. I’m a cat amongst the dogs. I find stupid gross-out comedies funny. I swear like a sailor who keeps stubbing his toe on the same bunk bed. I get riled up over football and borderline homicidal when I play FIFA.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have female friends, but I just don’t seem to get on all that well with girls. Sometimes I think they’re ridiculous creatures, especially when it comes to the opposite sex. They have no chill. They’ll text a guy a million times and wonder why he isn’t texting back. Worse still, they’ll sleep with a guy on the first date, thinking it will win him over, only for him to ghost. And what do they do when he ghosts? They decide not to text him for a few days. Because that will teach him, and if he replies, he must be really interested, right? Surely if you’re trying to figure out a guy, it makes more sense to withhold sex instead of text messages?

‘It’s just my hangover,’ I tell him.

‘It’s not taking care of yourself,’ he corrects me. ‘It’s drinking too much, not sleeping enough, thinking you can eat Coco Pops for three meals a day and survive.’

Chapter 6 (#ulink_24e79f61-e31e-59d3-9263-832ce81f2789)

As I hover around outside Millsy’s flat, I take in the stunning view he has, but does not appreciate. Well, I say it’s his flat, but it’s actually his uncle’s. What Uncle Mills actually does, I’ve never quite understood. He travels around the world, teaching doctors a procedure they need for the company’s weird clinical trials. To me, this sounds a little sketchy, but Millsy assures me his uncle is going to “save humanity, or something”. This may or may not be true, but it affords my best friend a gorgeous one-bedroom bachelor pad in a prime location with a stunning view of the River Aire and the Royal Armouries, rent-free.

Sometimes, when Nick is stressing me out, Millsy offers me his (technically his uncle’s) sofa to sleep on, but with the possibility his semi-nomadic uncle could return at any point, he’ll want his bed back, Millsy will get the sofa, and I’ll wind up homeless. Giving up the flat to Nick would be letting him win, and that’s just not on either – also, with the amount of Matcher birds Millsy has slept with in there, I deem his sofa a legitimate pregnancy risk.

I lean on the wooden fence outside his building and glance around. It’s busy, yet weirdly peaceful – you don’t feel like you’re in a city centre. There are people hanging out on the grass because it’s surprisingly warm for October today, having picnics, fishing – it’s a picturesque Saturday lunchtime.

The reason I’m hanging around outside, admiring the Aire & Calder navigational canal (which I know to be its name now, because I just heard a tour guide telling a flock of tourists that’s what it’s called) is because Millsy has a girl in there with him. We’re supposed to be catching the train home to Outwood to visit our parents, but he needs to ‘finish up’ with last night’s bird before we can go – whatever that means.

Bored, I decide to amuse myself. I take a gold wedding band from my handbag and stand it on its side on the fence in front of me. I use a finger to gently twirl it around in circles before channelling every sad thought I’ve ever had: the fact I’ve lost a charm off the Juicy Couture bracelet my parents bought me for my birthday, the end of that film where the dog dies, the fact I’m probably going to die single and alone – shit, that one was a bit real. Anyway, it only takes a few seconds before my sorrowful frown catches the attention of two twenty-somethings walking past.

‘Are you OK?’ the first girl asks. She’s got her long, bright purple hair up in a bun on top of her head, the structure supported by a hair doughnut so big it looks like a burden. Her naturally red-headed friend, who appears equally concerned, looks like she could’ve been an extra in Pretty In Pink, her hairstyle and outfit positively 80s, even though she was probably only alive for a year or two of the decade.

‘I’m fine,’ I tell them. ‘It’s just…I’ve just found out my husband has been cheating on me.’

‘Oh my God, that’s proper rough,’ the first girl says.

‘Totally,’ the second echoes. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out. We’ve only been married a few months – together for ten years though. I don’t think I can live without him.’

The girls stare at me for a moment, fascinated by the seeming collapse of a stranger’s life.

‘You can’t take him back,’ the purple-haired girl tells me. ‘You just can’t. He’ll do it again and again if you do.’

‘You’ve just got to be strong and start again,’ Molly Ringwald wannabe adds.

I think for a second, my expression dominated by a look of faux anguish.

‘You know what,’ I start, my confidence slowly coming back to me. ‘You’re right.’

I pick up the ring from in front of me and examine it for a second before meaningfully throwing it into the river. I watch as the ripples disappear before exhaling deeply.

‘You go, girl,’ the first girl says as they wonder off, the show over. I turn around and watch them head up the steps, noticing that Millsy is standing behind me. He gives me a slow clap as he approaches me.

‘Bravo,’ he praises me. ‘It’s nice to see you’ve still got it in you.’

‘I act for fun, not work,’ I remind him. ‘Anyway, that was too easy.’

‘Great improv. with that ring though,’ he says, leaning on the fence next to me. ‘I would’ve gone all Andy Serkis, giving it “my precious” and all that.’

‘Oh I’m sure that would’ve had those two girls eating out of your hand – speaking of girls and eating out, where’s your bird?’

Millsy wiggles his eyebrows.

‘I got rid when I came out, during your matinee. I reckon I could handle seeing this one maybe one more time, don’t want her meeting you, do I?’

I furrow my brow.

‘Don’t give me that resting bitch face, Miss Wood,’ he laughs. ‘You know you’re a cock-block. Birds see that I’m close with you and run a mile – God knows why. But most blokes seem to find you fit, so we’ve got to keep you out of the way, you know the score.’

The fact Millsy doesn’t want to sleep with me is actually the highest compliment he can pay me, because Millsy only sleeps with girls he doesn’t plan on keeping in his life for very long.

‘They have no need to be jealous,’ I tell him. ‘I know where you’ve been, I won’t even share drinks with you – herpes is for life.’

‘Fuck you! So I had a cold sore last year. One, once. It’s not the same as herpes.’

I laugh as he passionately defends his cold sore, like he always does when I tease him about it. It’s just too easy.

‘OK, sorry.’

‘Right, we going for this train?’ he asks as he zhooshes his messy brown hair.

‘Sure, right after you jump in and get my ring back for me,’ I inform him, staring at him expectantly.

‘What?’

‘My ring. I saw where it landed. That was a real gold one, I threw it by mistake.’

Millsy looks worried sick, the reflex to help his best friend without question doing battle with his aversion to jumping in dirty water and getting his hair wet.