Guts And Glory

ACT I: CHAPTER THREE: HOW BIG, HOW BLUE, HOW BEAUTIFUL

ACT I: CURTAIN RISES

CHAPTER THREE: HOW BIG, HOW BLUE, HOW BEAUTIFUL

"I heard you went out on a date last night."

Piper loves Annie Lai. Her best friend since the tender age of eleven, when Piper had been plucked right out of private school to crash land in an inner city, public girls school, Annie had been the only girl whom Piper hadn't accidently offended upon introduction. As it happens, Annie has also been cursed with a defect they both like to blame due to lack of mental filter. Her best friend, outranking Troy Madden, Annie, claims to be a fifth generation descendant of a famous Taiwanese woman who provided revolutionary information for the entirety of mankind. Annie refuses to answer any questions on the topics, and if a Google search returns with no person ever having existed—making Annie as perfectly normal and ordinary as anyone else who's great-great grandparents who had immigrated to Britain after the second world war—nothing more is said on the subject.

Piper remembers little of the night before, after the wine had been drained, and Finn saw to finish the panna cotta and pay for their bill, everything soon became a blur. Piper isn't a lightweight, but the sensation of drinking three glasses of wine then being hit with the outside air had sent her for a loop. She recalls flaming red hair, a promise on the tip of her sharp tongue, before being carted away. The only indicators that last night had happened at all is her heels by the front door, her jumpsuit discarded by the side of her bed, and the text message from Finn—still unopened—wishing her a good night. This is not where she imagined she'd be so soon after returning, plotting her reign as Queen with the same man who abandoned her the morning after.

It matters little now, though, as Annie has shown up unannounced, quickly making herself at home in Piper's flat. She has bought breakfast, and after Piper went to collect plates and cutlery, they are both eating on her bed. Annie is lying right across it, picking her way through a croissant, narrow shoulders, soft lines and curved edges. This is her unspoken way of forgiving the fact that Piper didn't immediately call her once her plane touched down in London. Annie being allowed to take a step into her flat is Piper's way of forgiving Annie for getting that god-awful turtleneck in contact with her clothes.

Annie has also gone on holiday, too, it seems, with her boyfriend and his friends. Piper received no warning, other than pictures plastered on social media, of hot beaches and hot guys half a world away. It's Annie's responsibility as wing-woman to let Piper know of such events, though Annie is so ill attuned to such things, having met her boyfriend, Jesse, when she was fourteen and he sixteen, making him the only guy she's ever really had to worry about attention from.

"I wouldn't call it a date," Piper deflects, moving to set the tray of their remnants of breakfast on the floor. "It was like a, um . . . thing."

"Right, of course," Annie nods, black hair falling down past her shoulders. "I just didn't realise you were that close to Finn Hanover for him to take you out for 'things'." Piper freezes, watching Annie push herself up, no longer lying vertically, but now leaning up against her ornate and incredibly fancy—which she will say so herself—headboard, watching her keenly. Piper is aware of the turtleneck still on the floor on the other side of the room, though the idea of even a scrap of clothing on the floor makes her pause and consider breaking out in hives purely so there's no more mess. "Yeah," Annie says slowly, "Finn."

"Oh. I didn't know that you knew him."

"Piper," Annie sighs, rolling her eyes, "I work in press, of course I know who he bloody is. I'm surprised, though, he's so far out of our social circle—he's basically a stranger." Which Piper has already identified as a problem. She is unsure on whether her shaky trust in Finn will be enough for her friends to trust her decision of having him so closely involved. Troy is already an example of how much has changed, how she doesn't really know her friends anymore, and not being able to predict their actions and motives is unsettling.