Authors: Jennifer Joyce
A Very Weird or Incredibly Wonderful Birthday Surprise
Text Message:
Mum:
Hello, love! Do you think you can have a go on the internet and order the Sean Connery James Bond box set for me? I want to get it for your dad’s birthday. It’ll be a nice surprise for him
Delilah:
Does he even like James Bond?
Mum:
Of course he does! Everybody likes James Bond. Especially the Sean Connery ones
The pub is pretty full for early on a Saturday, mostly with young men gathered around the pool table, curing their hangovers with more booze and competitiveness. My eye quickly falls on the bar and I’m relieved Dan isn’t here. It’s been weeks since the fall out from our date but I’m hoping to avoid him for a bit longer. Forever, if possible.
‘I’ll get this round in,’ I offer but soon wish I’d kept my mouth shut when Dan’s head appears, bit by bit, as he ascends from the cellar’s hatch behind the bar. His shoulders appear, then the top of his chest, where my view ends. I’d forgotten quite how short he is. ‘Why don’t you get the drinks and Ryan and I will find a table?’ I thrust a bank note at Lauren and attempt to scurry but Lauren, quick as a flash, grabs me by the elbow and steers me towards the bar.
‘This has gone on long enough, girly.’ She gives me a prod in the spine so I stumble even closer to the bar and a waiting Dan. He has his arms folded across his chest, an eyebrow cocked in challenge, daring me to approach. ‘Just get it over and done with. Ryan and I will find us a table.’ And off she goes, taking Ryan with her. So much for female solidarity!
I inch forward towards the bar, gulping painfully hard before plastering a neutral, we’ve-never-dated-before smile on my face. ‘Hello Dan. Can I get two pints and a glass of red wine please?’ I consider asking how Dan is, to be polite and everything, but I think it’s better for both of us if we get this over and done with as quickly as possible.
Dan grunts and turns to grab a couple of pint glasses from the rack. Neither of us speaks or attempts to make eye contact as he fills them with lager. I find the polished bar quite fascinating in the few minutes it takes Dan to fulfil my order. Wordlessly, I hand over the money, praying he won’t scribble on the change this time. I check as soon as I’ve located Lauren and Ryan but there are no obscenities decorating the queen’s face. Phew!
‘See? That didn’t kill you, did it?’ Lauren smiles sweetly at me, as though she hasn’t just tossed me into the lion’s den smelling of juicy steak and with an ‘eat me’ sign attached to my t-shirt.
‘I suppose not.’ Shoving the change into my purse, I sit down and take a fortifying sip of my drink. Ryan grabs his own pint and squeezes himself against me, holding out his phone to take a selfie. I read over his shoulder as he uploads it to Facebook with the caption ‘Birthday drink with the missus!’ Shuffling towards me once more, he kisses my cheek while taking another, which he adds to his Facebook album.
‘So how’s the living together working out?’ Lauren asks as Ryan slips his phone back into his pocket and shuffles away to give us both a bit more breathing space.
‘Splendidly. Delilah kicked me out of bed this morning.’ Ryan winks at Lauren while I squeak with indignation.
‘I kicked you off the bed.’ I turn to Lauren, feeling an overwhelming need to clarify the situation. ‘He came in to wake me up and was bouncing around on top of the covers like a kid on Christmas Day. I simply ejected him onto the floor. Nothing happened.’
Lauren holds her hands up. ‘Hey, I believe you.’
‘Why?’ Ryan asks her. ‘Don’t you think I can charm my way into Delilah’s affections?’
‘Not in a million years,’ I say before Lauren can open her mouth.
‘I’m offended.’ Ryan rises from his seat and flounces dramatically towards the men’s loos. ‘And on my birthday too,’ he calls over his shoulder.
I pick up my pint and take a sip. I’ll need to pace myself if we’re going to be here all day.
‘How long do you have to keep this act up again?’ Lauren asks once the door to the loos swings shut behind Ryan.
‘Only a few more weeks, thankfully.’ I hear Lauren give a little sigh. ‘Why? What’s wrong?’
Lauren takes a strand of her red hair and twiddles it around her finger, scrunching her eyes closed before she speaks. ‘It’s just hard for me, I guess.’
I put my pint down on the table and lean towards her. ‘Oh, gosh. You don’t feel like a third wheel, do you? Because it isn’t real. You know that.’
Lauren opens her eyes and blinks slowly at me. ‘It looks real.’
‘But it’s just an act. Ryan and I aren’t into each other. Not even a little bit.’ The thought is a little bit nauseating, in fact.
Lauren presses her lips together until they disappear into her mouth. She looks pained and I feel bad for making her feel this way. I thought she knew we were only playing along for Ben’s sake. Yes, it’s got ever so slightly out of hand with the whole moving in together and everything, but nothing has changed between the three of us.
‘I sort of am though.’ Lauren’s voice is so quiet I almost miss her words. I lean further towards her, my elbows now halfway across the table.
‘What was that?’
Lauren drops her head into her hands with a groan. When she looks up again it’s with a grimace. ‘I like him.’
‘Who?’
Lauren laughs. Out of sheer embarrassment, I should think. ‘Who do you think?’
‘Ryan?’ My eyes are painfully wide. Any wider and I’d have to scoop them up from the table and pop them back into their sockets.
‘Ssh!’ Lauren’s eyes dart towards the loos.
‘Sorry.’ I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘You fancy Ryan?’ The thought is inconceivable. I mean, Ryan is pretty cute I suppose and he’s certainly fit and healthy. But still. It’s Ryan.
‘Yes. Have done for ages but I’ve managed to keep it to myself. Until now.’
‘What about Courtney?’ We’d spent hours pretending to work out so she could ogle the bloke and now she’s telling me she had the hots for Ryan all along? What a waste!
‘I did like him but he was more of a distraction. Plus, he was always out of reach so it didn’t really mean anything.’
‘So we worked out for nothing?’
Lauren gives a tut. ‘How much working out did we actually do?’
Not much by normal people’s standards but still.
‘And think of all those smoothies.’
Lauren has a point. I still missed those smoothies. The ones I make at Ryan’s place just aren’t the same.
‘So what do I do? Do I tell him?’ Lauren clings onto my hands as her eyes dart from my face to the loos. ‘Do you think he fancies me?’
Part of me thinks this could be great once I get my head around my best friends snogging and stuff (stuff I don’t wish to go into or even think about). But another part, a really, really selfish part of me thinks this could be bad. Very bad for me and my wedding date plans.
‘Do you think you could keep it to yourself? Just for a bit longer? Until after the wedding? It’s just that I don’t want anything to jeopardise my plan.’ See, told you it was a selfish part.
‘Oh.’ Lauren releases my hands and slumps down in her seat. ‘Sure. If that’s what you want.’
Luckily Ryan reappears at that moment, shutting down the conversation.
Lauren’s crush on Ryan is a lot for me to take in but I decide the best thing to do for now is to throw myself into the birthday celebrations. We have a lunch of bar snacks (roasted peanuts, pork scratchings and cheese and onion crisps), washed down with plenty of drinks. By mid-afternoon we’re lubricated enough to get the jukebox going, selecting anything from current hits to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and The Beach Boys. None of us are Beyoncé (or Jay-Z in Ryan’s case) but what we lack in musical talent we make up for in enthusiasm and drunkenness. Ryan snaps away periodically, pulling me into embraces that are even more awkward now I know it’s getting to Lauren, and posting them onto Facebook.
‘Do you know what?’ I say as Ryan flings his arms around me yet again, arm and phone outstretched. ‘I doubt Ben even looks at my Facebook and definitely not yours.’
‘No,’ Ryan agrees. ‘But I know my mum looks at mine. So come here and let me stick my tongue down your throat.’
‘I don’t think so.’ I grab Ryan by the jaw as his lips lunge at me. Lauren is pretending to read something on her phone but I know she’s watching out of the corner of her eye. ‘I think that’s enough for today, don’t you?’
‘But it’s my birthday.’ Ryan, his jaw still in my hands, sticks out his bottom lip.
‘Tough luck, birthday boy.’ I release Ryan’s jaw but step away before he can try to kiss me again. Plonking myself down next to Lauren, I throw my arm around her shoulder and pull her in close to whisper in her ear. ‘Are you sure you fancy him?’ I’m still finding it hard to adjust. It’s like somebody telling you they fancy your dad. Yuck.
‘Totally,’ Lauren whispers back and we both giggle. I don’t know why I’m giggling – I’m finding this whole experience horrifying rather than amusing. ‘But don’t worry. I won’t say anything to Ryan until after the wedding.’ Lauren mimes zipping her lips and I feel guiltily relieved.
‘Why didn’t you say anything before? When he was with all those other girls?’ It’s safe to ask as Ryan is over by the jukebox, his forehead slumped against the glass as he squints at the track list.
Lauren shrugs, jostling my arm which is still flung around her. ‘It was different then. It wasn’t my best friend’s ear he had his tongue in.’
I instinctively reach up to my ear as though Ryan’s tongue is still flicking at my lobe. Ryan did indeed lick my ear earlier. And there is photographic evidence now floating around on Facebook.
‘You know I didn’t enjoy that one bit, don’t you? In fact, I’m suppressing a shudder just thinking about it.’
‘Absolutely. I fancy the pants off Ryan and even I wouldn’t find that a turn on.’
Lauren fancies the pants off Ryan. So this isn’t a little crush that will fizzle away in a matter of weeks. What a disturbing thought. I don’t want to imagine Ryan without his pants – or Lauren’s involvement in that situation.
Ryan is giggling as he returns to our table, snaking his way across the pub, but he won’t tell us why. All is revealed ten minutes later as the jukebox makes its way through Ryan’s latest song choices. The intro to Tom Jones’s ‘Delilah’ starts up, which causes Ryan to double over, clutching his stomach as he splutters and giggles.
‘Look what I found on the jukebox,’ he gasps between giggles.
Lauren and I share a look. I cock an eyebrow in an ‘are you sure you fancy this doofus?’ sort of way and Lauren lifts her shoulders while her head bobs up and down in a ‘this crush is beyond my control’ sort of way. You can tell a friendship is solid when you can communicate without words.
‘He’s had too much to drink,’ I say out loud.
‘It’ll be those birthday whiskey chasers.’ Lauren points at the shot glasses Ryan has emptied and collected on our table.
‘Let’s get him home.’
Luckily Ryan hasn’t lost the ability to walk despite tipping all that whiskey down his throat and needs only a little guidance. We help manoeuvre Ryan out of the pub, where it’s now turning dark and there’s a chill in the air. Ryan insists on grabbing a kebab on the way home but passes out on the sofa before it’s even unwrapped from the greasy paper.
‘Shall we leave him there?’ I can’t face the prospect of dragging his slumbering carcass up the stairs. ‘I’ll grab a blanket.’
When I return, Lauren has stripped Ryan down to his boxers and t-shirt.
‘Just getting some practice in,’ she says with a wicked grin. ‘Hopefully he’ll be conscience the next time I undress him.’
I drape the blanket over Ryan’s body, making sure his bare feet are covered. ‘So do you actually want to, you know, with him?’ I can’t say the words. They’re too gross when in relation to my two best friends.
‘Yes please.’ Lauren gazes down at Ryan’s prone body. For a moment I fear I’m going to puke but nothing comes up.
‘Even after seeing him spew kebab meat out of his nose?’ Lauren and I both look at the untouched kebab, remembering the incident a couple of years ago.
‘Even after seeing that.’
She does have it bad.
‘Why don’t you stay over? You can take Ryan’s bed. He doesn’t need it tonight.’
Lauren shakes her head. ‘I want the first time I spend the night in Ryan’s bed to be with him, not on my own.’ Her brow furrows. ‘Do you think he likes me back? He’s never said anything about me, has he?’
I wish I could tell Lauren that Ryan has declared his undying love for her but I can’t. He’s never mentioned her in a romantic sense.
‘Never mind. We’ll find out in a few weeks.’
‘So you’re going to go for it with him?’ I ask and Lauren nods.
‘If anything, your fake romance with Ryan has shown me how much I like him. I have to find out one way or another.’
Lauren orders a taxi, which arrives surprisingly quickly. After checking on Ryan, I turn off the lights and tiptoe upstairs to bed. It’s been a strange day. Very strange indeed and I’m not too sure if Lauren’s interest in Ryan is very weird or incredibly wonderful.
Mixing Work and Pleasure
Text Message:
Ryan:
I did a bad thing last night
Delilah:
Do I want to know?
Ryan:
Do you remember when I said the new Head of PE was a babe?
Delilah:
You didn’t! Have you never heard the phrase ‘don’t poop on your own doorstep’?
Some people say you shouldn’t dip your pen in the company ink but I have to disagree. Yes, sometimes it’s bad, like when Lauren dated the bloke who cleans the windows at her solicitor’s firm and the date didn’t go too well. He ditched her halfway through a film at the cinema, claiming he was desperate for the loo, and she didn’t see or hear from him again until he turned up to clean the windows as usual (without either an explanation or apology) and now she has no choice but to watch him cleaning those windows while he whistles a happy, carefree tune every Thursday morning.