I replied, chasing after her.
Just over a year ago, Miranda and I pooled every penny we had and moved Content London, our ‘two girls, one laptop’ digital marketing agency, from the settees in the back of Costa Coffee to a tiny corner of a very trendy new co-working space in East London called The Ginnel. The manager sold the building on stories of its ‘history’ and ‘character’, a description that roughly translated to ‘people used to get mugged outside, but not any more’. Exactly the kind of place that would fascinate your father and worry your mother. Of course, that meant that after the cheap deal he used to lure us in expired, the rent was extortionate. But Miranda insisted it was worth it, for the location and the connections we could make and because you never knew who you were going to bump into at the barista station.
Because of course there was a barista station.
The best part of the entire building was the honest-to-goodness actual roof terrace. It wasn’t fancy – we didn’t have a bar or a sophisticated sound system or sexy, lounging furniture – but we did have a load of waterproof beanbags, someone’s second-hand settee and the most beautiful view of the London skyline I had ever called my own. It was all very DIY chic but I loved it. I’d even brought in a few potted plants to hide the electrical boxes. Nothing I could do about the man across the road who liked to parade around naked of an evening, but Miranda assured me he added to the rooftop’s character.
A few months after moving to The Ginnel, we expanded our work family to make room for Brian, another of our oldest friends who both happened to know his way around a website and was prepared to take a chance on a fledging company. I still wasn’t sure if it was because he had so much faith in me and Mir or because we never complained about him rolling into work after ten a.m. every morning but either way, I wasn’t going to complain. Our budgets were still tighter than a tight thing but we were making it work, just about.
Only puffing very slightly from the last set of stairs – I was determined to make my ten thousand steps – I put my glass down on a wooden box-slash-makeshift table and straightened up to admire the view, digging my fingers into my lower back. Even though we were right in the heart of London, and The Ginnel wasn’t a very tall building, it always felt peaceful up here. I looked down, watching the tops of the red buses sail by, the tops of people’s heads bobbing along to whatever was coming out of their earphones. Even the swell of competing sirens seemed softened by a few floors’ distance. Plus it made for fantastic sunset skyline pics and who didn’t love a sunset skyline pic? Monsters, only monsters. Whenever the weather allowed, I was up here, soaking in the Vitamin D and willing my skin to tan. But for all The Ginnel’s Brooklyn hipster aspirations, we were still very much in England and I remained the same shade as your average sheet of A4 year round.
‘Starting without us?’
I was settling myself down on the sofa when Charlie Wilder emerged from the doorway, his ever-present shadow, Martin Green, close behind. Charlie was one of the original tenants of the building and generally liked to swank around as though he owned the place. Martin, however, did own the place. Would that I’d had the presence of mind to mortgage myself to the hilt and buy a ramshackle, East London teardown when I was twenty-two. Fifteen years later, he must have made his money back on this place a thousand times over. I was fairly certain our monthly rent alone was more than the cost of his original mortgage payments and there were dozens more tenants in the building. He was so rich, it made me want to do a little cry.
‘Start without you?’ I looked at Charlie, slightly flustered on the inside but cool, calm and collected on the outside. Sort of. I could already feel myself turning red. ‘As if we would.’
‘What’s the occasion?’ Martin asked, eyeing the bottles of fizz.
‘We,’ Mir said, handing him a freshly filled glass. ‘Are celebrating.’
Martin – commonly referred to as Miranda’s Work Husband, although never to his face – took the drink with a shy smile. Yes, he could be obnoxious and yes, he wore one too many ironic T-shirts but he was also too cute when it came to his very obvious crush on my friend.
‘Celebrating what?’ asked Charlie.
‘Did Taylor Swift like one of your tweets?’ Martin asked, much to Charlie’s delight.
‘Tay-Tay did like one of my tweets once,’ Brian said, talking into his champagne glass. ‘And it was a magical day.’
‘We’ve been nominated for a couple of awards,’ I replied, tucking my light brown hair behind my ear in an attempt to look as casual as possible. ‘But well done, you’re very funny.’
‘She’s being polite – you’re not funny at all,’ Miranda said in a stage whisper, flashing her middle finger at the pair and dropping down onto the sofa beside me. Behind them, what looked like the entire population of The Ginnel streamed out of the staircase and onto the roof. ‘What’s going on? Why are you all up here?’
‘We’re watching the game,’ Charlie answered, as though it was obvious. ‘Kick off is in five minutes.’
‘Oh Christ, it’s the England game,’ Mir groaned. ‘Kill me now.’
‘We’re in the second round of the World Cup,’ Martin replied with mock shock. ‘Where’s your national pride?’
‘The same place as your sense of style,’ she said, sipping her drink and staring straight ahead. ‘We were having a nice time, do you have to ruin it with football?’
As much as she might protest, the bickering was part of the flirting. Until recently, it was all back-and-forth banter, sliding into each other’s DMs and cow eyes across the coffee shop, but that was before the fateful Friday night two weeks ago when Miranda had one too many cheeky Vimtos and Martin had inhaled god only knows what and I walked in on the pair of them, snogging like a pair of teenagers in our office. But since then, nothing.
Rather than give Miranda a satisfactory answer, Martin and Charlie gravitated over towards the projector screen set-up, joining the other half-dozen men who were all stood around, observing the process, rubbing their chins and nodding.
‘What’s going on with you two?’ I asked. ‘Has he declared his undying love yet?’
‘No, because he’s an idiot,’ she replied with a resigned sigh. ‘Whatever, it’s not like it’s a big deal, is it?’
‘Of course it isn’t.’ I patted her knee and passed my champagne to an empty-handed Brian as he walked by. ‘You’re a kick-arse queen who is the master of her own destiny and you’ve got better things to worry about than Martin Green.’
‘Please don’t call me a queen,’ she said, fluffing out her amber afro. ‘You can’t pull it off.’
‘Dope,’ I replied with a nod.
‘No, Annie, just no.’
Everyone on the rooftop cheered as a bright green field appeared on the giant projector screen and I felt my heart sink. There was no way I was spending the rest of the evening watching football; we were supposed to be celebrating, not punishing ourselves. Across the way, I saw Brian press his fingers to his temple and pull the trigger before cocking his head towards the exit. But before I could make my escape, Charlie and Martin leapt over the back of the sofa, Charlie pressed up against my left side and Martin glued to Miranda’s right, squishing us into the very finest BFF sandwich.
Charlie flashed me a grin and I blushed
