The Art of Living

[41] Just Very Slightly Confusing

Ellie waited for Brian to leave her flat before she followed him and locked the door. Both of them quietly made their way down the stairs, hoping to be able to avoid Mrs Arthurs and her curious questions on the way out. Brian held the front door of the house open for her and Ellie warned him to close it quietly to make sure they weren't held up on the last metres they were in danger of running into Ellie's landlady.

"Are we safe now?" Brian asked, slightly amused, when they had made it to the corner of the street.

"Yes, we are," Ellie told him and smiled at him. "Now, we have to take the tube to get there, they live quite far away because.. well, you know where Mike lives, right?"

Brian shook his head. "No, I don't, I've never been there. We always end up at Imperial or at Freddie and Roger's."

"Imperial? You play there for practices?" Ellie was a little surprised that something like that was possible, but Brian confirmed that.

"Yeah, we do, we have a room. We actually started out there. You can come there too one day if you want, I'll let you know when we're practising."

"Sure.. that sounds like it could be fun." Ellie nodded a little and walked to the tube station with him.

Brian was walking beside her, looking at her occasionally which Ellie wasn't aware of. She just kept walking, looking around occasionally.

"So what exactly is the occasion of this evening? I'm not really sure I caught that."

When she heard Brian's voice she glanced at Brian and shrugged with a smile. "No real occasion, just like that. Friends hanging out together, probably drinking something, maybe we'll go out later. Whatever we feel like."

"Alright, okay, and who all is going to be there? Do I know them?"

Ellie shrugged. "I don't know, Lynn didn't say. But in any case you know her, and Mike, and me."

"Yeah.. I know you. That's good. That's very good."

Nodding a little, Ellie smiled at him before she focussed on not bumping into anyone. It was Friday evening so of course the streets were rather busy. Out of habit Ellie let her eyes wander over the people they encountered, some of them were pleasant to look at, others not so much, as always. She was good at skimming crowds, sorting through the looks, forming an opinion - good or bad - for herself very quickly.

And if she looked at the man who was walking beside her, the man who was with her, she couldn't help but think about how she would have judged him to be on the bad side. Very likely. Almost certainly. Which was strange to think about because there he was. Beside her, with her, on the good side. It was funny how life went sometimes. Whether this was going to end well, or whether her quick, superficial judement would have been true only time could tell.

One thing Ellie could say with certainty already was that the way things were now were so unusual and different that she was not sure at all if she liked it. Of course she liked it, she was happy. But always having someone by her side was weird. It had only been a day, not even an entire day, and the time that he hadn't been there she had eventually started to miss him, but still. It was a quick, rather extreme change from being alone the majority of the time to being with someone. Constantly.

Just like now. She was so much like a lone warrior that when Brian reached for her hand, she was startled so much she nearly tripped. Which in turn startled Brian.

"Oh, are you okay?" Brian looked at her worriedly, holding her hand a little tighter to make sure he could catch her if necessary.

Ellie let out a sigh and nodded, wriggling her fingers a little to make it more comfortable to hold Brian's hand. "Yeah.. yeah.." She considered to tell him what had caused her to trip, but then decided against it. She definitely wasn't the best at what was happening between them, but even she was quite certain that telling Brian that he would not have passed her categorisation would not make him happy. Or would it? Because he was by her side anyway? Ellie glanced at him for a moment, and when she remembered their conversation about muscles and looks in general, she decided against that.