The Saucy Book Club

The wine was the wrong shade of red to be the blood of her enemies, but Zara clutched it like a weapon anyway.

HOME's gallery space hummed with the particular frequency of People Who Belonged Here--sleek coats, architectural eyewear, conversations studded with words like liminal and praxis. Someone nearby was discussing the "spatial dialectic" of the photographs on the wall, which Zara was fairly certain was not a real thing, but what did she know? Somewhere near the bar, a woman laughed too loudly at something her friend said--a proper honking laugh, unselfconscious and delighted--and Zara felt a brief pang of envy for anyone who could make that sound in public without wanting to disappear. She'd spent the past six years answering phones at firms like this one, watching exactly these people stride past her reception desk on their way to meetings about spatial dialectics she wasn't invited to.

One week. She'd survived one week as an actual junior architect at Whitmore & Associates. Five days of keeping her face neutral in meetings, her voice steady in crits, her Primark blazer safely beneath the radar of colleagues in Acne Studios and Arket. And now Cass had dragged her here to celebrate, then immediately abandoned her to track down better wine, leaving Zara alone with a series of photographs she was supposed to have opinions about.

She studied the nearest image with what she hoped was intelligent intensity. It showed a concrete stairwell, dramatically lit, ascending into shadow. The artist's statement beside it proclaimed the series explored "the architecture of absence and the phenomenology of transition spaces."

Right. Yes. Very good.

Zara's reflection in the glass looked back at her--heart-shaped face, dark eyes, the careful blowout she'd given her hair this morning already losing its battle with January humidity. Her grandmother's gold chain caught the gallery's aggressive lighting. She touched it without thinking, the way she always did when she felt out of place.

She was pretending to read the artist's statement for the third time when she sensed someone stop beside her.

"I've been staring at this for ten minutes," a voice said, "and I'm still not entirely sure which direction the stairs are going."

Zara glanced sideways. The man had to look down slightly to meet her eyes--tall enough to notice, not tall enough to loom. Dark hair fell across his forehead, suggesting either careful styling or complete indifference. Tortoiseshell glasses. Dark eyes that crinkled at the corners when he caught her looking. He was holding his wine glass like he'd forgotten he had it, which felt reassuring somehow. At least she wasn't the only one using alcohol as a prop.

"I think that's the point," she said, matching his contemplative tone. "The phenomenology of transition spaces."

"Ah." He nodded seriously. "The phenomenology."

"It's very liminal."

"Extremely liminal." His mouth quirked. "I designed the exhibition catalogue, and I still have no idea what half these words mean. I keep waiting for someone to check my credentials at the door."

Something in Zara's chest unknotted slightly. "You did the catalogue?"

"Graphic design." He lifted his wine glass in mock salute. "Someone has to arrange the pretentious font choices."

"And what's the correct pretentious font for phenomenology?"

"Helvetica if you want to seem serious. Garamond if you want to seem like you've read more books than you have." He tilted his head, considering the photograph. "I went with Neue Haas Grotesk, which is what Helvetica was called before the marketing department got hold of it."

Zara laughed--and then immediately wanted to die, because when she laughed unexpectedly, when she hadn't had time to modulate it into something appropriate, she sounded like a startled seal. The laugh was a honking bark that echoed off HOME's brutalist concrete, and several people in expensive coats turned to look.

She clamped her mouth shut. Heat crawled up her neck.

But the man was smiling--not in a polite, social way, but with genuine delight, like her horrifying laugh was exactly what he'd been hoping for. "That's a good laugh," he said. "You can tell it's real."

"It's mortifying is what it is."

"Best laughs usually are." He stuck out his hand. "Elliott."

"Zara." His palm was warm, his grip firm but not performatively so. She noticed that his sleeve was slightly too long, covering half his hand--the sort of detail that suggested he'd dressed for the event but not too carefully. "Thanks for making fun of the artist's statement with me. I was starting to worry I'd have to pretend to understand it all night."

"What, you don't find the architecture of absence compelling?"

"I find it deeply absent," she said. "As in, I have no idea what it means."

Elliott laughed, and his was a proper laugh too--surprised, unguarded, loud enough that the same people in expensive coats glanced over again. He didn't seem to notice or care. "Let me guess. Someone dragged you here and immediately disappeared?"

"My best friend. She's allegedly getting wine but I think she's actually networking with someone she recognised from Instagram." Zara glanced toward the bar, where Cass was indeed deep in animated conversation with a woman in an incredible green jumpsuit. "I'm supposed to be celebrating my first week at an architecture firm, but apparently that means standing alone in galleries pretending to understand phenomenology."

"Architecture." Elliott's eyebrows rose. "So you actually do know about the built environment. Unlike me, who's been faking it for an hour."

"I know about buildings," Zara said. "I don't know about--" she waved a hand at the photographs-- "whatever this is. This is Art. I'm better at walls that don't have artistic statements attached."

"What kind of walls do you work with?"

It was a simple question, politely interested, a networking-event standard before eyes glazed over and people started looking for someone more important. But Elliott was watching her like he actually wanted to know, his body turned toward her, his wine completely forgotten.

"Residential, mostly. At least, that's what I'm working on now. I've only been at this firm a week, so technically I've been working on whatever they put in front of me." She heard herself say the next part before she could stop it: "Before that I was temping. Answering phones at firms like this one, watching everyone else do the actual architecture."

She wanted to take it back immediately. This was not the version of herself she was supposed to be presenting--not the polished junior architect in the nice blazer, but the girl who'd spent six years making coffee for people who walked past her like she was furniture. Why had she said that? What was wrong with her?

But Elliott just nodded, like she'd said something perfectly normal. "How long were you temping?"

"Six years." The number was a confession. "After I graduated. The industry sort of collapsed and there weren't any positions and I couldn't afford to do an unpaid internship, so..." She shrugged, the gesture tight. "I answered a lot of phones."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It was--" She'd been about to deflect with a joke, something self-deprecating about having really excellent telephone manner. But Elliott was looking at her with a quiet, focused attention that made the deflection die in her throat. "Yeah," she said instead. "It really was."

A beat of silence. Not awkward--weighted somehow, like they'd said more than the words actually contained.

Elliott cleared his throat. "So this week. First real position. How's it going?"

"Terrifying, mainly." The honesty kept slipping out. "Everyone else seems to know things I don't, and they all went to better schools, and I keep waiting for someone to notice I don't actually belong here."

"You mean at the firm?"

"I mean..." She trailed off, looking at the gallery, the expensive coats, the people discussing spatial dialectic. "Everywhere. All of it. This whole--situation."

She expected him to offer reassurance--I'm sure you're great, I'm sure they wouldn't have hired you if you weren't qualified--the empty comfort that was always a polite dismissal. But Elliott tilted his head, considering.

"Do you want to know something?" he said. "I've designed catalogues for six exhibitions here. I know the director by name. I have drinks with the curator sometimes. And every single time I walk in, I'm convinced someone's going to ask what I'm doing here and I won't have an answer."

Zara stared at him. "You're joking."

"I'm really not." He pushed his glasses up his nose, a gesture that made him look younger somehow, less polished. "I think everyone feels like a fraud. Some people are just better at hiding it."

"You seem like you belong here."

"I'm excellent at seeming." His mouth curved into something rueful. "I had a lot of practice. Family who wanted me to be an engineer, schools where I didn't quite fit. You learn to perform the version that's expected."

Here was someone who understood--who knew what it was like to build a version of yourself for public consumption, to hide the rough edges beneath professional polish. She'd spent the past week convinced everyone could see through her, could tell that the girl from Oldham didn't really belong in Spinningfields. But Elliott's expression held recognition, not judgment.

"What version are you performing now?" she asked.

"The charming one who approaches strangers at gallery openings." He smiled, and it was a good smile--warm, slightly crooked, like he was letting her in on a joke. "I'm not usually this smooth, for the record. Normally I stand in corners and hope no one notices me."

"You're doing a very good impression of someone who knows how to talk to people."

"See? Practice." He raised his wine glass. "What about you? What version is this?"

Zara considered. The honest answer was the sophisticated one, the one who had opinions about phenomenology and belonged at gallery openings in nice blazers. But Elliott had just admitted to his own performance, and that honesty was an invitation.

"The one who's pretending to understand art," she said. "Also the one who doesn't laugh too loud or talk about how she spent six years answering phones while everyone she graduated with became successful without her."

"That seems like a lot to keep track of."

"You have no idea." She was smiling, she realised--not the measured, professional smile, but something realer. "Usually I'm better at it. There must be something about these photographs that makes me confess things."

"The phenomenology of oversharing."

She snorted--another undignified sound, but this time she didn't care as much. "Is that what's happening?"

"Probably." Elliott's eyes were warm behind his glasses. "Or maybe the wine's stronger than it looks."

"Maybe." She glanced at her own glass, nearly empty. "This is my first."

"Mine too."

They looked at each other. The gallery hummed around them--conversation, footsteps, the particular acoustics of concrete and glass. But it felt somehow distant, like they were standing in a pocket of different atmosphere.

"Do you want another?" Elliott asked. "I could get us--there's a bar, I think. Somewhere."

"I should probably find my friend." Zara glanced toward Cass, who was still deep in conversation, making expansive hand gestures. "Though she seems busy."

"She does seem busy."

"She's going to want to know who I was talking to."

"What will you tell her?"

Zara considered. "A graphic designer who doesn't understand phenomenology. Possibly the only person at this opening who's as confused as I am."

"High praise." Elliott grinned, and the warmth in his expression made her stomach flutter--really quite unprofessionally. "Can I get you that drink? If she's going to interrogate you anyway, you might as well have material."

She should say no. She should find Cass, make polite excuses, preserve the professional distance she was supposed to maintain in spaces like this. She'd survived her first week at a real architecture firm. She didn't need to complicate things by developing inconvenient feelings about a stranger at a gallery opening.

But Elliott seemed genuinely interested--not in the polished version, but the real one, the one who laughed too loud and admitted to feeling like a fraud. And that felt rare enough to be worth investigating.

"Yes," she said. "Okay. Yes."

They found a quiet corner near a window overlooking Whitworth Street, fresh glasses of red wine in hand. Outside, it had started raining--Manchester in January, inevitably.

"To surviving the first week," Elliott said, raising his glass.

Zara touched hers to his. "To performing competence."

"God, I'll drink to that." He leaned against the window frame. "So. Architecture. What made you want to design buildings?"

She got asked this in every interview, and normally she had a polished answer ready--something about spatial awareness and the built environment and creating spaces that served human needs. But Elliott had been honest with her, and she found herself wanting to return the favour.

"My dad," she said. "When I was eleven, he took me into Manchester for my birthday. We walked through Spinningfields--which is where I work now, actually--and he pointed at this building that was still being constructed. Scaffolding everywhere. And he said, 'Someone drew that first. Before it was real, someone imagined it.'"

She hadn't told this story in years. It was too personal, too revealing of the girl from Oldham who'd started sketching floor plans on the backs of her school notebooks.

"I went home and started designing houses," she continued. "Terrible ones. Rooms that couldn't exist, stairs that went nowhere. But I couldn't stop thinking about it--the idea that you could imagine something and then make it real."

"And now you're doing it."

"After six years of imagining while making other people's coffee." She shrugged, but it felt less defensive this time. "But yes. Finally. I'm actually doing it."

Elliott was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I think that might be the best answer to that question I've ever heard."

"You must not have heard many answers."

"I ask a lot of questions." He smiled, a hint of sheepishness beneath the charm. "It's my technique. If I keep asking things, no one notices I'm not actually saying anything about myself."

"Is that what you're doing now?"

"Apparently not very well, if you noticed."

Zara laughed--the real one again, the undignified bark that she hated. Elliott's smile widened. "There it is," he said. "I was hoping I'd get that laugh again."

"You're setting me up."

"A little bit." He didn't look sorry about it. "It's a good laugh. Most people try so hard to sound pleasant that they don't actually sound like anything."

"I can't sound pleasant if I try. It just comes out..." She made a vague gesture.

"Honest?"

"I was going to say 'like a startled goose.'"

"Same thing, really."

She should have been embarrassed. She usually was, when people noticed her laugh--when she caught herself being too loud, too much, too obviously the girl who didn't quite fit in spaces like this. But Elliott wasn't looking at her like she was something to be politely tolerated. He was looking at her like she'd given him something valuable.

"Tell me something about you," she said. "You've been asking questions all night. My turn."

"What do you want to know?"

"Why graphic design?"

Elliott considered. "Similar story to yours, actually. Different trajectory. I always liked drawing--comics, mostly, things I never showed anyone. But my parents wanted me to do something practical, something with a recognisable career path. Engineering, maybe. Architecture, ironically." He grinned. "Graphic design was the compromise. Creative enough to keep me interested, practical enough that they could explain it at family gatherings."

"Do they know about the exhibition catalogues?"

"They know I 'do something with computers.'" He made air quotes. "I've stopped trying to explain the nuances. It's easier for everyone."

"That sounds lonely."

Elliott blinked, like the observation had surprised him. "I hadn't thought of it that way. But yes, I suppose it is. A bit."

"My mum cried when I got into architecture school," Zara said. "I thought it was because she was happy, but later she told me she was scared. That I was going somewhere she couldn't follow."

"Did she?"

"We're still figuring it out." Zara traced a finger along the stem of her wine glass. "I code-switch, you know? Talk differently at home than I do at work. I don't even notice I'm doing it anymore."

"What do you sound like at home?"

"Broader. Faster. More Oldham." She let a bit of her natural accent slip through, the vowels flattening slightly. "Like this."

"I like that version."

"It's not very professional."

"Professional is overrated." Elliott's voice had dropped slightly, something warmer in it. "I'd rather know the real person."

Zara's breath caught. It was such a simple thing to say, but it landed somewhere deeper than simple things usually did. She spent so much time constructing versions of herself for public consumption--the sophisticated architect, the capable professional, the woman who definitely belonged at gallery openings in Primark blazers. And here was someone asking for the opposite.

"The real person is kind of a mess," she said, aiming for lightness and not quite achieving it.

"Aren't we all?"

They'd been talking for--she checked her phone--two hours. How had it been two hours? Where was Cass? She scanned the room and found her friend leaning against the bar, watching Zara with an expression of exaggerated patience.

"Oh god." Zara straightened. "My friend. She's been waiting."

"You should probably go rescue her."

"I should." But she didn't move. Elliott was watching her with quiet intensity, and she found it difficult to remember why leaving was important.

"I had a really good time talking to you," he said. "This is the least lonely I've felt at one of these things."

"Same." The word felt inadequate. "I mean--this was nice. This whole conversation. I don't usually..." She trailed off, not sure how to explain that she didn't usually feel seen by strangers at gallery openings, that she didn't usually let her guard down this completely.

"Neither do I." Elliott pushed his glasses up his nose again, that nervous gesture. He opened his mouth like he was about to say something else--ask something, maybe--but Cass had started making exaggerated "let's go" gestures from across the room.

"I should go," Zara said, the words coming out before she could think better of them. "My friend. She's been waiting."

"Right." Elliott's expression flickered--disappointment, quickly masked. "Of course."

She should offer her number. That's what normal people did when they'd spent two hours talking to someone they liked. But normal people didn't have Zara's particular talent for catastrophizing, her bone-deep certainty that wanting things was the first step toward losing them.

If you give him your number and he doesn't text, you'll know for certain. If you don't give it, you can always wonder.

Wondering felt safer than knowing.

"It was really nice meeting you," she said, and meant it more than he could possibly understand.

"You too." Elliott's smile had turned uncertain. "Maybe I'll--I mean, if you're ever at one of these things again--"

"Maybe." Zara took a step back. Then another. "Enjoy the rest of your phenomenology."

"Enjoy your celebration."

She turned before she could change her mind, before she could do something really inadvisable like confess that this was the best conversation she'd had in years and she was running away because she didn't know how to want things without expecting them to be taken away--

"Hey." Elliott's hand caught her elbow, gentle but certain. "Wait."

Her heart gave a single, emphatic thud. "I really should--"

"I know." He let go of her arm, but he didn't step back. "I just--can I tell you something? You don't have to do anything with it."

Keep walking, her instincts screamed. Protect yourself. Don't want things.

But her feet weren't listening.

"Okay," she said. "Tell me."

"That was two hours I didn't want to end." He pushed his glasses up his nose again, that nervous gesture she was already starting to find unreasonably endearing. "I'm usually much worse at this. Please don't tell anyone I said something genuine at a gallery opening--it'll ruin my reputation for aloof creative mystique."

"You have aloof creative mystique?"

"I've been working on it. Very painstakingly. And you've just demolished it with your laugh and your bum commentary and your--" He made a helpless gesture. "Everything, really."

Her pulse was doing something acrobatic. This was exactly the kind of moment she usually ran from--the moment where someone offered her something real and she had to decide whether to reach for it or pretend she didn't want it.

Across the room, Cass caught her eye. She'd stopped making "let's go" gestures and was now watching with an expression of unbearable smugness, like she was already composing the "I told you so" speech.

Stay, Cass mouthed. Go with him.

"My friend," Zara started.

"Seems like she's giving you permission."

"She's going to be insufferable about this. I'm going to hear 'remember when you nearly ran away from the cute graphic designer?' for the rest of my life."

"Cute?" Elliott's smile went wide and delighted. "You think I'm cute?"

"I think you're fishing for compliments."

"Absolutely. Please continue. I need validation."

"You've demolished your aloof mystique entirely."

"Worth it."

She was grinning like an idiot. She could feel it on her face, the kind of smile that was going to make her cheeks ache tomorrow. This was a disaster. This was the best disaster she'd ever participated in.

"Do you want to get out of here?" Elliott asked. "Not--I mean, we could just walk. Talk more. There's a decent wine bar in Chorlton, or--" He stopped, laughed at himself. "I'm doing this badly."

"You're doing it fine."

"I'm usually smoother than this. I had a whole charming persona and everything. You've ruined it completely."

"Good," she said. "I like you better when you're not smooth."

The words came out before she could stop them. Elliott's expression shifted--something warm and surprised flickering across his face.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Cass materialised beside them with the inevitability of death and taxes, coat on, bag over her shoulder. "Right," she said briskly. "I'm going to head off. Early start tomorrow, very important things to do, definitely not leaving so you two can stop making moon eyes at each other in public like you're auditioning for a Hugh Grant film."

"Cass--"

"Text me when you get home." Cass was already backing toward the exit, grinning like she'd won something. "Or tomorrow. Tomorrow's fine. Have fun being phenomenological."

"I hate you."

"You adore me. Nice to meet you, Elliott. Don't be boring. She's had boring. Boring didn't suit her."

And then she was gone, the gallery door swinging shut behind her, leaving Zara standing alone with a man she'd met two hours ago and a decision that had somehow already been made.

"Your friend is..." Elliott searched for the word.

"A lot. Yes. Also deeply invested in my romantic life in ways I find both touching and concerning." Zara touched her grandmother's necklace, the gold warm against her fingertips. "She's usually right, though. Annoyingly."

"Right about what?"

"About me making baffling decisions." She looked up at him--this stranger who somehow didn't feel like a stranger, who'd seen through her chaos and wanted more of it. "About running away from things I actually want."

Elliott was very still. "And what do you want?"

The question hung between them. She could feel the weight of it--six years of wanting things she couldn't have, jobs that went to other people, opportunities that closed before she could reach them. A life that always seemed to be happening somewhere she wasn't.

But Elliott was here. Still watching her with that steady warmth, like he'd be happy to stand in this gallery all night if it meant she'd keep talking.

"I want to see your spatial dialectic," she said. "In person. At yours."

"That sounds vaguely inappropriate."

"It really does." She grinned. "I'm choosing to lean into it."

"Noted." He offered his hand, palm up, an invitation. "Come on. I'll show you my spatial dialectic."

"You're going to have to stop saying that. It's doing things to me."

"What kind of things?"

"Inappropriate things. Phenomenological things."

"Excellent." His fingers closed around hers, warm and certain. "That's exactly what I was going for."

Outside, it had started properly raining--Manchester in January, inevitably. The city lights blurred and scattered on the wet pavement, making everything look like an impressionist painting done by someone with poor depth perception. Somewhere in the distance, a tram bell rang, mournful and hopeful at once.

Zara's phone buzzed in her pocket--Cass, definitely, demanding details she didn't have yet. She ignored it.

"I should warn you," she said, walking into the rain with Elliott's hand in hers, "I'm probably going to say something horrifying in the next ten minutes. It's a guarantee, really. You should be prepared."

"I'm counting on it."

"Good. Lower your expectations now. Save yourself the disappointment."

"My expectations are exactly where they should be," Elliott said. "Extremely high."

She laughed--the real one, the goose-being-mugged one that she hated and that he apparently loved--and let him lead her through the rain toward somewhere she'd never been.

Just for tonight, she told herself. You're allowed one night.

But even as she thought it, she knew she was lying.

His flat was in Chorlton, which somehow surprised her.

"You expected somewhere more pretentious?" Elliott asked, catching her expression as he unlocked the door.

"I expected somewhere more Northern Quarter. Exposed brick. Neon signs. A vintage typewriter you never use."

"I have a flatmate who'd murder me if I put a neon sign in the living room." He pushed the door open. "Also, I can't afford the Northern Quarter. Graphic design pays well but not that well."

Zara laughed--the real laugh, the one she'd been trying not to make all evening. Apparently he could just do that to her, bypass her usual defenses without even trying. He kept saying things that bypassed her carefully constructed deflection systems.

The flat was on the second floor of a converted Victorian house, and it was nicer than she'd expected. Clean lines, good lighting, a considered but not aggressive aesthetic that suggested someone cared about design without wanting to shout about it. A monstera plant in the corner that looked genuinely healthy. A sofa that was definitely from an actual furniture shop rather than Facebook Marketplace.

"Tea?" he asked. "Coffee? More wine?"

"Wine feels like the appropriate choice." She was still holding her bag like a shield, her Primark blazer suddenly feeling even more obvious in this space that could have stepped out of an interiors magazine. "For the celebration."

"What are we celebrating again?"

"My first week of not being fired." She set her bag down on the kitchen counter with more confidence than she felt. "Also, successfully understanding at least one piece of phenomenological art."

"You did really well with that staircase."

"I couldn't tell you which direction it was going."

"Neither does anyone." Elliott was already opening wine, his movements easy, unhurried. "I've worked with that artist three times. She doesn't know either. It's stairs. That's the whole thing."

She should feel nervous. She was in a stranger's flat--a stranger she'd met approximately four hours ago at a gallery opening, whose last name she wasn't entirely sure of, whose entire life story she knew from a conversation conducted over pretentious wine and even more pretentious photographs. This was exactly the situation where her anxiety usually kicked in, cataloguing exit routes and catastrophe scenarios.

But Elliott handed her a glass of wine and smiled that slightly crooked smile, and the anxiety didn't arrive. Instead, something looser settled over her. Something that felt dangerously like comfort.

"Tour?" he offered.

"I'm very interested in your spatial dialectic."

"Rude." But he was grinning. "Living room, obviously. Kitchen, which you've seen. Bathroom's through there. My room's at the end. Dev's room is the one with the gaming chair visible through the crack in the door--don't ask, it's a whole thing."

"Dev?"

"My flatmate. He's in Birmingham this weekend, visiting family. He'll be devastated to learn he missed the opportunity to interrogate you about your intentions."

"My intentions are very innocent."

End of sample. The story continues in the full edition.

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