Chapter 1c

Moments later, things were very much as they had been before they all came together. Andy sat with Helen on the sofa. Claire lay across Simon on the floor as he began warming the small block of dark brown hash on a candle, ready to be crumbled into more tobacco for the next joint. David took up the guitar again and plucked at strings that seemed even more out of tune.

“AJ.” Said Andy.

Nobody said anything; they all just stared blankly at him.

“I think AJ Rose is a good name for a poet,” he said.

“Or a playwright,” said Claire.

“Or a novelist,” said Helen.

Andy smiled lazily. “No, they sound too respectable. A.J. Rose writes poetry in dog-eared notebooks while smoking himself to **** in cafés.”

“That already sounds exactly like you,” Helen murmured.

The room dissolved back into soft laughter, music, drifting conversation, and the slow haze of the night stretching onwards without urgency. Bottles emptied. More joints were rolled. Bodies drifted easily together, intimacy becoming as casual and natural as everything else in the flat without anyone thinking very hard about where one person ended and another began.

Sometime after three, David finally gave up on the guitar entirely and disappeared with a giggling Claire and Simon to one of the bedrooms.

Helen stayed curled against Andy on the sofa, his fingers lazily tracing circles against the bare skin of her thigh.

“You know, one day I actually will publish something.”

“I know.”

“You say that very confidently.”

“I have faith in you.”

Andy laughed softly and kissed the top of her head. “You realise we’re probably completely ruining our lives?”

Helen looked up at him, smiling sleepily. “Then I hope we ruin them together.”