1: The Girlfriend Delusion
There's something about love that's inescapable.
It hits you like a shot in the dark that somehow, some place, on some extraordinarily ordinary day, manages to strike the bulls-eye of the target that's your heart.
There's no way of stopping it from hurtling into you at full force, no matter how hard you try to push it away and try your best to step out of the shooting zone, before your whole world is changed forever.
But I suppose I should have known all of that the night that I met Griffin.
*
It was my leaving do.
After three years, I was finally leaving Light My Match (all of us that worked there admitted and agreed freely that the name sounded like a phone sex line or porn network, or something equally as sordid). It was the matchmaking service I had gotten a job at straight out of university, but I was moving onto pastures new, having been offered a place at a PR company situated in the centre of the city. Working somewhere new was going to be a massive change, but I was ready for it.
My work friends had dragged me to a club that Friday evening for my going away party. They were all slowly but surely becoming more and more inebriated as I watched on entertained, a bit tipsy but holding back, because I wanted to remember tonight.
I almost hated to admit it, but I loved drunk people. There was something about them that was carefree and kinder, and when I thought about it, it wasn't often that people were actually all that courteous to me when they were sober. As soon as people used to catch sight of my hair - which had been teal coloured until recently - they seemed to just recoil and run away with their noses wrinkled in disgust ninety-percent of the time.
Actually, I could vividly remember this one time when a child went so far as to burst into tears upon laying eyes on me, and the little bitch ran sobbing into its (that's right, it was an it, not a she) mother's lap, crying, 'THE SEAWEED MONSTER IS GONNA EAT ME!'
It was pleasant. Really good for the self esteem, in fact, especially when the mother had glared at me and started muttering angrily, as if it was entirely my fault for apparently looking like a legit monster. Maybe she should have concentrated more on making sure her child wasn't such a massively judgemental imbecile instead of bitching at me.
Regardless, I had dyed it back to its natural brown before going for my job interview at the new place a month ago, figuring it was finally time to let it go, though I missed it.
Sometimes when I looked in the mirror in the mornings or while I was in the bathroom doing my makeup, I would drag my gaze away from my own and my eyes would flit up towards my hair. The different shades and strands of brown were unfamiliar, as if they belonged to someone who I used to be and couldn't fully recognise. Whenever I imagined myself, it was always with the dark green mess of hair that my best friend Nova used to tell me made me look like a wild mermaid.
'Don't goooo! I'm going to miss you TOO MUCH, la-la-lovely Laina,' Freya yelled over the pounding music of Exult after she danced up to me with a drink in each hand, slinging her arm around my shoulders and smacking a kiss on my cheek, her feathery blonde hair tickling my face. I scrunched up my nose and slid an arm around her tiny waist, her small frame half draped across my lap.
Freya was probably my closest friend at work - although we were all pretty tight-knit - having started working at Light My Match a month after me. The two of us had witnessed the sobbing clients, the pervy clients, and the downright mental clients together, as I interviewed them and made them one of our (not going to lie, bloody genius) dating profiles which had a 97% success rate. She would sit in on the interviews, trying not to snigger or show her occasional disgust at some of the responses clients gave. More often than not, she'd fail and have to excuse herself from the room to stop from either crying with repressed laughter or slugging the client around the head with her chair.
Anyway, the six of us from Light My Match - me, Freya, Cassie, Verity, Benji and Lewis - were sat at a table near the bar when a slightly pained looking stranger came up to us, furtively glancing around him like he was out of some sort of espionage film. (Granted, this guy would have had the sex factor of James Bond down to a T.)
'Holy bloody phwoar,' Verity mumbled, voicing my own thoughts not-so-quietly in my ear, letting out a tipsy giggle afterwards that I couldn't help but share, but unable to tear my eyes away.
'So I know you're all probably wondering who the hell I am, and this is going to sound like a really weird request,' the boy/guy/man (it was hard to decide what he was, and I felt awkward describing any... male as any of those, even internally) began, 'but will somebody please pretend to be my girlfriend for the next twenty minutes?'
'I VOLUNTEER!' Cassie essentially shrieked, without a doubt the drunkest out of all of us, completely off her face and barely three drinks in. Usually Cassie was incredibly shy and reserved, but as soon as she'd had a single drink, she morphed into something wild and unrestrained, but hugely entertaining.
Benji, who had started going out with Cassie a year ago, puffed out his cheeks and rolled his eyes fondly. 'Er, I could swear that you're already taken, Cass? By a certain sex bomb of a stud named Benjamin?'
Cassie prodded Benji in the face, narrowly missing poking his eye out. 'Minor detail. Plus, just look at my plait - I've always wanted to be like Katniss and it's only pre-' she started to say, stopping mid-sentence, her eyes bulging. Next thing we knew, Cassie had run towards the nearest bin and hurled, resulting in a five metre radius between her and anyone else as everyone immediately dispersed.
'Oh jeez,' Lewis winced, telling Benji, 'Classy bird you've got there. Not a lightweight at all.'
'Don't be a bitch Lew,' I said, nudging him with my elbow. 'And actually, I seem to recall a certain Lewis Rudland spending the whole night of my birthday in my bathroom upchucking his guts, and you know my memory always serves me bloody well.'
'Ooh, what was Lewis doing in your bathroom, Lai?' Verity asked cheekily, quipping, 'My memory serves me quite well and I'm pretty sure we only went for drinks for your birthday last year. I don't recall any of the rest of us crashing at your place.' She took a coy sip of her drink, staring at the both of us over her straw knowingly.
'Whatever,' Lewis said, hiding a grin in his hand and winking at me.
I pinched his thigh under the table, knowing without a doubt in my mind that he was remembering exactly how we had both ended up going back to mine, having sex on my living room floor because we were too drunk to stumble up the stairs that night.
Admittedly it was one of our less sophisticated moments.
Ignoring everyone else, I silently stood up out of my chair and turned to face the stranger, who we all seemed to have forgotten momentarily.
'You've got balls,' I told him loudly, causing Verity to snigger into her hand immaturely.
Well he did, because having the guts to come up to a table full of strangers to ask for a favour required a shed-load nerve, if you asked me.
The stranger cracked a wide, cocky smile, suddenly at ease. 'Cheers,' he said, not even hesitating for a split second or missing a beat before inquiring, 'Want to see?'
He must have been a little bit drunk himself, so I smacked his arm in response, reminded of the time Tom Harper from secondary school had asked me the very same thing. Clearly this guy was confident, which surprised me, considering how on edge he had looked before.
'Piss off,' I replied with a roll of my eyes. 'But I'll pretend to be your girlfriend if you like. I'm guessing that you're trying to avoid someone?'
He scrunched up his nose and nodded, his expression abruptly shifting to one of horror when a girl - yet another stranger to me and my work gang - came sidling over. The contrast between his face two seconds ago and his face now was laughable.
'Griffin,' she pouted, making me cringe. 'Griffy, where did you go, honey?'
I turned to look back at the other stranger, who I assumed was Griffin/Griffy (I gagged inside at the latter), deciding that the name suited him very much. There was something a little bit rough around the edges about both the name and him, and even in the flashing lights of the club, I could see that he was easily one of the best looking people I had ever seen within the walls of Exult, with tousled dark hair and warm eyes that made you want to jump into bed with him.
Even his wry, tight smile caused my insides to clench and my breath to hitch, fluttery feelings dancing across my stomach. Evidently someone hadn't been laid in a bleeding long time if they were getting turned on by a bloody smile.
Immediately, Griffin tugged me towards him by the hand, my body flush against his as he put an arm around me, sending a ripple of pleasure shooting right through me too.
'Oh hey Chloe,' he said casually (well, as casually as you could yell over the thumping music), but his whole body was tense. I couldn't believe he was this worked up about a random girl in the club. 'This is who I wanted to introduce you to. This is my girlfriend-'
'Laina,' I chipped in before he realised he didn't know my name and ruined the whole charade, holding out my hand for her to shake, but she just stared at it. Her eyes were huge and doe-like, the colour hard to pinpoint in the dark light, but they were prettily made up with eye-shadow and lashings of mascara, although they looked as if they were on the verge of filling up with tears.
'Right,' Griffin said tightly. 'This is Laina.'
'Oh,' Chloe whispered, the sound too quiet to be heard, drowning instead within the pounding music even as she stammered out.
I didn't know what it was about these people, but their ability to change moods so quickly was hysterical but really something to behold. Her seductive confidence dissipated on the spot as her arms dropped, one to her side, the other hand crossing over beneath her chest to clutch her other arm, shoulders slumping.
'Wow. Shit. Right. Okay. I suppose I'll just er, leave you, then,' Chloe said, her voice louder but clearly a lot less confident.
She hesitated a couple of times as though she wanted to say something before she finally left, glancing back at Griffin and me every few steps she took, nearly knocking into several people on her way, who glared at her. All right, so maybe not all drunk people were nice, carefree or kind.
'I couldn't even hear what was being said but that was really bloody awkward!' Freya shouted as soon as Chloe was out of earshot and Cassie finally returned to the table after she'd finished regurgitating the contents of her stomach, asking groggily, 'What'd I miss?'
'You look like you need some air,' I said to Griffin gently, as the others continued their conversations.
He looked, quite frankly, as though somebody had pissed in his cornflakes, and there was part of me that wanted to change that. Curiosity crept up my neck.
'Come on.' I pulled away from him, his arm still wound across my waist, his hand resting near my navel and warmth shooting through me which originated from that one place.
I needed to get laid. Soon.
When Griffin didn't make any indication that he was planning on moving, I started flapping-slash-waving my hands like I was herding cows. Obviously this inevitably resulted in my palms smacking completely against Griffin's backside.
He craned his neck to face me, his eyebrows raised but eyes immediately full of amusement. I breathed an internal sigh of relief.
'Somebody's a bit forward, aren't we?'
'Oops,' I answered in a monotone, pointedly not apologising.
I dragged him towards the exit of the club by the arm, much to the delight of my equally as delightful friends, who let out a series of whoops and wolf-whistles, all collapsing with uproarious laughter. Contemplating whether or not to turn back and flip the bird at them, I decided I wouldn't give them the satisfaction, lips twitching with the effort not to grin.
As soon as we were outside, the music and laughing from inside still loud but muffled into a soothing sound, the midsummer air made me sigh, outside just as humid and hot as inside had been. I fanned my face with my hand, exhaling heavily in an attempt to cool myself down a little.
'So what's up with you and that girl?' I finally asked, once he eventually seemed to relax.
Griffin winced and took a swig from the beer he'd picked up on our way out. 'She's my best friend's younger sister,' he explained. 'She just came back from her final year of uni and ever since she came back - she, well - for some reason she's just constantly tried to er, seduce me. I see her like a little sister so I don't know how to let her down gently, not to mention I would probably have no balls if I went there. Eric would kill me. I think it's a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.'
'Cringe,' I said, involuntarily shuddering as I imagined how awkward the whole situation must have been.
Griffin snorted, letting out a laugh. 'Cringe indeed.'
I nodded towards the door with my head. 'Why's she there with you now if you're trying to avoid her, then?'
'It's her brother's - my friend Eric's - birthday tonight, so we're all in there and she insisted on coming along too, which is why I couldn't just up and leave, either. The only way I could get her to back off a bit was by telling her I had a girlfriend, and she refused to believe that until she laid eyes on the said obviously nonexistent girlfriend,' Griffin said, rolling his eyes. 'I need you to break up with me now, by the way. Be ruthless,' he added. 'I need to be so distraught over this break up that I can't date anyone for like a year.'
I sniggered. 'Okay, one sec - I need to get into character.' Taking a deep breath, I started to walk away from him in a few long strides, before I turned sharply on my heel to face Griffin and strutted back towards him.
Even though this was a bit of a joke, I had never actually broken up with anybody in all my twenty-four years of life, unless breaking up with a boy from school called Theo when I was seven years old counted. That relationship had been so serious and evidently meant for the long term, since we'd gone as far as holding hands on the playground on the very same day he whispered to Charlie Wilson that he liked me, who told my best friend at the time, who came and relayed that piece of info to me. I'd had to break up with him the next day, scared stiff because the "relationship" was advancing way too fast for my liking. Seven year old Laina, what a clever and mature thing she was.
'Look, it's over, Finn.' I told Griffin, who stuck out his bottom lip immediately and looked like a sulky little boy. I wondered where that name had come from: the nickname had rolled off my tongue without me even properly realising at first. 'It's over because you suck. You're shite in bed too, buddy. So yeah. Goodbye. Obviously.'
Griffin was shaking with the effort he was making not to crack up. 'But why, baby? We're meant to be, babe. Don't do this to me, I can change. I can try and be better in bed-'
'It's not you, it's me,' I said ruefully, flipping my hair over my shoulder for a dash of attitude. 'You're just not good enough for me, I'm afraid. I'm impossible to satisfy unless you look like, act like, and basically are Hugh Laurie, bro. My body's just too bootylicious for anybody else.'
He burst out laughing at that, head thrown back, one hand clutching at his stomach and the other on the railing to steady him. Something about its sound made my heart beat faster and made me grin like I couldn't help myself.
'Oh man,' Griffin managed to choke out, a little beer sloshing onto the ground from his bottle because of the movement his laughter caused. 'Okay, fine, fine. I get it, we're over.'
'Now wasn't that the best break up you've ever experienced?' I remarked.
'Nah, I've had better,' Griffin countered, and I narrowed my eyes at him.
'Bitch! You were supposed to say yes! No wonder I had to "break up" with you!' I said, even doing the air quotes with my hands up above by my head.
'You said you "broke up" with me because I was bad in bed,' Griffin said, grinning and doing the air quotes with his free hand, too. 'I can show you that I'm absolutely brilliant in bed after we go to dinner, if you want, though.'
He was talking to me as Laina now, not as his pretend five-minute girlfriend, and I blinked, surprised as the joke fell away. It was just the two of us now, facing each other.
'Hang on. Are...are you asking me out?' I asked, tilting my head to the side and surveying him, folding my arms across my chest.
Griffin continued to smile. 'Depends if you want me to.'
My eyes widened. Bloody hell, he was forward.
'But we just met,' I said.
That line was like a kneejerk reaction for me. It was the one I used whenever someone would try and ask me out on a date. It always worked, because it was always strangers or acquaintances that asked me out; every male friend I had was never bold or stupid enough to ask in the first place, because they knew I would just give them a point-blank no.
'And maybe this is crazy, but you can have my number if you want it and call me maybe?' Griffin said. I didn't know how it was possible to smile for so long, so wide, without his face breaking in two.
'In all seriousness,' Griffin said, still undeterred by my silence, 'I would love to take you out. I know we've known each other all of-' he stopped to glance at his watch. '-all of fifteen minutes, but I think life's too short to beat around the bush. I think you're brilliant, which in quite a longwinded way is me trying to tell you I fancy you and would love to get to know you.'
Ah shit.
'You can't fancy me, Griffin,' I said earnestly, chewing on my bottom lip anxiously.
Why couldn't he? What was a believable reason as to why he couldn't like me? Think stupid brain, think, think, think.
'You can't fancy me,' I repeated hesitantly, wracking my brain for all it was worth, my mind going blank except for one excuse.
The ultimate excuse.
'...because I'm gay.'