‘Is it going to be “between your legs”?’ she asks, mimicking my voice as one hand clumsily mimes air quotes.
But that was the absolute last thing I expected to hear coming out of Lucy’s mouth, and the shock of it combined with a sudden gust makes me splutter into a cough. I suppose because of the way she looks, my first impression of her was that she was innocent, perhaps a little naive. But she keeps showing me over and over that there’s much more to her than that.
‘Oh my God,’ I manage eventually, turning to rest my hip against the metal railing. ‘I cannot believe you said that.’
She mirrors my movement, propping herself opposite me. Her gaze is steady, unflinching, and there’s the slightest hint of a smirk at the corner of her mouth. ‘Did I shock you?’ she asks, and as she does, that smirk blooms into a full-on grin. She’s pleased with herself, and it’s adorable as hell.
‘Yeah!’ Residual shock raises the pitch of my voice. ‘I wanted to tell you off first-and-last-name style, but I don’t actually know your surname.’
Her mouth twitches to the side, barely enough to notice. I’m not sure if that was a flinch, and the idea that it could have been grates at my stomach.
‘Sorry,’ I say quickly, ‘that sounded creepy. Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me if?—’
‘It’s Partridge,’ she interrupts, looking me squarely in the eye. ‘But I’m a bird only by name, not by nature, so you don’t need to be scared of me.’
If only she knew that I’m not nearly as scared of her as I should be.
‘Lucy Partridge,’ I say quietly, like I’m testing the feel of it in my mouth. There’s something familiar about it, though I can’t say why. Maybe I’ve heard Mina mention it before. ‘Well, Lucy Partridge,’ I continue, inching my hand towards hers as I arch a brow, ‘maybe I’ll let you know later.’
For the briefest of moments, I think I see her eyes darken, but then they close, and she throws her head back in a laugh. ‘Nowthatwas a line.’
And then she comes to stand next to me, lightly bumping my shoulder with hers. ‘Come on, Romeo,’ she says with a smirk. ‘What’s the next stop on the tour?’
‘This is a Goth Weekend staple,’ I say, leading Lucy through the doors of the leisure centre. This weekend it’s bustling with stalls, all with traders selling their wares– the dark, the alternative and the wonderfully weird. I’m not usually a fan of shopping, but I love this market.
Most of it, anyway. I notice an information stall in the entrance run by a bat preservation charity and shudder at thememory of that damn creature in my hands. I hurry Lucy past it and into the main hall before I inadvertently summon any.
But the horror of the memory is quickly replaced by something entirely different when Lucy grabs at my arm, pure excitement rushing out of her with a squeal. She drags me over to a stall of embroidery hoops with intricately stitched designs, and before I know it she’s deep in conversation with the stallholder. I had thought this might not be her scene, but from the way she’s talking to the vendor like they’re old friends, I couldn’t be more wrong.
‘Look at my tits,’ she says suddenly from beside me, and I almost swallow my tongue. I try my absolute hardest to stop my eyes from darting to her chest, but it’s futile. In their defence, they bounce back up in shame, meeting hers with a rush of feeling through my body that tracks somewhere between embarrassment and arousal, and only intensifies when the slightest of blushes pinks her cheeks.
Fuck, I’mburningfor her.
It’s only then that I notice her outstretched arm, her finger pointing to a small hoop withLook at my titsembroidered in elegant, looping font, framed by two beautifully stitched blue tits.
Oh.
Oh.
I’m mortified. It doesn’t help that the stallholder clearly noticed, and is now watching the two of us with barely concealed interest. I try to think of something to say to make things less awkward, but it’s like someone has pressed pause on my body and I’m frozen, my mind flailing wildly to try and minimise the fallout. But then Lucy does something that I don’t expect.
She laughs. And not a forced, polite laugh either, but a loud honk of a thing, messy and genuine. When I look at her, shehas tears in her eyes, and she wipes at them with the cuff of her jacket.
‘You just made my day,’ she says when she finally stops laughing, and there’s something, some small flicker of heat in her eyes, which emboldens me.
This time when my eyes dart down to her chest, it’s entirely deliberate. ‘You just made mine.’
And then I watch with delight as the blush races back up her neck. It’s official: flirting with Lucy just became my new favourite thing to do.
By the time we step back out into the glare of the autumn day, it’s after midday, and the sun is high in the sky. I squint against it, quickly fishing my sunglasses out of my pocket and slipping them back on before my eyes start to sting. Lucy is a few steps behind me, clutching a paper bag in one hand as she jogs to catch up.
‘I bought us a gift,’ she says, her face pulling into a huge grin, and I raise an eyebrow in a question. God only knows how she had time– I could have sworn we walked out together. So much for my supposed heightened senses.
Ok, there’s a chance I’m a little distracted.
She stops when she reaches me and shakes two small metal shapes out into her hand. ‘Well,’ she says, turning the shapes over in her hand, ‘I bought useacha gift.’
I chuckle as I examine them. ‘Badges?’