A Ballad of Confetti, Cake and Catastrophes

by Helen Juliet

  “It’ll look uneven,” griped Danielle.

  Nicholas got himself another slice of pizza and tried not to lose his patience. “So – we move some people from another table.”

  “All the tables are composed of different friendship groups, and organised by both sides of the family,” Danielle said irritably. “We can’t just pluck a couple from here, and a couple from there. We spent weeks balancing everyone out!” She sloshed her green juice around in its bottle, and Kinny winced.

  “Fine,” Nicholas shot back, not sure why he was the one that had been targeted for this rant. “Is there anyone we can bump up from the evening guest list, to fill the space?”

  “Ooh, that’s a good idea,” Peter chimed in.

  Danielle did her fake laugh that really grated on Nicholas’s nerves. “And who do we pick that won’t upset other people? It’s all politics; everything has a knock-on effect. If we ask one friend to the day and not another, there’ll be anarchy.”

  Nicholas opened his mouth to tell her that if she didn’t want solutions, she bloody well shouldn’t have asked them in the first place. And also, that she should probably check the dictionary for a definition of the word ‘anarchy’. But his dad spoke over him. Loudly.

  “Well, we’ll just have to hope for the best, and with any luck Sally and the boys will fly down as scheduled.”

  Clara swallowed her pizza and nodded emphatically. “I’m sure it’ll all be fine Danielle,” she assured their cousin. “Please don’t worry.”

  Danielle tsked, and Clara’s hurt expression pissed Nicholas off even further. He shoved a whole stuffed pizza crust into his mouth to stop him from retaliating. That wasn’t a plan, and that wouldn’t solve the problem if they were five people short come Saturday. But he still maintained that wasn’t the end of the world anyway. If Danielle wanted to stress for the sake of stressing, he said let her.

  A purring reminiscent of a lawnmower caught his attention, and he froze as a familiar heap of fluff wound its way around the legs of the kitchen chairs, on the hunt for Nicholas’s mum. Don’t you dare, you fucker. Nicholas wasn’t sure exactly what he was forbidding Archibald from doing, but it seemed best to cover all the bases by suggesting ‘anything at all bad’. He didn’t have much hope, but maybe the universe would take pity on him.

  Archibald glared up and him, and Nicholas scowled back. He was determined not to back down, even if it was to a mean-spirited cat. Thankfully, after a minute, he slunk off out the cat flap into the rain.

  After that, conversation was mainly carried out by Kinny and Nicholas’s mum, with Clara chipping in every now and again. They were talking mostly about her wedding dress, which thankfully was being kept at the shop until Thursday, where it was much less likely to come afoul of Archibald’s claws. Nicholas excused himself as soon as he could, feeling the need to go and play some sort of video game which involved blowing stuff up. Fortunately, he had a vast supply of those. He didn’t feel bad leaving the others to finish the fairy lights, as he’d already worked for an hour on them already.

  He couldn’t help but feel that even though he’d won with Archibald, he’d lost to Danielle, which irritated him more than it probably should have. She always had to be right, had to have the last word and be the smartest person in the room. It had shaken off his good mood from earlier, which made him even grumpier. She shouldn’t be able to take that away from him.

  But now he was feeling like he couldn’t do anything right, especially as he kept blowing himself up rather than the enemy planes, and he was getting ready to throw the controller across the room. Fuck, he was such a waste of space. He talked too much even though no one wanted to hear what he had to say, and he would never be good enough for the likes of Fynn. He took another swig of beer, and scowled at his computer monitor.

  A knock on his door took him by surprise. He paused the game (not that it mattered if he died again, anyway) and turned on his chair. “Come in,” he called, expecting his mum.

  He was greeted by Ash sticking her head around the door. She must have just come home from her mysterious job with the petri dishes, but she wasn’t wearing any kind of uniform that would help him identify where it was. Just a strappy top and some jeans.

  “Hey dude,” she said, leaning on the doorframe and giving him a small wave.

  “Oh hey,” he said. She had an infectious calmness about her that he was growing to like. “There’s pizza if you’re hungry. And beer.” He waved his bottle in her direction.

  She nodded. “Had a slice, thanks.” She slipped her hands into her back pockets and rocked on her heels. “It was more the booze thing I was wondering about actually. You don’t, like, fancy getting out of here for a few hours, do you?”

  Nicholas blinked. “What, like, go into town?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, nodding and looking around his room. “Uh, just had a sort of full-on day and, kind of just need to blow off some steam. Thought you might know somewhere good?”

  Nicholas laughed. “Well, I don’t know about ‘good’, but some of my school mates are going clubbing. An average sort of place, but Tuesdays are cheese nights, so it could be fun?”

  Ash’s face broke into a smile. “Like ‘90s cheese?”

  “They always, without fail, play the Baywatch theme,” he informed her solemnly, conveying just how cheesy this place was prepared to go.

  “Give me five minutes.”

  Before he could say anything else, she sprinted upstairs. Well, Nicholas thought. I guess I’m going out after all.

  Now he was already on his third beer, he was more up for hitting a club. So he quickly opened his wardrobe and flung on a fresh t-shirt and gave himself another squirt of aftershave. He texted Trev to let him know he’d be coming after all.

  And then his thumb hovered over Fynn’s name.

  Oh, why the hell not? Life was too short.

  ‘Hey dude. So, you’re probably working, but if you fancied it, I’m meeting some mates at Havana – the club near the station. It’d be nice to buy you a drink for all your hard work!’

  He sent the message before he could change his mind, then smiled at the dozen or so varied happy faces he’d received in reply from Trev at the news he was coming out with them.

  Ash hadn’t changed her clothes, she’d just thrown on some eyeliner and made her hair more pointy. She still looked awesome though, with the cotton and denim clinging to her petite frame. Nicholas told her she looked hot, then immediately worried if that was skeezy. But she took it in the spirit it was intended, and told him likewise. There was never any drama around Ash, which he was definitely starting to appreciate.

  It was already nine o’clock, and they were both keen not to waste any time. She called them a cab to ferry them across town, giving them ten minutes to get out the door.

  Nicholas went around the house, and in turn invited Peter and Clara, Kinny, and as a show of good sportsmanship, even Danielle. However, nobody else fancied coming out. Danielle even managed to only tut very quietly at the notion of going drinking when there was wedding stuff to be done, but Nicholas was feeling generous having reclaimed his good mood, so chose to ignore her.

  Once they heard the honk of the horn, it was just him and Ash that ran out into the rain and threw themselves into the back of the taxi. The cabbie laughed at them as they shook themselves off.

  “Sorry,” Nicholas said, then thought of Fynn. But it was polite to apologise when you were making someone’s car wet.

  “No room for an umbrella then?” he asked as he pulled off down the street.

  Ash grinned. “Not in these jeans, mate.” Nicholas snorted.

  He checked his phone, but there was no reply from Fynn. Still, he kept the phone in his hand the whole drive there, just in case. He was probably still at work – chances were, he couldn’t check his messages if he was in the middle of waiting tables, so Nicholas kept a little flicker of hope alive that he might still decide to come out later.

  He’d been thinking a
bout Fynn dancing. He bet he was really good. He was so in sync with his music, he would naturally have a good sense of rhythm, Nicholas was certain. But then again, he was also inclined to run hot and cold. Perhaps dancing was beneath him? He seemed to flirt, and then he shut down. One minute he was ignoring texts, the next he was sending him kisses.

  Nicholas was glad the taxi was dark, as he was sure he blushed at just thinking about that. For the love of god, he needed to get a grip on this going red all the time business, or he was going to really embarrass himself very soon.

  But it was difficult. Now he was almost certain he was gay himself, getting a kiss in the middle of the night from another, rather gorgeous, gay guy was bound to leave him feeling flustered. Even if he was convinced it couldn’t really mean anything. There was no way Fynn would be flirting with someone like him, but it was quite nice to imagine he could be flirting, just for a moment.

  Luckily, the queue outside the club was low, otherwise they would have gotten drenched. Within a minute or two, they were inside paying at the booth to get into the club proper. Nicholas had thought that it might be a bit dead on the floor thanks to the lack of a line, but that was probably more due to the fact that it was reasonably late in the evening for a Tuesday, and most people were already inside. The club was plenty busy.

  That was good. At least if he was going to be forced into dancing, the crowd would be so dense that people wouldn’t really pay attention to him.

  Havana looked like an old school from the outside, or maybe even a church. It was all brown brickwork and cream arches and even a round, stained glass window at the very top. Inside, though, it was extremely purple thanks to the backlighting at the bar and around the walls. At two stories high, the bottom floor contained the main dance area, lowered into a well. That way, people in the booths and table areas could watch the dancers, and so could those from the second-floor balcony that ran all around in a circle. Everything was designed for you to be seen, for people to meet and make a connection, or just show off if you were that way inclined.

  Nicholas still hoped he wouldn’t draw any attention despite all that. He wasn’t there to pull, he was there to see his mates, and maybe help Ash shake off her stressful day.

  “Shall we go to the bar?” he shouted in her ear as they pressed their way into the throng. “Then we can look for my friends – Trev said they were in the back on the right.”

  Ash gave him two thumbs-up, then entwined their hands so she could tug him through the people in their way. People in the dance area were thrashing around to some classic RnB which Nicholas recognised, but didn’t know the name of. There seemed to be a lot of grinding going on though, with pelvises thrusting and hands wandering over hips and bums. Nicholas definitely needed another drink if he was going to get anywhere near that.

  Ash slipped past through people easily, with a big smile and the occasional bounce of her boobs. People like her knew how to use flirting like a currency, without actually committing to anything. Nicholas had no idea how that worked. She also used her charms to get them served extra fast by the girl behind the bar, who may have been covered in glitter and smiling, but her eyes showed how tired she really was. Ash managed to make her laugh though, which, considering how loud the music was, was no easy feat.

  “How do you do that?” Nicholas asked as they moved back out into the crowd, plastic beer bottles clutched in their hands.

  Ash winked at him. “It’s easier when you don’t know them,” she assured him. He wasn’t sure he believed that, but he was happy to have his drink so fast, so didn’t question it.

  They found Trev and another half a dozen other guys from school holed up in the corner behind some large, fake potted plants where they’d managed to grab a table. There were drapes everywhere stretched across the lower ceiling under the second floor, and pulled down to the floor. It gave the impression of a sort of Moroccan marquee, although the four-tier chandelier hanging over the centre of the dance floor didn’t really fit with that aesthetic. It still looked pretty.

  The guys moved up to make room for them in the booth, though Nicholas made sure to perch on the edge. He was feeling a little antsy and didn’t fancy being penned in. Ash squirmed right on in and began holding court immediately, although she was too far away for Nicholas to really catch what she was saying. The guys around her were enraptured pretty quickly. Nicholas shook his head. He wasn’t sure he was up to having one of his friends come back to his house and shagging his soon-to-be sister-in-law, not that there was the room to get up to anything like that. He’d have to keep an eye on things though, and see if Ash needed rescuing from any of them at any point.

  At the moment she looked perfectly happy, making the guys either side of her laugh with some story she was telling. So he turned his attention to Trev.

  “What’s up, mate? How you doing?” he asked. They clinked bottles, but as they were plastic, it was more of a feeble tap. The sentiment was still genuine.

  “Good, yeah, really good!” he shouted back. Trev was an overweight guy with an insane talent for art. For some reason (Nicholas suspected his pushy mum) he’d gone off to do a business degree, and would probably end up stuck in his dad’s office for the next forty years if he wasn’t careful. But for now, Nicholas still had time to try and corrupt him.

  “How’s The Night Shift going?”

  Trev had been illustrating his own comic book for a couple of years now. He’d met a writer online called Pembroke, and the two of them had started publishing their detective stories via various websites to increasing success. Sure enough, his eyes lit up at the mention of his pet project.

  “Holy shit, dude – didn’t you see on Facebook?” Nicholas shook his head. He was always missing things. “We got a place at a MCM in London – to exhibit! We’re going in May – Pem is actually flying over, we’re finally going to meet in real life!”

  Nicholas could help but goggle at him for a second. “You’re going to be at a convention?” he asked, not quite believing it. “As a guest – people are going to come over to you?”

  “Yeah!” Trev cried, bouncing up and down. “My parents don’t know, obviously, but my five thousand followers do. We’ve already got pre-bookings!”

  “Mate,” Nicholas said sincerely. “I’m so happy for you.” And he meant it. But, it was also hard not to feel just the smallest bit put out. “Fuck,” he laughed as they tapped bottles again. “You’re off signing comics, and Fynn’s recording an album, and here I am just impressed that I can keep on top of my laundry and get my essays in on time.” He shook his head.

  “Who’s Fynn?”

  “Hm?”

  Trev poked his arm. “You said ‘Fynn’s recording an album’ – who’s that? Sounds cool!”

  “Oh.”

  He had said that, hadn’t he? That was the first time he’d spoken to another person about Fynn, he’d used his name and everything. He hadn’t dare slip up at home, otherwise it might lead to some questions about a certain lack of harp players. But he hadn’t even realised he’d done it with Trev. He must have been bursting to get it off his chest. Shit, that was embarrassing.

  “Um, just a friend. He sings and plays guitar, he’s amazing. He’s uh, actually playing at my sister’s wedding for her. He’s going to be fantastic. Honestly—” He sat up and turned his body towards Trev. “He can take a song and completely change it. Like, a terrible pop song, and make it really romantic. He totally deserves to get a record deal.”

  Trev was looking at him with a slightly funny expression.

  “What?” Nicholas asked, feeling that prickling over his skin that suggested he was probably going to blush. Again. For fuck’s sake.

  “Nothing,” Trevor assured him quickly. “You’ve just, uh, never mentioned him before. He sounds very cool, no wonder you’re proud of him.”

  Nicholas scoffed, and decided to move the conversation in a safer direction. “Not as much as you, you smug prick. Go on, show me your latest pages. What are you brin
ging out for the convention?”

  Trev got out his phone, and bashfully talked Nicholas through his recent work. Nicholas honestly could have burst with pride. If Trev could gain success with his art before he even graduated, then maybe his parents wouldn’t force him into a job he was going to hate.

  Nicholas was lucky with his family, he did know that. It was probably why he tried his best to remain patient with Danielle. Her parents were awful, and he was certain they only stayed married because they thought getting divorced was too scandalous. Even though they did nothing but argue and try and get one up on each other. What a terrible way to live.

  Nicholas’s parents were still so happy after more than two decades together, and they supported and loved all their children no matter what. When his sister Lauren had decided to take her savings and go travel Europe instead of going to university, his mum and dad had encouraged her. They had even helped her buy a house when she settled down with her boyfriend and their daughter in Italy. Nothing was too much to ask when it came to Clara’s wedding, and they hadn’t batted an eyelid at the fact Peter ‘only worked in a shop’. They were so happy together, and he treated Clara like a princess, so that was all that mattered to the Heralds.

  How would they react then, if their only son was to come out as gay?

  Nicholas sipped on his beer and let his friends’ conversations drift over him, mixing in with the pounding music as he watched the dancers flinging their bodies about on the central floor.

  He’d never thought that would be him; having to sit down and officially tell his family he liked men instead of women. That he was Different. But it seemed like he was, so he guessed – maybe after the wedding – that was something he should think about tackling before he went back to uni. Now he knew, he didn’t feel like he wanted to hide it, even if it meant he faced some tricky times ahead. He hoped it wouldn’t be too awkward or anything.

  His sister Lauren would be absolutely fine with it – that he knew a hundred percent. She’d always been a human rights crusader and a stickler for political correctness. But she was all the way over in Italy, so if he was going to rely on her, he’d only have the days before and after the wedding to bring it up. Would that be fair? He didn’t want to take the limelight away from Clara in any way.