Longshot - catfish and the bottlemen

51 - Bella

I always take myself down to the staff room during the lunch hour, mainly because Liz gets up to a lot at the weekend for a 68 year old woman so I always enjoy hearing about her weekends. Van should be here in about 5 minutes, just before Lottie comes in which gives him enough time for a chat with Liz, she's always rambling on about how much she wants to meet him. I told Liz what I was doing with Lottie, just to make sure it was okay and she said it was fine, I'm glad. My phone vibrates on the table, it's a text from Van saying he's outside so I excuse myself from the staff room and wander down to meet Van outside.

"This is a nice place, I didn't even hear you get up in the morning by the way" He says, following me inside and inspecting every inch of the building.

"Didn't want to waken you" I smile back, turning to face him before we go inside the staff room. "This is Liz, she's my boss, she's 68 and every since I told her you were in a band she's been listening to yous non stop, she's always wanted to meet you" Van smiles before nodding towards the door, signalling for me to go in.

It's just Liz sitting there alone with her cuppa between her hands but she erupts into a small cheer when she sees Van enter the room behind me. Immediately she springs to her feet to give him a hug which he returns with a massive grin. Liz steps back to give Van a proper look and then turns to me, flashing me a wink which makes us both laugh.

"Isabella he's even more gorgeous in person, I hope you're taking care of my Bella, Van" She says, pointing s finger at Van as if I'm one of her kids but she's treated me like one of her own since I started working here.

"Course I am, love of my life she is" Van replies, putting an arm round my shoulder which makes Liz look at us like her grandchildren.

"You two look like a bloody married couple. Anyway Bella you've got Lottie waiting in the office and I'm off to one of my own, sorry I couldn't stay longer Van but you take care of her yeah" Liz gives us both a little hug before jetting off away to her room.

I make Van aware of the plan, I'm going to text him to come in to my office when me and Lottie start talking about them. Once he's clear I walk down to greet Lottie, in the front office and less her through into my room. She looks much more happier and alive today which is a good sign, I'm do see a lot of myself in her but Lotties come much further than I have, I'm well proud of her and that's why I've got Van in. One we get through our usual introduction she jumps straight into the conversation of music,

"Did you watch he catfish and the bottlemen concert last night? The arena place had it live streamed and it looked so good" She asks, showing me how to find it on YouTube which makes me chuckle.

"I did see it yeah, my boyfriend was there" As soon as I mention the word boyfriend she perks up a bit, loving all the gossip with my life. I don't mind sharing it with her because it lets her open up to me when I do it too.

"What does he look like? Most boys that listen to that type of music at my school dress like wanna be Van Mcanns but you must have better taste than that?" I don't think she realises how funny she can be, she doesn't even mean it but she's just so blunt with what she says sometimes.

"He's in the office just now, d'you want to see him? He plays the guitar and the piano as well" Lottie nods her head so I text Van to come down. Van steps in, closing the door behind him and Lottie literally freezes in her chair but she soon looks at me in disbelief.

"Is he your boyfriend?" She asks pretty bluntly, we burst out into laughter and Van it's down across my desk next to her.

The next hour passes so quickly, it's so nice seeing lottie talk so confidently infront of Van because normally she'd struggle to talk to someone new, let alone one of her idols but Vans so lovely to her. I should really bring him here every day to some of the other people I see. I just thought it would be nice to have Van here on Lotties last Monday session. She's gotten so much better that now she only comes once a month and for someone who was determined there was no getting better, she's done incredibly well. Me and Van both see her off out the door into the car that picks her up. At school she has a hard time but nobody from her schools hung out with Van so she's got one up on them all now.

Once I tidy my room back up me and Van disappear off to the car, I was letting Van drive because he had planned this whole date thing for the fact we would've been going out for 6 years of we didn't finish. I think he just wants to make up for it because I know it haunts him but he made up for it the day he asked me to be his girlfriend again so I really didn't mind. I managed to convince him to let me go home and change though, he was wearing a white shirt and jeans and the white shirt only comes out when we're going someone fancy.

All I do is throw on a summer dress with my doc martens and a leather jacket, not too fancy or too casual because Van wasn't telling me where we were going but I know it's not going to be some 5 star chefs restaurant because that's not us. We'd never go out to one of those places cause it's got no real meaning to us. Sure they must have good food but so do all these little restaurants on the beach we grew up on. Thankfully Van parks on the beach front, across the road from some of the little restaurants.

When I'm out the car he reaches for my hand and guides me across the road into a small Italian place. I'm pretty sure we came here on our second or third date but got ambushed by the lids. Probably because we both told them we didn't actually have feelings for each other but they'd always catch us out alone, they knew better anyway.