“What are you doing?” Nate asks, rudely interrupting my brain’s incessant chant.
I look at him like it’s not totally obvious. I am lying upside down on the sofa, my feet up on the wall, my head just brushing the ground, my fingers drumming on my stomach in time with the rhythm of my bored bored bored bored bored chant.
“I’m drying my nail polish,” I tell him.
It’s not a complete lie. I found a bottle of bright blue nail polish rattling round in my handbag so decided to paint my fingers and my toes. And then in an attempt to stop myself touching something and smudging them before they dried, I sat like this. Although that was, like, ten minutes ago, so they should be good now.
He squints at the blue fingernails I waggle at him and scrutinizes my position carefully.
“And does this . . . help?”
“It can’t not help,” I point out, and then swing my legs down and twist until I’m lying across the sofa, arms now flung above my head.
Nate starts pottering around with his iPad and the TV, setting up for the Zoom “pub quiz” one of his friends has organized.
I wonder if I should’ve offered to leave him in peace for it.
Apparently, it’s a regular thing, because Nate’s old gang from school all live so far apart, they do a virtual quiz night once a month, which is honestly about the cutest thing I’ve ever heard. Like, they all “block out their calendars” (genuine quote from Nate) and make sure they never miss it, and take it in turns to host, and have theme nights.
And it sounds awesome so of course I was like, “Oh my God, YES.
Nate, this is amazing. I cannot tell you how badly I need to spend an evening, like, not watching something on the TV. That is all I have done all week. And I’ve done the two jigsaws you own, which says a lot, because I do not like doing jigsaws at all. I need this.”
Now, as he sings quietly to himself as he sets up the Chromecast on the TV, I wonder if I’m intruding.
Well, okay, I know I’m intruding, but it’s not like I can leave the building, is it? I guess I could’ve not invited myself along, though.
Shut myself in the bedroom instead for an hour or two scrolling TikTok or whatever. I probably should’ve offered to do that, at least.
But, hey. Letting me join in is the least Nate can let me do, when I’ve cooked us dinner every night this week. Mostly to keep myself from getting too bored, but still.
“Get us some drinks, will you, Immy?”
I startle a little at him using my nickname, but Nate carries on like it’s no big deal.
It’s just a nickname. It’s my nickname, it’s what everyone else calls me. It shouldn’t be a big deal.
So why does it feel like it’s, I don’t know, A Moment?
Oh God, no, I cannot be having A Moment all by myself. I won’t allow it. I don’t have Moments. They’re for serious people with serious relationships. Like Nate. And Nate, very obviously, is not part of this Moment.
So, it can’t be a big deal. I won’t let it be.
“Oh my God,” I sigh, languishing on the sofa. “Just call me Cinderella!”
Nate only laughs, though, and I roll off onto the floor then clamber to my feet. Almost as soon as I leave the room, I hear a conversation start; I guess Nate’s not the only one joining the call a couple of minutes early.
I wonder what he’s said about me to them. I assume he’s said something, to explain why I’m joining their quiz night.
I wonder what kind of picture he’s painted of me. I know Nate’s a good guy and he wouldn’t exactly be bitching about me behind my back, but I also know I haven’t exactly been a model houseguest, like I bet Lucy is being somewhere upstairs. My stomach twists with something a little like guilt, even though that’s stupid because I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about, and I tune out the conversation determinedly.
I root through his alcohol collection in one of the cupboards for a minute before deciding to mix us some cocktails, finding a big plastic jug so I can make a batch. I accidentally put three cartons of cranberry juice in the food shop instead of one, but now it’s a perfect mixer to make a Woo Woo. Total crowd pleaser.
Besides, Nate’s wines look fancy. Like, I don’t mean compared to my usual whatever’s cheap at the liquor store round the corner, I mean, they look fancy. Like he really considers his choices. He probably even knows how to pair them with different foods.
Maybe it’s how he impresses girls when he brings them over for a date night and cooks them dinner.
Either way, I’m too scared to open any of them in case I accidentally use some special, crazy-expensive bottle he was saving for whatever, so Woo Woos it is. I even dig a lime out of the fridge and cut it up to add a wedge to each of our glasses. Super classy.
Nate is sat on the floor at the long, low, oak coffee table. I guess it’s so the camera is at a better height where his iPad is propped up on the TV stand, a few feet in front of him. He’s got paper and pens ready for us, lined up neatly on the table. And coasters, which I make sure to use to put our drinks on.
“There she iiiiiissss,” crows someone from the TV, as I grab a cushion off the sofa to sit on next to Nate on the floor.
On the screen in front of us are four windows, each looking into a different room. There’s a ginger guy sat on a bed, an Indian guy whose fake background is the Love Island confessional room (hilarious, I love him already), one dude with golden tan skin and shoulder-length sandy hair sat cross-legged on a sofa, notebook on his lap, and finally Peggy Mitchell.
Like, I’m not even kidding. The guy’s got a blond wig that looks exactly like the beloved EastEnders landlady’s hair, is wearing pink lipstick and a leopard-print coat, and his background is set as the Queen Vic from the show.
I must be gawping because the ginger guy laughs. “Nate, didn’t you warn her about Peggy?”
Nate looks at me, looking a bit awkward and embarrassed, and mumbles, “Duncan missed our last quiz. And since it’s his turn to host, he has to do a forfeit to make up for it. Don’t ask.”
“Get out of ma Zoom!” Peggy/Duncan says, in a scarily accurate impression that has all of us cracking up. Then, in what I assume is his normal northern accent, he says, “So you’re the bird who’s been driving Nate round the bend all week.”
I absolutely hate it when guys say bird like that.
“Tweet, tweet, bitches.”
Nate flushes, but his friends only laugh. The Indian guy wags a finger at the screen and says, “I like her,” and the dude with long hair says, “I absolutely see what you mean, Nate.”
Duncan introduces the other guys, starting to rattle off names (Sam, Kaz, and Wills, in the order they are around the screen) but Nate laughs and says, “Don’t bother, mate. Immy’s not too great with names.”
He grins at me, though.
I shove him lightly. “Shut up and drink your Woo Woo, Nikolaj.”
There’s a little more chatter and banter before Peggy/Duncan claps his hands and announces, “All right, folks, put down those drinks and grab those pens. We’re gonna kick things off today with Round One: Things That Went Viral This Week.”