We can only learn to love by loving

Part 3

Shortly after the girl's had left, I decided to call it a day and to make my own way home.

What a day I thought to myself as I entered my apartment. The day couldn't have gone any better, the smiles which were on all the customer's faces and feedback I had received on the opening made my heart feel content. This was exactly what I had dreamed of.

As I scrolled through Netflix to find a series to begin, my mind wandered back to Leah. Normally it takes me a while to warm to somebody, and it's been a long time since I had felt the nervous butterflies which I felt earlier today every time we made eye contact with one another.

Her natural beauty seemed to form an aurora around her, the shyness and lack of confidence made her even more attractive.

Subconsciously, without realising, I found myself searching for her profile on Instagram. As I typed in her name, I seen the top profile with a blue tick next to it, after selecting the page my screen was filled with images of the beautiful blonde. The first image, shown her stood in an England football kit. As I continued to scroll, there were hundreds of images of her in football kits. How did I not realise she played football!? That's when I saw another image with the other blonde girl from earlier, Beth, who was also in a football kit.

I felt so stupid that I didn't even realise who they were, I bet they wondered why I wasn't asking for an autograph or photograph. The thing is though, neither myself nor any of my family members are massively into football. Shocking, I know. My stepdad and brother love rugby, so that seems to be the go-to sport for our family.

Nevertheless, I found myself scrolling down Leah's Instagram page, admiring the pictures of her. I could feel myself smiling when looking at the images of her smiling. God that smile.

I didn't want to seem like a stalker by following her, but in the back of my mind, I was hoping to see her again, sometime soon.

The rest of the week had flown by, business was great. My mum of course, was my number one customer by this point, coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why she needed to 'pop' in. I didn't mind though; I just knew it was because of how proud she is.

My plan for my Friday night was to go home, order a takeaway and help myself to a bottle of wine. That was of course until the group chat started up.

Girl's talk 💅🏻👯❤

Jessica

Mel, get your glad rags on girl, we're going out tonight celebrating!

Mel

Celebrating what?

Bethany

The opening of your new shop of course! And we're not gonna take no for an answer xx

Mel

Can we re-schedule please? I'm absolutely shattered and want to get an early night.

Jessica

Not a chance, we're going into London, we'll come by yours for 7pm so make sure you're ready.

Bethany

With some pre-drinks of course!

Mel

Fine. I'll see you both shortly x

I didn't have the energy to get myself up and ready, let alone go out. But it was quite nice of the girls to want to go out and celebrate. Tomorrow was my day off, so I didn't really have a genuine reason to turn them down.

I loved going out with my 2 best friends, but we were the complete opposites of one another. Despite how good the night was, they would consider it a waste of time if they didn't end the night going home with someone. I on the other hand couldn't think of anything worse, I just didn't think the best place to meet someone was in the middle of a club.

Nevertheless, I took myself off to shower and to begin to get ready.

I now had 10 minutes until I was expecting Beth and Jess to arrive, they told me to wear something classy and so I opted for a deep red dress, which hugged my body in all the right places. The neckline of the dress was low enough to show a little bit of cleavage, but not too low where I might give somebody the wrong impression, I had strappy black heels on and my hair was perfectly straight, I completed the look with red lipstick, to match the colour of my dress.

Just as I made my way to the front room, my buzzer rang, indicating the girls had arrived.

Now the girls were here, and the drinks were flowing, I was excited for what the night would hold. I felt as though I deserved to let my hair down.

Bethany oversaw picking the club tonight, and of course, in true Bethany style, she opted to take up to this new bar in the centre of London where it was old school R&B music. Our favourite. The night was spent with the three of us quickly finishing our drinks and dancing goofily in the middle of the dance floor, as if no one else was around. As we stood at the bar, two guys approached us and they had clearly took a liking to my two best friends as the flirtatious banter. Great, I thought to myself. This will be another night of me 5th wheeling.

Excusing myself, I decided to head to the bathroom. I was slightly tipsy at this point as the alcohol had now started to hit. Maybe downing them drinks earlier wasn't the best idea.

However, I had freshened up and splashed some water on my face to try and sober myself back up.

Making my way back to the bar, my friends were not in the place where I had left them. Instead, I spotted them on the dance floor with the two guys they were flirting with as they were dancing up upon them. A slight chuckle left my mouth as this was standard for these two.

I took a seat on a stool at the bar and decided to order myself another drink. The club was busy and so I was sat waiting a while for the bartender to make his way round to serving me. After the bartender had placed the drink in front of me, I was just about to pay for myself until I felt a whisper in my ear.

"Hey, I'll get that for you."

The feeling of the breath against my neck caused goose bumps to appear across my body. Without turning around, I decided to decline as I was in now mood right now to be hit on by a stranger.

"No thank you I can get it my-"

Just before I could finish my sentence, I felt a hand on my shoulder which gently began to turn around.

Before I was able to say anything else, I looked up to the person standing behind me.

Her blonde hair had been curled, perfectly sitting over the front of her shoulders. The lightly applied mascara making her eyes even more desirable than normal, and her outfit showed off her perfect slender figure.

"Leah?"