Someday Find Me by Nicci Cloke Read Free Book Online Page B

the bar with a pencil in his hand and his hair falling in his eyes. Filling up the big glass jar of pistachios, green in their pink shells, or the olives, all glossy and black, chunks of garlic and chilli floating in the oil. Stacking the crisps on their shelf, checking there was enough of each bright colour, crackling the foil bags closer together to fit more of them in. Cleaning the pumps for the soft drinks, stickywith sugar and bubbly in the drip tray. Another car drove past up on the street out of sight, leaving a little trail of faint music as it went.
    My cigarette had gone out in the damp fuzz of the rain, so I lit it and lay back, head inside on all the post, wiry doormat tickling my back and legs stretched out in the wet. Smoke drifted upwards and I looked up at the ceiling with a pizza flyer slippery under my head. That day there were no patterns or shapes to be made, just miles of meringue stretched from corner to corner.
    The cigarette ran out again after a while, and I stood up and wandered into the lounge. I was shivering: it got cold in the flat when it rained, damp patches on the wall seeping through silently. I went over to Quin’s rail and pulled out one of his millions of blazers, a sailor’s one with white piping and braid and stripes on the shoulders. It was too big for me so I rolled up the sleeves and snuggled into it. My favourite blazer was missing; a red velvet one, which was soft like a hug when you put it on. Quin would have been wearing it; it was his favourite too. It was still cold, so I crouched on Quinnie’s sleeping bag and pulled his duvet round me. It smelt like him, of posh cigarettes and hair oil and just a tiny bit sweaty. There was a DVD case on the arm of the sofa with a bit of a line left on it, so I dabbed some and waited and waited for a high.
    Time crawled by, until at last I could escape the emptiness. I left early and walked slowly to cheat it. Delilah’s flat was in a big old building with pretty windows and tall steps leading up to the front door. Every time I climbed them I felt pangs of jealousy. Lilah always told me that from the inside the windows were draughty and there were mice in the basement where the bins went, but as outsiders we can see things only as they seem. Envy was a feeling I collected as a diehard habit so truths like these often fell around me unheard. I pressed the buzzer and shifted the bag with the little bottle of vodka Fitz had bought me fromone hand to the other. Molly, Delilah’s flatmate, answered, a blue paisley apron tied around her waist and a pan in one hand, a spoon in the other.
    ‘Hey, Saf! Come in, come in. You look gorgeous!’
    I liked Molly. She was clever and pretty, with round pink cheeks, and she always had nice things to say to everybody. ‘Lilah’s in her room,’ she said, stirring the pot. ‘You want some bolognese?’
    I shook my head, touched my stomach. ‘No, thanks, I just ate. Smells amazing.’
    She smiled and went back into the kitchen, trailing hot tomato-garlic-wine scent behind her. I walked down the hall, looking at the framed photos on the bright white walls as I went. Lilah’s door was half open, music playing out, so I knocked and opened it at the same time. She was crouched in front of her mirror, straightening her hair and spraying each strand wildly as she went.
    ‘Hey, gorge,’ she said. ‘How’s it going?’
    ‘Good,’ I said, sitting down on the end of the bed and taking the bottle out of the bag. ‘How you doing?’ And before she could answer, I added, ‘Glasses?’
    We’d sat for a while like that, me with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out on the satin duvet, Lilah kneeling by the mirror, preening and powdering and straightening and shining. She had started seeing a man at work, a client, and she didn’t want her boss to find out.
    ‘He’s so beautiful, Saf,’ she gushed, her gold eyes widening, her own beauty reflected back in the mirror.
    ‘I’m happy for you,’ I