Page 11 of The Mismatch

The girl’s words fitted the impression she had gotten from others about Magnus during their three years at university. If someone had said this yesterday she would have brushed it off, not cared at all. Now, though, she felt a weird desire to leave the conversation; she didn’t want to hear more. She found herself justifying his actions, and she didn’t like it.

‘Oh, shit,’ Soraya said, lifting her phone up as though she’d received a message. ‘Sorry, I need to find my friend. He’s looking for me. Talk later, yeah?’ She got up without waiting for a reply and left the room, not taking a second glance at Magnus. But she could have sworn she felt his eyes on her.

The rest of the night was a blur of dancing, and conversations lamenting the end of an era. The queues for the toilets were ever-growing. Someone had mentioned that one of the basement bedrooms had an en suite. Soraya went to check.

There was no one down there, which struck her as odd, but she did find a toilet. She spent a long time looking in themirror trying to fix her make-up, but her hands were shaky and her vision blurred. She steadied herself against the sink and took deep breaths. She hated this part of being drunk – the point at which it was too late to do anything but ride the wave of the spinning world.

As she came out of the en suite she saw Magnus sitting on the bed. His back was to her and she wasn’t sure whether to walk out of the room without saying anything, or to acknowledge his presence.

‘Hi,’ she said, despite herself.

He turned and gave her a smile. Her palms were clammy, her heart beating too fast. Part of her longed for someone to walk in, but a small part also hoped no one would.

He patted a spot on the bed next to him. ‘Sit,’ he said.

She hesitated.

‘Or don’t.’ He shrugged.

She went over and sat down next to him.

‘I’ve not seen you at a party before,’ he said.

‘Yeah, it’s not really my …’ She was going to say ‘scene’, but thought again. It wasn’t that it wasn’t her scene; she had just never been invited to one like this before. Even now, she hadn’t been directly asked; Oliver’s boyfriend Charlie had invited them along. ‘I prefer more low-key gatherings.’

Magnus looked at her for a long while. Being this close to him meant she could smell him for the first time. His aftershave was musky, earthy almost. With him this close, she noticed his eyes were red.

‘You’re very drunk, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ he lied. ‘I mean, aren’t you too? You look it.’

She had sobered up a little since sitting down next to him, but the room was still spinning. Focusing her gaze on him kept her grounded, so she did that.

He put his hand on her thigh as though to steady himself, and she felt herself go very rigid. This always happened when boys tried to touch her. She closed her eyes for a few seconds.

‘So, Soraya,’ he said. ‘Let me guess what you do with your nights instead. You’re “alternative”, so you go to Corsica or Bussey Building and listen to techno music while you’re high on MD? Or you prefer to have intellectual conversations drinking artisan coffee with your friends?’ He had a smile on his face.

Her mouth was open in astonishment. In reality she liked pop music, secretly still enjoyedTwilightand drank instant coffee. But she thought it best to omit those details.

‘And you’ve never done those things yourself? What are you, anti-drugs? How very un-Goldsmiths of you.’

‘If you need to take something to have a good night, then you’re not having a good night, is all I’m saying.’

As he spoke she noticed he had a small gap between his two front teeth, like she did. She felt a strange warmth towards him then.

‘So you’ve never taken anything before?’

‘I’m not saying that,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s just a slippery slope, that’s all.’

He was the first person she had spoken to in her three years at university who wasn’t blasé about drugs. She remembered the exchange she had overheard between himand his dad at graduation and wondered if that was the reason for Magnus’s stance against drug taking.

He shifted, and Soraya became acutely aware that his hand was still resting on her thigh. She was struck by how attractive his hands were – she had never had such a thought before. Hands, she had always felt, were just hands – and yet looking at his did something to her. She could describe them in no way other than manly. She realised she had never been this close to a man before, in this way at least, to have made such an observation. When she looked at him, he didn’t seem to notice what he was doing.

‘So, you’re going to tell me my description of you isn’t right?’ he challenged.

‘You’re such a dick.’ She playfully pushed his shoulder – which was as hard as it looked. His hand covered hers as though to stop her and their eyes locked. His other hand was still resting on her thigh.

‘I didn’t say it was a bad thing,’ he said.