Page 92 of Almost Ours

“Yeah. In Freshers. Tried to take my toe.”

“Like my nose!”

Emma giggles, her cheeks rosy from the heat and wine. “How’d it get to your nose?”

Cam waves his arm in the air. “Well, I tried to pet him, didn’t I?”

I gape at the insane bastard. “Why would you try and pet that homicidal prick?”

“I thought if I got on his level he might respect me.”

I drop my forehead into my hand. “Jesus, Cam.”

“Aw,” Emma coos. “You tried to make friends with Bernardo?”

Cam puffs up his chest. “I thought it was a good idea.”

Oscar shakes his head, aghast. “He tried to eat your fucking face!”

“Yes, O, I am aware the friendship did not blossom.”

There’s a pause before we all burst out laughing, my stomach hurting and tears forming in my eyes.

Wow.

This is the first time in my life where I don’t have to work hard at trying to make friends. Cam fills every silence before it can become uncomfortable, Oscar seems to have forgotten I asked that stupid question, and Ewan has known me long enough that I don’t need to pretend around him anyway. Even Emma has started including me in conversations when she can.

Around these people I feel more like myself than I have in years.

One friend in particular makes me the most me I think I’ve been in my whole life, and she’s the only one not sat here with us. Which is why I can’t fuck things up with her.

The conversation moves away from Bernardo and into Ewan telling everyone about this lad from our Law lecture who fell down the stairs and nearly cracked his head open, which turns into everyone confessing the most embarrassing thing they’ve done at uni so far. Dave fell asleep in a seminar and snored so loudly no one could hear what was being said. Cam walked into the women’s toilets and didn’t realise until a girl screamed. Oscar sent an email to the wrong lecturer complaining about the lecturer he’d intended to email.

I’m only half listening when they start taking the piss out of Oscar, because Ruby’s laugh pulls my attention to her and I feel my body coil tight. I physically don’t think I’ll be able to bear it if she gets a boyfriend. She’s moved closer to our side of the pub and Tom the Tosser is whispering in her ear.

She is so fucking beautiful it hurts to look at her sometimes, like being punched square in the chest. I know that’s cringe and cliché and kind of pathetic, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

It fucking stings to see him all over her like that and there’s sweet fuck all I can do about it.

A body slides into the empty space beside me at the end of the booth. “You know she’s flirting with him, right?” The voice makes every part of me completely lock up, and my head swivels towards Bonnie. She’s wearing black jeans and a cream jumper, hair tied back, a glass of wine in one hand.

I shift away from her, my body turning to ice.

“Hi, Josh.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.” She sips her drink and nods towards the other side of the room. “I was just wondering why you’re sitting here letting that boy hit on your girlfriend?”

My girlfriend? The fuck is she talking about? “Have you gone off your meds by any chance?”

“No,” Bonnie shakes her head. “I remember her very clearly announcing herself as your girlfriend.”

Oh. Yeah. I can’t keep the lie up at this table, they’ll all call me out and Oscar would lose his shit. “She’s not my girlfriend,” I mutter, leaning further and further away from the bane of my fucking life but trying to make sure the others can’t hear.

Her dark brows lift. “I’m not sure I believe that.”

“I don’t give a fuck what you believe.” I hiss, keeping my voice low. “She’s not my girlfriend, alright? She can talk to who she wants.”