SO MUCH FOR PLAYING CUPID

I walked out of the lecture hall at ten past ten with a headache, a tote bag full of leaflets I'd been told to hand out and hadn't and a stomach so empty it had stopped complaining and gone quiet which is always worse. The Economics Society had called it a career pathways evening. What it actually was: a man in a quarter-zip talking for ninety minutes about "leveraging your network" followed by twenty minutes of questions where the same three people asked the same thing in different words. I'd only stayed because my name was on the volunteer sheet and because there was free tea. The tea turned out to be lukewarm and terrible. I still had the cup in my hand when I saw him. Benjamin was sitting on the low wall at the bottom of the steps, hood up, hands in his pockets, looking like he'd been there a while and didn't mind. He glanced up when the door banged shut behind me. "You're becoming a very bad habit," I said. "Well, you say that every time you see me." "That's because you're always there." "So it's not a habit then. You'll say it's a feature." He stood, took the cup out of my hand before I could stop him.and drank. He made a face. "That's disgusting." "Then give it back." "No, I'm helping. You weren't going to finish it." "I was going to think about finishing it." "Well, now you don't have to." He never explained why he was there, and I'd stopped asking a long time ago. We started across the courtyard. "You look terrible, by the way," he said. "I've been up since six. I've had a lecture, a shift at the café, and ninety minutes of synergy." "That explains the face." A guy from one of his classes called, "Hale! good session?" Benjamin gave him a flat "Yeah, thanks," and the guy hurried off. "Do you ever smile at people?" I asked. "I'm smiling now." "You're not." "I'm smiling on the inside." "Nobody ever sees it." "It's exclusive." He shrugged. "Also, you walk faster when you're annoyed. I've timed it. Four minutes to the gate on a normal day. Two and a half tonight." "I'm going home. Right now and alone." "Okay." He kept walking beside me anyway. We were almost at the library, where the path splits toward the bus stop, when he said, "You didn't text me back on Sunday." "I was busy." "Four days of busy." "Benjamin." "I'm just saying. You usually insult me at least once and I got nothing. It was weird." "If this is about the other night—" "I didn't say it was." "It was a mistake," I said, quickly, before he could say anything else. "I told you that. It was a mistake and it's not going to happen again." He nodded slowly, like he was giving it real consideration. "Then why are you still talking to me?" "Because we're friends." "Friends don't kiss each other like that." My face went hot, which I decided to blame on the walking. "Stop." He stopped right away and lifted both hands, palms out. "Okay." For a second his jaw worked like he was swallowing whatever he'd been about to say next. Then my phone started buzzing in my pocket. Once. Twice. Three times in a row. I pulled it out, glad of the excuse, and regretted it immediately. My landlord, with a smiley face: *Just a reminder that rent's due Friday!* The repair shop: my laptop was ready to collect, but the screen had turned out to be worse than they'd quoted, so the total was now higher than the number I'd planned for. And under those, a notification from my bank that I didn't open because I already knew what it would say. I did the maths the way I always do, fast and with a sick feeling like someone who already knows how it ends. Rent was fine, if I picked up Tuesday's extra shift. The laptop could wait until the end of the month, if I could survive on the library computers until then. I'd worked it out. It was fine. It was just that fine had very little room around the edges and somewhere in the back of my mind was the thought that if I got to Thursday and it wasn't fine, I could send one text and it would stop being my problem. Which was exactly why I was working so hard not to. I turned the screen against my chest, but not fast enough. "Everything okay?" His voice had gone quieter. "Fine. It's just life admin." "If you need a hand with anything—" "I can handle it." It came out sharper than I meant. I tried again, softer. "Really. I've got it." He looked at me for a moment, and I could see him deciding whether to argue. Then he nodded and said, "Okay," and put his hands back in his pockets and let it sit there. I breathed out through my nose and didn't say thank you. My phone lit up again with a name. *Quinn.* My shoulders came down. I was already smiling when I answered. "Hi." "Have you eaten?" "Hello to you too." "Charlotte. Have you eaten?" "Yes." "What did you eat?" "Food." A long, patient breath. "Charlotte. What did you eat?" "Pasta." "From where?" "From... the place." "Which place?" I opened my mouth, closed it and looked up at the sky like it might help. Beside me, Benjamin was very careful not to laugh. When I glanced over, he wasn't looking at the phone. He was looking at me. "You had a cereal bar at two o'clock," Quinn said. "Didn't you." "It was a big cereal bar." "I'm sending you something and don't you try to argue." "Quinn, you don't have to—" "Charlotte." Her voice was warm and completely immovable. "Stop arguing with me and send me your location." I sighed, but I was already doing it, thumb on the screen, pin dropped. It wasn't even a decision. It was just what you did when Quinn said so, like saying bless you after a sneeze. "Fine. Sent." "Good. It'll come in twenty minutes." "Thank you." "Don't thank me. Make sure you finish everything tonight." She hung up. I looked down at the phone for a second still smiling a little and only then remembered I wasn't alone. "Quinn?" Benjamin asked. "Yeah. My best friend. Since we were kids." "The one who introduced us?" "Unfortunately." "You were so rude to me." "You deserved it." "I was seventeen." "And annoying." "Still am." "Definitely." I couldn't help smiling. "She's still the bossiest person I know," he said. "She's the bossiest person alive." I laughed, and it was a real one. "But she notices things. She's loud when she's comfortable and completely silent when she isn't and you can always tell which it is. And it goes both ways, you know. Last week I was the one dragging her out of her room after eleven hours at her mannequin while she told me she 'wasn't hungry’. We take turns. We always have." I realized I was talking with my hands, and stopped. Benjamin had gone quiet. "I only ever get the loud version, at parties," he said. Then, after a moment: "She sounds important." "She is." It came out plainly, without me having to think. The delivery rider found us in under twenty minutes, jogging up the path with a bag in each hand and a look of mild suffering. There was enough for two days. The noodles I'd eaten every exam season since we were fourteen, when Quinn started turning up at my door with a container and a story about her mum making too much. Her mum had never once made too much. And a little tub of the dessert I liked, which I'd only ever mentioned once. "Well," said Benjamin. "She wasn't joking." "She never is." We stood there under the library lights, the bus stop across the road with no bus in sight. I shifted both bags into one hand. I knew I should say goodnight. Instead I waited and so did he. "Charlotte," he said. "What are we doing?" He said it almost lightly, hands in his pockets, eyes on the road. I couldn't tell if it was a real question or a joke that hadn't been decided yet. I didn't ask what he meant, because I knew what he was asking. What I didn't know was what he wanted the answer to be and I wasn't brave enough to find out. I looked at the bus stop. "I think that's my bus." It wasn't. It was a delivery van. Benjamin looked at the van, then back at me and for a second I thought he'd say so but he just let out a breath and let me have it. "Okay." "Goodnight, Ben." "Goodnight." I took about five steps. "You know that kiss wasn't a mistake." He said it the way he said everything else, dry and easy, like he was pointing out a leaning lamp post. I couldn't tell if it was a confession, or a dare, or just Benjamin being annoying. It hadn't been dry and easy last Saturday. Saturday had been the landing outside Marcus's flat, coats heaped on the banister, someone's bass thudding through the wall, and Benjamin halfway through a story about his cousin's wedding, stopping. Just stopping, and looking at me like he'd lost his place. And then the bass, and the coats, and the way he— I didn't let myself finish it. Something small and uncomfortable turned over in my stomach. Quinn was the one who'd brought him into my life, and Quinn still had no idea what had happened since. I didn't stop, and I didn't turn around. I walked faster, the bag handles biting into my fingers, my heart going like something stupid and unreasonable, my face hot again in the cold air. --- My room is small and cold enough that I kept my coat on while I ate. I worked through the noodles slowly and texted, *It came. Thank you. I love you. Did you get home okay?* She sent back a single heart and *Yes. Make sure you rest well, you def had a long day.* I didn't sleep. I rinsed the containers and stacked them by the door. I laid out my clothes for the seven a.m. shift. I finished the reading for Thursday, every page of it, with a pen in my hand and my coat still on. Then I sat with the little tub of dessert and thought about nothing, and definitely not about a landing or a stolen cup of tea or the way someone had said *okay* and meant it. At half past midnight, my phone lit up. **Quinn:** *Can I tell you something?* I put down my spoon. **Me:** *Of course.* The three dots appeared. Vanished. Appeared again. **Quinn:** *Promise you won't laugh at me.* I smiled at the screen. **Me:** *I promise.* Nothing came for a long time. The dots came and went. I sat there in the cold, warm from the food, waiting. Then the message arrived. **Quinn:** *I think I'm in love with Benjamin.*