NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY | ✓

26: red bull gives you heartache

            I don't find Michael at the bar so I start my rounds through the tables, ingrained muscle memory from cleaning them for years. What if he saw? How am I gonna explain this to him? Do I–?

Michael waves me over from a booth where his mates have made new friends. Pinning up a smile, I walk over but he gets up before I get close enough to greet any of the others. For a split-second, I expect him to yell at me—rightfully so—but the way he beams proves he's got no clue bout owt between me and Joe.

'Can we go out for a bit?' he asks.

Summat in my chest shrivels at the thought of leaving my mates when I'd planned on spending the night with them but I nod. Probably would be a good idea to cool off; Joe's shampoo smell still weaves around my head.

The October air washes over me in a refreshing wave. I gulp it into my lungs to clear out any hint of Joe before I follow Michael, who continues past the clusters of clubbers having a smoke by the doors.

'So what did ya wanna talk about?'

Michael nestles as close as he can without touching, a single finger trailing along the back of my hand. 'I'd like to kiss you.'

We did kiss after the second date but I have a feeling that this is more than that. The rundown: I have gone on three dates with Michael, now would be fourth if you count it. This isn't casual. He'd've dropped me already if he weren't interested in a relationship or thought Cece were too crazy to deal with.

Reminder: Joe doesn't want a relationship. Joe wants casual sex. That is not a mess I want to get caught up in. Solution: Michael can fuck me hard enough that I'll forget Joe.

'Are you drunk?' I ask.

'No.'

'Okay.'

Neither of us bothers much with acting coy or getting a sense of the terrain—Michael presses me against the wall and I'm palming him through his trousers before we've kissed long enough for me to reach the hint of whiskey under the taste of spearmint chuddy on his tongue. The brick digs into the bare skin of my waist as Micheal claws into my hips.

Waves of jitters crash onto me. Each one nearly knocks my knees from under me, the sensation of being kissed so foreign after my two-year break. When Michael pulls away, he steals my breath.

Lust spills from him as he paws the muscles of my exposed abdomen, left dimple deep in his cheek. 'I've no idea who this Bow is but I've gotta give my compliments to his choice of clothes.'

I'm too out of breath to laugh.

Michael's eyes find mine and I nearly whimper. I've missed the hunger. I know a few years ago, I hated being looked at like this but, fuck, how I've missed the hunger. And if hunger is all I'm able to beget, then at least I'm able to beget it well.

'Let's go home.'

I nod, even though I've left my coat inside along with my wallet and my keys which I didn't wanna risk losing on the dancefloor.

Michael takes my hand, though we're barely a street away before we're kissing again. Eventually we realise that the more time we spend snogging, the longer it will take for us to get somewhere we can shed the constricting layers of clothes between us. So we limit contact to our interlocked fingers.

'Your mates are... not what I expected,' Michael says when the bus stop finally comes into sight. 'I just didn't think get that kind of impression from you. I mean, you're pretty but you're not like that.'