the sun’s barely dipped below the horizon when daisy spills out onto the street on a wave of remixed top 40 hits from the 90′s. her hair’s been piled high on her head, barely held in place by an elastic on loan from a girl she’d met in the bathroom an hour or so ago, and there’s a rosy heat that’s made itself at home in the apples of her cheeks under the coaxing of competition and the discounted shots offered to pub quiz participants. the injustice of her loss is sure to be the hot topic of conversation for the foreseeable future –––– daisy will describe it in ( excessive ) detail once she’s home with heavy emphasis on words like robbed and bias until everyone is in agreement that a conspiracy has unfolded worthy of the spotlight of a moderately popular youtube channel.
she is halfway through tapping out a hastily written warning in the group chat when she spots him out of the corner of her eye, inadvertently condemns the others to a ‘...’ that lingers until imessage decides that the locking of her screen might indicate she’s abandoned whatever thought never quite made it to the send button. “vinnie?” there is a fleeting moment of hesitation, a breath that daisy hadn’t quite realised she was holding, and then she is crossing the square to meet him with an odd feeling that she will later identify as relief and a noteworthy absence of whatever doubt or good sense might have kept her from greeting him with a hug. “this is so crazy, vin, what the fuck ––– what are you doing across the river? feels like i haven’t seen you since obama was in ––– are you just down for the day?”
@nstclgic
