III

He quickly flashes a smile at an approaching girl before he continues his close inspection of the room’s contents. The girl throws herself in between us, and is laughing at B and saying something about being straight-edge and he turns to her, only just realising she is there and looks at her legs, pale, exposed where her tight black dress finishes, and rubs his hand down past her knee quickly. She looks at me with a semi-shocked, semi-humoured expression; dark hair falling down, framing the dark eyes, the smiling red lips. I realise that I am staring at her and have been for a while and I turn away, looking forward into the crowd. At some point I look back over at her and she is where and how she was from the twenty seconds ago that I last looked. Slightly smiling, strangely attractive; something like a girl-next-door, but not.