Page 26 of Swiping Right (and other disasters)

“Where now?” said Kiera, incredulous.

“You’ll see.”

After ten minutes of the drunken forced march Lou had instigated, they stopped outside Kiera’s old house.

“What are we...” Keira began, but before she could complete the question, Lou’s kebab was flying through the air and landing, splat, on the bay window.

“Come on, you know you want to,” said Lou, a glint in her eye.

“I, um, fuck it, yes I want to,” said Kiera, pulling back her hand and throwing the remainder of her own kebab overhand to land to the right of Lou’s, before slowly sliding down the window, leaving a snail trail of grease and sauce behind it.

Her surprise at managing a direct hit given the amount of alcohol she’d consumed was quickly forgotten when the downstairs lights came on. Lou and Kiera squealed, before joining hands and running as fast as their inebriated legs could take them. They were soon back on the High Street, where they collapsed, hysterical with laughter, into the doorway of a shop. It was the kind of laughter that takes over and persists. Periodically there would be a pause, and then one of them would dissolve into giggles again, setting the other off.

“My God, Kiera, that was epic. I haven’t done anything like that since I was at uni.”

Kiera laughed. “I don’t think I’ve done anything like that, ever. God, she’s going to be so pissed off, and imagine Athena’s face!”

Lou snorted. “Why is she named after a nineties poster shop, anyway?”

“Ooh, yes, I remember that, the magic eye posters. The hours me and my friends spent in there trying to make the hidden image appear. I remember standing with my nose pressed up against the image for about ten minutes once. Eventually a shop assistant came and asked if I was ok, and if I needed any help. I got embarrassed, so I picked up the nearest poster and bought it.”

“Ha! That’s brilliant. You were such a dork! What was the poster of?” asked Lou. “Was it that tennis girl with her bum out?”

“No!” said Kiera, with a chortle. “I was still ‘confused’ at that point. No, it was a muscle-bound man holding a kitten.”

“Oh my God, that’s hilarious! I could murder a fag,” said Lou, rummaging about in her pockets as if she might find a cigarette there.

“You don’t smoke!” shouted Kiera.

“I used to. Fifteen a day when I was a student. I stopped when I started dating Dan. He hated the smell of smoke, and I gave it up for him.”

“Oh, how romantic,” said Kiera.

“I was thinking less with my brain and more with another part of me, as I recall. But I haven’t smoked in years. Talking about being a teenager reminded me how brilliant a cigarette is after a skin-full and a kebab.” Lou sighed. “It’s so unfair that we have to grow up into responsible adults.”

“Too true. I can’t believe I’m in the process of sorting out a house post-divorce. What the hell happened to my life?” Kiera began to get to her feet.

“Steady on, mate. Where are you off to?”

“Come on, we can’t sit in the street all night. Let’s go to my flat, you can sleep on the sofa.”

“Bugger that,” said Lou, “I’m sleeping in your bed with you.”

“Deal,” said Kiera. She reached out her hand to pull Lou up, although at one point it felt like she would end up being pulled back down instead. Finally, they brushed themselves down and walked to Kiera’s flat arm in arm.

Chapter Eighteen

Kiera ignored the dating app on her phone for a week or so. She was starting to suspect that the love of her life wasn’t waiting for her inside a mobile phone app after all. And even if they were, did she really want to spend the rest of her life telling people she had met her significant other by swiping right? Which was how she ended up on a night out in Sparks, a gay club on Hurst Street, the heart of Birmingham’s gay quarter, with Charlie. They were three gins in and Kiera was beginning to feel pleasantly woozy.

“The thing is,” said Charlie, his white, perfectly-fitting shirt glowing in the UV lights, “lesbians are just getting it all wrong.” He was shouting to make himself heard over the pounding bass.

“Nothing like a sweeping generalisation there,” replied Kiera with a wry smile.

“What? I can’t hear myself think in here,” said Charlie, before ushering her into an outdoor space where anyone who wanted to talk or vape or both was taking refuge from the beat.

“I said,” said Kiera, “you can’t reduce me to my sexuality like that. And anyway, what are lesbians getting all wrong?” She was curious in spite of herself.

“Well, you know how it is, gay men don’t expect to settle down. Makes life simpler.”

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