Page 52 of Tilly in Technicolor
TILLY
Okay but for real is there anything more intimidating than going solo to a freaking pub, inCopenhagen,to meet up with a girl you desperately want to be best friends with, her bandmates, and a guy you definitely have overwhelming unreciprocated feelings for?
Didn’t think so.
I hover outside the entrance for so long, I start to get funny looks from the people drinking outside. But instead of doing the logical thing and actually going in, I decide a few loops around the block would be the better option.
An all-too-familiar voice stops me as I’m starting my fourth lap.
“Tilly?”
I turn, seeing Ollie standing in the doorway of the bar, golden light putting his lean frame in silhouette.
“Hi,” I say, giving him a jerky flap of a wave.
“You’ve circled past at least three times. Is your GPS not working?” Ollie asks, nodding at the phone clutched in my hand.
Oh my God, strike me down now.
“Yeah,” I lie. “I guess so. It kept telling me to go five hundred more feet.”
Ollie frowns then walks toward me. “We can’t have you walking around with a faulty GPS. Would you mind if I look at your phone? Maybe there’s a missing update I can help you with.”
Since I’m a dirty cowardanda liar, I shove my phone into my purse, then wave off the question. “I’ll have you look tomorrow on the train. We’ll have so much time to kill.”
Ollie thinks about this for a moment, eyes swooping up and down the street like he’s on the lookout for robbers.
“Okay,” he says at last, moving so he’s ushering me through the entrance. “But I don’t like the idea of you wandering around aimlessly in foreign cities.”
I’m turned inside out enough by this boy to admit that I absolutely glow at his concern.
“We’re right over here,” Ollie says, leading me toward a booth in the back corner. “I’ve had us move four times to find the least overstimulating spot. Wouldn’t do for either one of us to go into sensory overload and have a meltdown.”
“Yeah, it sure would be awful to embarrass myself in public for the first time in my life ever. Definitely have no idea what that’s like.”
Ollie glances at me then picks up on my sarcasm, giving me that grin that always threatens to kill me.
I blink away, focusing instead on Cubby in the corner who shoots me a smile and a wave-flick-of-her-wrist thing that looks so effortlessly cool I’m already sweaty.
When we finally squeeze past the sizeable crowd and make it to the table, I’m dismayed, but not surprised, to find her apparent bandmates to be equally cool and moody looking.
“Tillyyyyyy,” she sings, standing up to kiss me on both cheeks like we’re best friends finally reunited after years apart. “Come. Sit. Ollie, scoot over, my God.”
Oliver gives Cubby a bland look but does as he’s told, making extra room for me on the bench next to him.
“Tilly,” Cubby says, “I’d like you to meet my band, Tongue-Tied.”
“I thought your band’s name was Rabbit Hole,” Ollie interrupts.
Cubby glares at him. “We haven’t been called that in ages.”
“You were called that four months ago when you made me buy that Rabbit Hole T-shirt at your show in London.”
“Right, but shortly after that we realized people started chanting ‘bunny pussy’ at our gigs thinking we meant a different type of hole,” the other girl at the table says, giving Oliver a broad smile.
Cubby sighs. “Regardless. We’re Tongue-Tied now. Tilly, these are my mates. Darcy, she’s on bass…” The girl with streaks of pink in her hair winks at me. “Harry, who’s on keyboard—”
“And sometimes sax. When the boss lets me,” the handsome guy sitting next to me at the end of the table says, his glacier-blue eyes sparkling as he leans close to shake my hand. He’s that alarming type of handsome that every Taylor Swift song has warned me about, and he’s packing the extra lethal addition of an Irish accent. My traitorous cheeks flush at the broad smile he gives me.
