Begin Again | on hold

twenty-one

Luke is here. That's a surprise. Fenfen doesn't usually repeat a guy but that's definitely Luke that Sunny just walked in on in the shower because the bathroom lock has been broken since 1998 and they've never got round to fixing it because neither of them care enough. Fair play to Luke, he didn't seem to care about being walked in on – he saluted Sunny when she blushed and stammered at the sight of his naked body, grabbing her toothbrush and toothpaste and almost knocking herself out as she left. Fenfen must really like this guy to bring him back a second time.

Sunny doesn't have time to dwell on it because today's her date with Viv. They're due to meet in an hour and Sunny's already been up for two hours with nervous butterflies in the pit of her belly. She had to eat two bananas to stop their flapping wings and she only hopes she hasn't spoiled her appetite because then Viv will worry that she's not eating enough. There's no problem with the quantity of food that Sunny eats, though, more that it isn't confined to three strict meals a day. She's a grazer, far more suited to several snack breaks when her stomach rumbles than any sort of rigid structure.

"You're up early." Fenfen comes out yawning, barely covering her mouth with the back of her hand. "You know it's Saturday, right? What're you doing looking all ... dressed and put together?"

"Saturday isn't the weekend for everyone, you know," Sunny says. She has to keep reminding herself that she has a shift at five because, knowing her and the way her mind works, she'll get tangled up in the date and forget all about work. "And I have a date."

Those words still make her fizz inside. It feels different and exciting and terrifying and she knows it's no big deal because it's Viv, and Viv already knows her inside out, but to Sunny, it's the first date. It may be a do-over for Viv but for her, it's all new.

"Oh yeah?" Fenfen wakes up fully at that and winks, giving Sunny a hair flip and a shoulder wiggle. "Hot date with your hot lady?"

"You know it!" Sunny pastes on a grin but she balls her hand into a fist and rubs at her sternum with the heel of her palm, an anxious tic that comes out when she doesn't know how to feel, doesn't know what to do with her limbs.

"Why d'you look so nervous?" Fenfen laughs as she flicks on the kettle and grabs a couple of bowls ­– two bowls, for the first time in the years Sunny's known her; she must really like Luke – and starts cutting the heads off strawberries.

"'Cause I am nervous."

"What the fuck for?" Fenfen laughs. "Tenny, you and Viv go on like two dates a week." She straightens, her smile vanishing. "Wait, is this, like, a big one? You're not gonna propose, are you?"

"Jesus, no. No, god, no." Sunny guffaws. "We're not at that stage yet, don't worry."

"Gonna ask her to buy a house with you?"

"No, it's just a normal date. It just feels like it's been a while," she says, remembering how little Fenfen knows – or, at least, how little Fenfen realises she knows considering she has laughed it off every time Sunny's told her the truth.

"In my experience, nerves mean one of two things: either you're really excited and want it to go well, or you're totally dreading it." She whips the lid off a pot of Greek yoghurt and blobs it into the bowls on top of the chopped fruit. Sunny's never seen her put this much effort into breakfast before. Ordinarily it's buttered toast, maybe with jam if she's feeling festive.

"I'm excited and I want it to go well," Sunny says.

"Then you don't need to be nervous because that girl loves you." She bops Sunny's shoulder with a teaspoon. "Honey, she is just waiting to wife you up."

"She'll be waiting a while considering that's still illegal."

"Shit. Still? Kinda fucked up that you can't get married and my dumb shit of an uncle's on his fifth wife already and that's no big deal." She waves her spoon around as she talks, her eyes rolling. "So dumb. Let the lesbians get married and limit how many wives the straight dudes are allowed before it's clear they're the problem."