Flame and Starlight by Dana Isaly
Chapter One
I was going to be so very early. I didn’t know what it was about my special brand of anxiety, but if I wasn’t twenty minutes early everywhere, I was late. I needed to give myself something to do—something to hold—while I waited outside the classroom like the eager beaver I was. I turned into the coffee shop, pushing down the butterflies that instantly gurgled up into my throat. I hated going in someplace new.
I sighed with relief when there was at least one person in front of me. This would at least give me time to look at what I wanted and not have to fumble for words. I heard the door jingle and felt the looming presence of someone walk up behind me. I ordered and went to wait at the end of the counter. Feeling very much aware of every person in the shop, I pulled out my phone and scrolled to pass the time.
My phone buzzed. It was Aoife. “EE-fa” in my phone. When I first met her, I had put her in my phone like that so my American brain could remember how to pronounce it. Two years later and she still wouldn’t let me change it, finding it hilarious.
Meet you on the corner? Should be there in a few.
Sounds good. Just getting a coffee.
I would forever love that girl for knowing I would be early and showing up to make sure I wasn’t alone.
“Alys?” I looked up and smiled.
“Ta!” Over the two years I had been in York, I had developed quite the Yorkshire accent. My friends at work had made me practice daily when I first arrived, and after a few months of that, no one could tell I was American anymore. The lilting up-and-down cadence of the Yorkshire accent made me fall in love with anyone that spoke to me. I picked up the paper cup off the counter, turned, and stepped right into someone. I held out my cup to keep it from spilling.
“Oh, sorry,” I said without fully looking at him and veered to the left. All I caught was black hair, pale skin, and tattoos. Out of my league, I couldn’t help but think. I pulled my sunglasses down off my head and back over my eyes as I stepped back out into the rainy sunlight. I loved England. There was always a smell of rain in the air, and sometimes, due to the chocolate factory in town, that sweet smell drifted through the streets as well. I watched my black heeled boots as I stepped down onto the old cobblestone street leading to the uni. I walked past an old Roman wall, or what was left of it, and then down another street until I curved under the Viking wall that was still surrounding the city.
“Hiya!” Aoife said as I rounded the corner. Strands of her copper hair blew into her face. “Shitting wind,” she swore as she pushed the strands back into her beanie. She always looked so effortlessly cute in her Vans, cuffed jeans, and big sweaters that all but swallowed her small frame.
“Good morning,” I laughed as she fell into step next to me. “Many of the things you dislike about England are my favorite things about England, you know. If you want to trade citizenships, I will happily trade lives.” We walked across the big expanse of concrete and pushed through the glass doors into the uni.
“You know I would never say no to living in America.” I rolled my eyes at her and opened the door for her into the hall. “What is that? You’ve got something on your neck.” She brushed at something I couldn’t see on the right side of my neck as she passed by me into the small corridor.
“I dunno, I don’t see anything.” She crinkled her nose and shook her head. I followed her down the hallway of pale blue carpet. “Anyway,” I drawled. “You off to your job after this? I’m working until close tonight, and I think we are all going out afterwards if you fancy it. You can stay at mine.” We stood off to the side and waited for the lecture before us to filter out.
“Oh, yes please. I only work ’til half past six. Can I run to yours after and drop off all my stuff, and then I’ll meet you?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll let Liz know you’ll be stopping by.”
I handed her my coffee, pulled out my keys, and twisted my house key slowly off the ring, handing it over. She was still looking at my neck. “Did you finish the book?” I asked, taking my coffee back. I glanced down. I still didn’t see anything, but there was a strange creeping feeling making its way over my shoulder.
“I did. I’m not sure how exciting he can make Alice in Wonderland, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“At least he isn’t hard to look at.” I grinned into my coffee and tried to wink.
She laughed. “Your winking looks more like a stroke.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said, nudging her with my shoulder as we walked into the lecture.
* * *
“Hiya!” I called out to my boss as I raced into the little shoe shop.
“You alright, Alys?” she called back. I waved at her in response and started up the three stories to the top of the skinny building where the lockers were.
“Hey, guys,” I said, poking my head in quickly on the first landing into the break room.
“Cuppa?” Tom asked as I started up the next flight of stairs.
“Three sugars, please!” I yelled back.
“You will get two and be happy!” he shouted after me. I laughed. “Bloody American,” he said more quietly.
“Heard that!”
Taking two stairs at a time, I climbed the other two stories and tossed my bag on the floor. I slipped out of my coat and shoved it into a locker. It was always so dark up in the top-floor stockrooms. There was one skylight in the room on the left, but the only other source of light was a couple of dim ceiling lights. Those lights never fully worked, and the ceilings were low, so low that my five-foot self was able to reach up and touch them. It never failed to give me a bit of vertigo. And it didn’t help that every building in this sodding city was five hundred years old.
I pulled at my tights and readjusted my tight black skirt and oversized sweater back over them. Kneeling down next to my bag, I took out my little mirror and touched up my makeup. Sitting on the creaky wooden floor, I felt a prickling sensation make its way around my neck and up into my scalp.
My heartbeat raced, and my breathing picked up. My palms went clammy. I could feel something behind me. I just knew there was something in the back of the stockroom to my right. I turned around quickly, but I was only met with shoeboxes on shelves. The feeling disappeared, and my heart returned to its normal rhythm as I rubbed the sensation away from my neck.
I shoved everything back in my bag and ran downstairs, more quickly than was necessary, the feeling licking at my heels. When I rounded the corner and went into the break room, Tom was just finishing my tea. Ella stood off to the side, sipping hers and playing on her phone. I rubbed my neck again.
“Hiya, babes,” she said as she looked up at me and smiled and then went back to her phone.
“Hey.” I smiled uneasily.
Tom looked up at me and handed me my tea. “You alright?”
I nodded and mentally shook it off. “I hate those stockrooms up there. They give me the creeps.”
“Only two sugars to stave off the diabetes in your American blood. One day soon, we’ll have you down to one.” He winked at me, and he most definitely did not look like he was having a stroke. My stomach did a little flip. His blue-grey eyes always looked like they were laughing. He had on some fitted jeans and a plain grey long-sleeve shirt that defined the muscles in his arms. I brushed past him to get to the sign-in sheet and fixed the back of his shirt that was flipped up and out of place.
“Cheers, mum,” he said over his shoulder, and I rolled my eyes.
“We still going out tonight?” I asked, taking a sip of my tea. Since being here, I’d grown to prefer tea over coffee, and it settled my nerves. I noticed he had picked my favorite mug. Just a plain white thing but wider and more sturdy than the others we kept at the shop. I grinned, and my eyes found his again.
“Yeah, we were just talking about that. Figured we’d start off at Mad Eye down the road,” Ella said, putting her phone back up in the cabinet. I peeled my eyes off Tom and let them find Ella instead.
“Aoife is going to pop in at closing and go with us,” I said and started to follow Ella downstairs to the shop floor. I turned around before heading down the stairs and looked at Tom, pointing my finger. “That means she is staying with me. Which, in turn, means that I will not be able to take care of your drunk ass again tonight, Thomas.”
He laughed and held up his hands in mock surrender. I turned back around and headed down.
“Ass,” he said under his breath, mocking my American accent. I smiled, made my way to the white tile floor, and went to straighten the shoes.
* * *
I took my break late so that I could get ready to go out and not look overdressed for the rest of my shift. I sat in the break room, curling my hair and shoving way too many pasties in my mouth. Every time I got ready to go out, my stomach would flutter with anticipation. I was never anxious to go out with these people, my friends.
When I first moved over here and got the job, I was nervous every day. And then over the last two years, they became my family. The butterflies in my stomach were in anticipation of the memories I would make. England felt more like my home than any other place I had ever lived. I loved this messed-up family of mine so much it hurt sometimes. I dreaded the thought of having to leave when my visa was up. I didn’t know where home was after this part of my story.
The little mirror I was using to watch myself curl my hair was really not doing me any good. All I could see in the tiny reflection was a mass of chocolate-colored waves. I moved it around to see as much as I could and called it a day. I added more to my makeup and donned a very deep-plum matte lipstick that set off my honey-colored eyes.
“What’re you wearing?” Ella stepped onto the landing outside the break room to take the stuffing out of some shoes for a customer.
“I just brought that plain black midi dress I’ve got with the slit in it. Just going to wear these same boots.” I lifted my leg to show her. “ You?” I threw my makeup back in my bag and turned off my straightener.
“I brought a jumpsuit that I’m going to change into. That dark green one I got the other day, remember?” I nodded and smiled, wiggling my eyebrows. She threw the paper at me and let out a small laugh. “Tom ran down to the shop to get us some pre-drinks.” She rolled her eyes before disappearing down the stairs. “That boy can get away with murder in this place!”
I laughed and clocked back in to start helping them close. Aoife eventually showed up and came upstairs to sit around until we were all done. She was dressed in a Peter Pan–collared black dress and Vans. Her hair was straightened and pulled halfway out of her face, showing off her pretty green eyes that I was insanely jealous of. I had never seen anyone with eyes the color of actual emeralds.
“You alright?”
Her feet were propped up on a stool, and her arms were crossed over her chest. Her eyebrows knitted together a bit as she looked at me like she was worried. She chewed her thumb and nodded, waving me off.
“Yea, I’m fine.” She sighed and stretched down to trace lines over the tattoos covering her legs. “Just thinking about a paper.”
I squinted at her, suspicious, but let it go and went upstairs to change. I was having a rare good night, more confident than I normally was. I wasn’t skinny, having a little more up top, in the middle, and in the thighs than I appreciated, but the dress I wore seemed to flatter my figure.
“Alys!” Aoife yelled up at me. “The door is locked, the money is counted, and we have shots!”
“Say less!” I shouted back and walked out of the bathroom. It was on the second floor, and as I stared at those dimly lit steps leading up to the third story, I felt that same creeping sensation wrap itself around my neck. Tom caught me by the shoulders as I came running down the last flight of stairs, slinging one arm over me and pulling me close. My arm wrapped around his waist. He smelled like apple vodka and fresh laundry. He handed me a shot.
“It’s your favorite,” he sang. I threw it back, grimacing as it burned all the way down. He looked down at my face, then my chest, then my hips, and then back up to my face, and I flushed. But if anyone else noticed, they didn’t say anything. Then again, they never did. His cheeks were already getting ruddy, so I knew he had already had quite a few while helping clean up. This meant I would probably end up taking care of him later, trying to get him to his own house or mine. The latter made my heart skip a beat, and I willed it back into rhythm. We had been down this road too many times, with my feelings being hurt every single time.
“Ready?” He smiled at me, and I nodded.
“Let’s go!” I said. I took another swig straight from the bottle and slinked out of his grasp. Fuck it. If he was getting wasted, I was getting wasted.
There was a loud knocking on the door to the shop downstairs, and we all grabbed our stuff and headed out. We waved at our boss at the back of the shop and said goodbye.
“Gaffa, make sure you come meet us later!” Tom yelled down the shop at her. Gaffa was slang for boss. She just waved us away and smiled. Sara would come out with us pretty often and normally ended up partying harder than all of us combined, but if she wasn’t in the mood, she would shoo us away and do her own thing.
“We’re coming, damn!” Ella said as she unlocked the door and a blast of cold air flew in. The rest of the crew was waiting outside for us, and the bottle got quickly passed around.
“Ugh,” Max said, swallowing a mouthful. “Why the apple stuff?” He grimaced and passed it over to Harry and Ashley, who were trying to use each other for body heat. Ashley’s chestnut hair was whipping around in the wind.
“It’s the only thing Lyssa here will drink straight,” Tom said, defending his choice. I scoffed at the nickname. I never let anyone call me Lyssa besides him. We started walking towards Mad Eye quickly. “Remember when she and Will tied for Favorite New Employee at the Christmas do and she had to take a double shot of Sambuca?”
I cringed at the memory and linked my arm through Aoife’s. I had a vivid memory of that shot lighting my throat, nose, and eyes on fire. Everyone had a good laugh at my expense, and I rolled my eyes at them, laughing as well.
“I had, like, zero drinking experience, and I hate licorice,” I said, looking at them. “Drinking that stuff was like drinking licorice that was on fire.”
The bottle made its way back to Aoife. She took a drink and handed it over to me. There were probably three shots left in it. I broke free of her arm and walked a bit ahead of everyone, turned around and started walking backwards, and downed the rest of it. “And I think I’ve gotten much better, thank you.” I pointed a sweeping finger at all of them and bowed. Tom grinned at me. God, I loved it when he smiled at me.
“Much better for an American,” Aoife said. I laughed and threw the empty bottle into the bin on the corner.
Mad Eye’s was relatively crowded, but it only helped warm us all up as we went in and made our way to the bar. The place was known for its signature two-for-five-pound cocktails, so it was constantly covered up with uni students. It was dark, and your shoes always stuck to the floor. The entire place smelled like sugar and stale cigarettes. Aoife grabbed my hand as we walked in and tried to make our way to the bar.
“First round on me,” Harry said, making his way to the bar first. “Try to find a table?”
We nodded and made our way to the back where the stairs were. The tables were heavy and wooden and had absolutely no order at all to how they were placed. We weaved our way through the people and clunky tables and found the skinny off-kilter steps that led to the first floor. We found two tables and pushed them together, stealing as many chairs as we could.
“Six will be enough for now. Once my sister and Naomi get here, we can track down another couple for them.” Tom almost had to shout over the music. He pushed two chairs over to me and Aoife. I noticed Harry walking over with a tray of drinks. I waved at him, and he hurried over as we all sat down.
“Drink up!” He sat down next to Ashley and slung his arm over the back of her chair. Everyone grabbed two. I grabbed for the ones I knew I would like and hoarded them both close to me. They were pink, and the glass was lined with sugar.
“He’s a moron,” she said for only me to hear.
“Who?” I asked, leaning closer and taking a very long drink of my cocktail, noticing I was already getting tipsy.
She gave me a pointed look. Oh. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “You don’t think I noticed him looking at you before we left?”
“It’s fine. Maybe we can get through one night without me being an idiot?” I was referring to how, on a regular basis, I would make a fool out of myself trying to win him over by dancing with him, trying to keep up with his drinking, and then taking care of his incoherent ass. It was her turn to roll her eyes.
“You’re not an idiot.” She downed her entire drink in one go. I stared at her. She looked at me and shrugged. “I’m English. I can drink you under the table any day.” We laughed, and she sat her glass back down on the table and picked up her other one and downed that as well.
“Christ, alright. Aoife is the one to beat tonight,” Ella said, throwing hers back as well. I groaned internally. If this became a night of drinking competitions, I would most definitely need to be carried home with a sick bag. I braced myself and finished one of mine, licking the sugar off the rim of the glass afterwards. I brought the other one to my lips and took it in several long swigs. Everyone followed suit, and Aoife stood up.
“My round,” she said and grabbed the tray. Not a single stumble in her steps as she walked away. Meanwhile, I could feel my face getting warm. Two cocktails and, what had it been, five shots? Six?
“Toilet?” Ash caught my eye, and I nodded and stood.
You’re tipsy. You’re tipsy.
Before I could control it, my hand of its own volition dragged itself across Tom’s back as I walked around him. Such a nice back. Ash grabbed that hand and led me to the toilet, but not before I felt him lean back into my touch just slightly.
