A Night in a Year: 41. Competition

[jacquelineb]

Diarmuid’s gaze swivels in Xavier’s direction, and he frowns.

“Right. That’s a problem.” He glances back at her, and then cocks his head at his two friends remaining at the table.

“Have fun.”

She thinks he means it. Almost.

Diarmuid leaves with his pint, Xavier oblivious to his approach. She can’t decide if this will be a train wreck or a dance, so stops watching, and turns her attention back to Orhan and Jeroen.

Jeroen chuckles. “Diarmuid finally doing something about that crush of his. At long last…”

Orhan nudges Jeroen, and he just smirks.

“I guess it is just us then…” Jeroen says. He shifts back on the bar chair, opening out his body. She acts on the cue, and stands to move over a few seats so she next to Jeroen and opposite Orhan.
And then, the mood sways as the lights change colour.

The friendliness between Orhan and Jeroen doesn’t vanish, but they are now not looking at each other. They lean forward, elbows out on the table – firm, a bit forceful – as if to edge the other out of her field of vision. It is unlikely that they imagine that it has served to make them loom larger in her eyes.

The men each try to steer the conversation – so much so that her attempts at words are lost as the one tries to one up the other, be the more witty or charming or cocky or whatever they think she will find appealing. It has the effect of deflecting attention from her, inviting her instead to watch the verbal sparring, the attempts to glare each other down while pretending that this is not what they are doing. It’s almost coy and feminine, but for the fact that their bodies are tough and able to make this physical.

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Next: 42. Orhan

Image found on flickr, by Tim Parkinson, used under the Creative Commons License.

Mirrored from jacquelinebrocker.esquinx.net.