Ned looked around the restaurant nervously, trying to locate his group. He was late because he'd managed to lock himself out of his flat and had had to go back to Rufus's to get his spare key and he didn't like turning up to places on his own and late. It made him well nervous because, like, what if he couldn't find his friends or had the address wrong and everyone looked at him and thought he was uncool? That would be really, really shit.
He opened his phone, to check the time and pretend to read some texts so he didn't look like a loner but saw a hand start waving and let out a relieved breath when he recognised Rufus at the far end of the room.
Ned was wearing his real glasses tonight, going for the genuine intellectual look, but he wasn't sure that it was really working for him. He was a bit concerned that he looked like a computer programmer or some nerd shit and he so totally wasn't one of those, except that now that he and Rufus had their business up and running, he kind of was. Mostly he was just wearing them so that he didn't have to squint so much.
As he approached the table he gave a wave and tried to look chill rather than slightly overwhelmed at how much his life had changed in the last twelve months. This time last year he'd been at the SugarApe Christmas party, which had been a right banger with podium dancers and jelly shots and everything and at one point Dan had yelled at him that the world was: "a leviathan beached on the desert coast of the crude and illiterate New Age" and that once ignorance had been a: "delicate, exotic fucking fruit and now it was a fermented pile of rotting slush" and that "Oscar Wilde must be weeping in his fucking grave". Then he'd vomited on Ned's tie and fallen asleep in the corner of the room. It'd been a killer night. Ned had recorded Dan's words and memorized them, even though he hadn't really understood most of what Dan had said. That was how you knew it was proper preach-talk, yeah? When you couldn't understand it but it just sounded totally deviant. They should have all guessed it back then, that Dan wasn't interested in conforming to the sexuality framework imposed by 'The System'. No matter what happened, Dan was still the coolest, and Ned wished he could have been with them tonight.
This year was well different. Last year he'd been partying, this year he was at a Christmas Eve eve dinner and being asked what wine he'd like to start with like a proper adult and it was all making him sweat a bit, which definitely was not a hot look. Even if it was happening because he was feeling hot.
They might not have Dan but they had Dan's sister at least, and she was well righteous. Pingu was one lucky fuck to be tapping her. She had organised this dinner and all. Toby had suggested it but Claire had been the one to actually book the table and make sure they all turned up on the right day and all that. Toby was one lucky fuck as well, cohabiting with Sasha. Everyone seemed to be getting some except him.
He sat down opposite Sasha and she gave him a quick smile, the sort that you'd probably miss if you blinked at the wrong moment, and he smiled back at her so that she wouldn't hate him. Sasha knew things about him, about everyone who'd worked at SugarApe. Things that everyone now wanted to forget. It was almost 2004 and he wanted to make a fresh start, he didn't want to accidentally piss off Sasha and discover that everyone knew about the time he swallowed a live goldfish just to win five pounds. He didn't think she would tell people that, but on the other hand, Sasha was an intelligent woman and Ned did not know quite how the brains of intelligent women worked. And Sasha was just a bit scary in general.
She was talking to Claire about something and he tried not to listen in because women like Claire and Sasha were big on manners and had been lecturing him and Rufus and Toby regularly about how one was supposed to behave toward women to earn their respect. But he also really wanted to find out what they were saying. Pingu was right next to Claire but he was looking at his menu and not paying even the slightest to what they were saying. That was probably why he never got given an ear bashing from the girls for acting like a twat when they all got together at the pub. Pingu just got Claire climbing all over him and kissing him like she wanted to suck out his soul after she'd had a beer or two, calling him Harry like he was the fucking prince or something.
Ned leaned forward, pretending to be reading his own menu, totally stealth, and finally got to hear what Claire and Sasha were talking about.
"... I'm sure Jones will be able to get a job back in London whenever he's ready," Sasha was saying, her voice all soft and reassuring in a way he hadn't really heard before. "He's talented, experienced. He has a unique sound from what I've read about him. He could probably just turn up to his old club and get a residency."
Claire sighed and Ned tried not to look at the way her boobs moved when she did, wobbling like thick custard. Her top was really nice, with a deep scoop-neck and a lace trim and Ned tried not to stare because it was wrong to perv on a mate's girlfriend and he and Pingu were definitely mates now after Pingu walked him and Rufus through all the legal stuff about setting up their own internet business and all. But Claire was just such a goddess it was hard not to be hypnotised by her amazing funbags.
"It's not Jones I'm worried about really," Claire told Sasha, twisting her napkin around in her hands until Pingu, without even looking up from his menu, put his hand on her wrist and instantly calmed her down.
Who would have known Pingu was such a smooth mover! And he moved his hand over hers like he was living a bloody romance novel (not that he would admit to reading romance novels, they'd been left behind in his flat by the last tenant and he totally kept them out on the bookcase ironically and not because they were a damn good read).
"No? I thought Harry said he was still having a lot of trouble with his leg and his pain management. He got an email from them the other day didn't he?"
Now this was interesting. Pingu seemed to know everybody and he was even swapping emails with DJ Jones! Ned thought a lot about DJ Jones and had been listening to a whole lot of happy hardcore and techno and trance and as much European electronica that he could. He really hoped that Jones would come back to DJ in London one day so that he could talk to him again and show off how much he now knew about Jones' genre.
He had a bit of a man-crush on DJ Jones, a big crush actually, but Jones had told him, that night when they'd met, that he didn't have to be concerned with the whole gender and sexuality thing, so he didn't feel too embarrassed about it. But the idea that his favourite DJ (even though he'd only seen him once) was still in pain after all the shit Jonatton had pulled on him made Ned feel really mad, like punch a tramp in the face type mad.
He was about to tell Claire as much when a waiter appeared to take their order. Ned fumbled with the menu, he hadn't actually looked at it, and ordered the pasta of the day from the specials board. He wouldn't have seen it if he hadn't been wearing his glasses and Ned took that a sign that he should definitely wear them all the time from now on. He felt like he'd been missing out on the specials board of life and that he needed to put things in action to rectify that. Wearing his specs was a good start, like a symbol of the man he was going to be in 2004, and if he didn't bump into shit all the time and trip over small bikes and dogs every day he might even be able to get himself a girlfriend next year, or a boyfriend. DJ Jones had opened up a whole new world to him and he was determined to at least check it out a bit more. He could kiss guys and not worry about being called a Stray and if anyone went all homophobic on him he could totally call them out on it, 'cos they were ones living in Wrongsville and not him.
Rufus ordered something off the specials board too and suggested that they could share if they wanted, you know, as just friends, and Ned said that that was cool. They could share pasta as more than friends too... if Rufus was up for it. Rufus had really nice eyes. You know, they'd been friends for a couple of years but he'd never really noticed, until now.
"Ya know," said Rufus, once their food had arrived and he and Ned had each had a taste of what the other had ordered. "If Dan needs a job or money or something, there's that 'Voice of a Generation' competition. Twenty grand and a book deal for the winner. Dan's already the voice of a generation, right? So he'd win hands down. And he's got the look and all, living all reclusive by the sea and that. He could do that, right?"
"Rufus," Claire snapped. "Were you listening in on our conversation?"
"Um..." Rufus turned toward him, his face a look of panic so complete that his eyebrows had disappeared into his hair.
"It's well impolite to listen in on, like, private conversations," Ned nodded, trying to make his face look serious but worrying that it just made him look like he had a belly ache. "But possibly our - I mean, Rufus's - concern for Dan overrules that?"
He turned to Sasha who appeared to be hiding a smile behind her wine glass and Claire just huffed.
"I suppose that wouldn't be such a bad idea, thank you, Rufus."
Pingu gave Claire a kiss on the cheek but Rufus was so surprised that he wasn't being told off that he totally fell of his chair and actually hit the floor, like a swooning maiden or some fairytale gaff and Ned wondered whether he could get in a bit of sneaky mouth-to-mouth but Rufus was back in his chair after a moment, apologising for bumping the table and trying not to look in Claire's direction. He looked well cute when he blushed and Ned decided that when New Year's Eve rolled around he knew exactly who he was going to be kissing at midnight.
He and Rufus gave Claire the down low about the writing thing and everyone talked and ate and drank. Sasha commented on some graphics work Ned'd done that Toby had showed her and how she'd really liked it and Rufus and Pingu had even had a conversation about new tax laws whilst Claire and Toby discussed which tradesmen needed to be hired to fix up the front of the House of Jones, and by the end of the night, when they were all exchanging hugs and 'Merry Christmas's' and that, Ned just couldn't stop grinning. He reckoned he could really start to like adulthood. Then Rufus invited him back for a cup of tea and Ned thought he might actually break his cheekbone from smiling. 2004 was going to be his year, he could feel it.