Twenty-One Night Stand ✓

4 / date night

The first time Maddie had met Peter, she'd had a feeling their friendship would last for a long time. From the moment he had caught her eye across a classroom full of kids who knew each other, while the two of them were completely new to the group, she'd just known that he would be a friend. It hadn't been long before she'd been proved right: by the end of that first day, they were nervously chatting to each other and by the end of the first month, nobody could tell that they hadn't been friends since birth. They were joined at the hip, Peter's mother always joked, and she loved it. Maddie was the daughter she'd never had after five sons, and with no mother of her own, Maddie had been firmly placed under Mrs Jensen's wing.

Those were the memories Maddie focused on as she drove to Twenty-One. Her heart pounded out of her chest and it was difficult to keep her shaking foot from pressing down too hard on the accelerator. For three days, Posy had been glued to her phone for updates, but Maddie hardly had any to give: she hadn't shared a message with Peter since he had confirmed Wednesday's meeting and she still couldn't believe the situation she had put herself in. Yet here she was, driving to a restaurant to meet Peter, who had been her best friend for seven straight years in secondary school, and she couldn't control the way her heartbeat made her feel sick.

She could see the restaurant. The sign lit the otherwise empty street, the town dead since the shops had shut at five, but she couldn't see Peter outside. And why should he be there, she thought. Desperate to get out of the house that felt like it was closing in on her since her father had left, she had set off twenty minutes early and despite driving slowly - even below the speed limit when there was no-one behind her - she was thirteen minutes premature. Six forty-seven. The digital clock ticked over to six forty-eight while her eyes were trained on it and with tense hands, Maddie steered herself into the twenty-four hour car park. If she ambled, it was a five minute walk to Twenty-One, so once she had parked and ascertained that she didn't need a ticket after six, she sat silently in the car.

Three minutes passed. Then another two. After that, she couldn't take it anymore so with a groan of faint reluctance, she hitched her bag over her shoulder and slammed the door shut behind her, locking up and focusing on walking to the cafe as slowly as possible. The town was painfully empty, the clip of her low heels the only sound that resonated in her ears and came back a hundred times louder, each footstep echoing her hesitance.

She arrived at the restaurant at six fifty-eight. There were a few couples inside but no parties of one: Peter wasn't there. Maybe he had forgotten. Maybe he would rock up at bang on seven o'clock. Pushing aside her paranoia, Maddie pushed open the door and gave her boldest beam to the maitre d', who asked her name and passed her onto a waitress who led her to a table.

"Can I get you anything while you wait?" she asked - her name was June, Maddie read off the nametag above her breast.

"I'll have a glass of the Chardonnay," Maddie said, ready to produce her ID, but June took the order with a smile and didn't request any proof of age. That was a first. Never had Maddie been able to purchase alcohol without showing her driver's license to prove that yes, she was over eighteen, and she had been for years.

By four minutes past seven, Maddie was sipping her wine and wondering where Peter was when she caught sight of his familiar frame strolling towards the restaurant. Part of her had feared she wouldn't recognise him, even though nothing had changed in his most recent profile picture, but here he was in all his shaggy-haired glory. He passed the maitre d' with a grin and headed straight for Maddie, shrugging off the jacket he had paired with a shirt and jeans.

"Hey, Mads," he said, ignoring his chair to hug Maddie. His arms took her by surprise, catching her mid-stand, and he almost knocked her over before she settled into the embrace she had missed so much. Peter was such a good hugger, his arms wrapped around her like he would never let go. "God, it's good to see you." He sat down and caught the waitress's eye, ordering a beer for himself without consulting the menu.