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Obscenely tall, oh my god. You can never be too sure with famous people; they’re crafty.

Always making themselves look taller on film and television, standing on boxes, making their co-stars stand in holes, shoe lifts—you name it—and whatever, no judgment, I get it.

Men like to be tall, and I, a woman, like men to be tall because I’m tall.

5’9”. It’s in the job description. But sometimes you’ll meet a man who’s made himself look incredibly tall on-screen, and I won’t name names (Gilbert Grape) but you might find yourself feeling vaguely misled, is all.

But not him here in front of me now. I’m sitting, sure, but even still, I can tell.

6’3” maybe? Could be taller, even. And if it wasn’t obvious from what I said before—shockingly blue eyes.

Light. Like, icy blue. There’s something else about them though—something else behind that makes me sit up straighter.

A confidence, maybe? Some kind of self-assurance…

? Or maybe it’s just good, old-fashioned pride, I don’t know.

He is famous for his ego, I do know that much…

But then, like—fuck. Look at that face. Of course he has an ego, he should have an ego.

All of him is spectacular. He has fair skin by nature but it obviously sees the sun a fair amount.

A shaggy mop of brown hair, iconic to the band and, I suppose, the time in which we live.

Straight-legged blue jeans and a well-oversized plaid jacket, white T-shirt underneath with some Adidas Superstars that are too worn for someone with as much money as I know he must he have.

All in all, he’s somehow completely spectacular by being, technically, entirely underwhelming.

Except I’m not underwhelmed at all. I am in fact, very, very whelmed.

He says nothing for a good three seconds, which is weird and actually draws attention to us in an annoying way. The conversations around us all go quiet to watch on, because of course they do—why wouldn’t they? He’s him and I’m me and if you could listen in, wouldn’t you?

“Alright?” he says, nodding his chin at me, his extraordinarily thick Mancunian accent well in tow.

I glance from him to my friends, back to him. “Hi?” He eyes Aleki. “That your boyfriend, then?”

I shake my head. “Bodyguard.”

He looks past me to Aleki, then nods towards the bar.

“I’m gonna take her over there for a chat, yeah?”

Aleki looks at me to check. I don’t nod but I give him my yes that’s fine look with my eyes, and then the biggest hand in the world is offered to me.

It’s like a baseball mitt, just right there in my face, waiting for me to take it, so I do.

I don’t know why I do because I’m perfectly capable of getting up on my own, but I do, and if I had to pinpoint a moment where sometime in the future we’d say that the chemistry of me as a person was empirically altered, it’s now—the first time we touched in this sweetly banal way, my hand in his as he leads me through a crowd of 150 of London’s biggest celebrities and most questionable people.

He’s 6’4”, by the way. Because I’m in heels and he’s still got some inches on me. A tower of a man.

He leans over to get the attention of the bartender, who double takes him. They’re not really meant to do that here.

“You got Boddington’s?” he asks. The bartender shakes his head. “Fuck me,” he groans like it’s personal. “Just gimme a lager, then—whatever you got.” He looks back at me. “What’re you on?”

I give him a careful look before I lean over the bar to tell the tender myself.

“Tom Collins, please.” Because I shan’t be spoken for.

That makes him smile a bit though, which wasn’t my intent. He stares at me for a few more seconds and I feel my cheeks going pink in a way they never have before for any man.

“You know who I am, don’t ya?” he eventually says.

“Everyone knows who you are,” I say, even though that’s exactly what the front man of Fallow wanted to hear.

I say it to him anyway because sometimes it’s nice to be nice.

Joah Harrigan smirks a little. He’s sort of famous for that smirk, I suppose.

Famously troublesome. Maybe it’s the “meteoric rise” of the band, how they were sort of nothing boys from Manchester, brothers, who started a band and kind of found success absurdly quickly, despite not even having had a record out yet.

They both just have those kinds of faces.

Like, faces you want to stare at. Him, the one in front of me—Joah—he especially has one…

And a face like that—? It’s not good for a man to have a face like that and also be talented, I don’t think.

And to be a white male? Fuck. It’s a recipe for trouble.

He is, inherently, a recipe for trouble.

And rather infamously, I suppose at least allegedly, it does follow him everywhere he goes.

I straighten up, remind myself that whilst he might be in the biggest band in the world, I myself have been lauded the face of the decade .

So I counter. “Do you know who I am?”

“Most beautiful girl in the world,” he says without skipping a beat.

“Obviously,” I say, and his head pulls back—a bit surprised, but nevertheless, on board.

“Obviously?”

“ Obviously,” I repeat myself, but then I wonder. “But do you not know my name?”

“I know your face is fuckin’ everywhere…” Then his face pulls into something that almost looks like he’s sorry. “But…I dunno your name.”

And that’s enough for me, like fucking fuck him. I’m fucking everywhere. Every bus, every magazine, every runway, every campaign, you cannot get away from me right now, not even if you tried.

I give him a filthy look as I go to move past him, but he grabs my arm, shaking his head like I’m being silly.

“I don’t give a fuck about fashion and models and all that shit—”

Which—just to clarify—I am that shit. That shit is me. I am fashion. I am models. I am eponymous with both all over the world, so I say to you again, fuck him , and I snatch my arm away once more, and this time with fierce conviction.

“—Till now!” he says quickly; his eyes look sincere now and his face looks almost a bit panicked even. “Till now,” he says firmly, nodding. “Now it’s fuckin’ suddenly the most important thing in the world…”

I roll my eyes slowly and dramatically, and he sort of smiles, shaking his head a bit as he swears under his breath.

“Fuck.”

“What?”

“Reckon I’m a bit in love with ya, that’s all.”

The bartender passes us our drinks. I thank him before I turn to Joah. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I ain’t ridiculous.” He pulls a face, then changes his voice to make it sound like he thinks it’s all a joke. “I’m famous .”

“So am I,” I remind him, which I completely hate because what the actual fuck? “And they’re not mutually exclusive.”

“Come back to mine,” he says, completely straight-faced.

“No!”

Joah frowns. “Why not?” As though it doesn’t make sense to him, a girl saying no to him.

“Because.”

“Cos you’re not that kind of girl —?” he offers.

I shrug. “I am for certain people?”

He looks mildly discouraged, but only for a second before he tries again. “You not gonna be her for me?”

I laugh airily. “No.”

He frowns again. “Why not?”

“Well, I have a feeling you’re quite big trouble…”

He gives me a proud, little grin. “Fuckin’ time of your life, but…”

That makes me laugh. I wish it didn’t, but it sort of snuck out of me, so I let it go and shake my head, so he doesn’t think he’s pleased me too much.

“My life is…” I trail. “I’m happy with my life, thank you.”

Joah Harrigan shakes his head now, sure of himself. “Yeah, just you wait…”

I lift an eyebrow. “For what?”

He shrugs like that’s easy. “Till your life’s got me in it like.”

I pinch my eyes. “But I don’t want you in it.”

He stares at me for a couple of seconds, and there’s something about it, I don’t know why, but it really is like I’m see-through and he knows it, so he calls it.

“Liar.” He points at me with conviction.

“Sol—” Lala pokes her head into our conversation. “We’re going to Hertford—”

I nod at her. “Coming.”

Joah shakes his head again. “Oi, don’t go.”

I pull a face as though it’s awkward between us. “I think I will…”

“Then I need to see you again, don’t I?” he concludes.

I concede with a shrug. “Okay.”

He blinks a few times, almost surprised. “Okay?”

He swallows—first time I’ve seen him look nervous, actually. He waits for the more I don’t offer him, then he says, “…How?”

I give him another shrug. “That feels like a you problem…”

“What’s your number, then?”

“I suppose you could, yes.” I smile at him pleasantly, then say nothing else.

He lifts an eyebrow as he waits, and then I shake my head as though he’s silly.

“Oh, I’m not going to give it to you.”

“Why?” He’s frowning again.

I straighten up. “I’ll give you my number if you can tell me my name.”

He groans. “Well, fuck! That ain’t fair, is it? Cos you never actually told me, did ya?”

“Do you know—” I give him a small smile that’s equal parts encouraging and condescending. “—Nevertheless, I have a tiny bit of faith in you that you may just still figure it out…”

“I’m gonna,” he tells me, sure.

I give him a curt smile as my best friend pulls me away. “We shall see…”