The room was still fluorescent and bright but he felt different about it, now that he only had eyes for her, as if the lights were warmer all of a sudden. In what felt like a tunnel vision, he tried to thread his way through the cluttered groups of peculiarly dressed artists, to her standing underneath the light and the end of the tunnel.

Shortly before passing the group that included Sukie, Titus and Mitch he stopped. Stood still for a second, as he felt all the confidence that carried him so lightly for a brief moment run through his veins and out of his body. A feeling all to familiar recently. What was he doing? What was he even thinking, dare even trying to say? Doubting himself within a matter of seconds was a task he had become too good at recently.

As he was on the back of his heels, ready to turn around to the comfort of the corner he stood in just moments ago, a spiky head full of hair blocked his way and sight.
"There you are", his friend Sukie smiled from a drunken face.
"I guess I am", he replied stating the obvious, while stretching out an arm for Sukie's staggering body to hold onto. He couldn't quite pin down wether that was due to her unreasonably high yellow plateau shoes or the lost-count-how-many-th emptied cocktail glass in her hands.

"How many of those have you had, Su?", he couldn't help but chuckle.

"Ah, not that many ... maybe ten, maybe more", came the giggling response from the spiky haired girl, now leading him back to the group of people she came from.

"Wouldst thou bless us with your presence now?", Titus made the impression of an obeisance, spilling half of his drink all over the cold vinyl floors.

He had missed their presence, he admitted to himself as laughter erupted along the small group, yet felt somehow like a stranger among them after returning from LA a few days ago. He had missed London.

Mitch gave him a small cheer with his half emptied glass with a glance that let him know, he was aware of his inner monologues.

"- I've been meaning to introduce you to someone all evening", Sukie, still holding onto his right arm pulled him out of his thoughts to face a pink haired girl across the small circle they stood in. "This is Poppy"
"Nice to meet you, Poppy" he said as he reached over to shake her hand. She eagerly shook it and gave him an excited glance.
Sukie had obviously once again tried to play the match maker, which never resulted in anything but sheer and bitter awkwardness.
He still shivered upon remembering the events of last Boxing Day, which Sukie had apparently already forgotten.

To avoid a repetition of said story he turned back around, although feeling a little guilty. Poppy -was that her name?- surely was nice but his attention lied on nothing but her.
She, was the blonde head that arose from in between the gap of Titus and Mitch that he couldn't help but look at.

The way she gently nodded her head in agreement to whomever it was that she was talking to, formed the red lips to a smile and bounced her feet to the inaudible sounds of music echoing through the fluorescent room. She looked like she belonged in an art gallery.

Yet he stood still in his spot, unable to feel present. Only living through the monologues he held in his head and by telling himself how irrationale his attraction to her was, how treacherous to indulge in the hope that a person was more than a person and could possibly even make him feel like he belonged within the cold four walls of an East London art gallery.

But despite the odds and rationals, he couldn't help it. He was drawn to her, like she had some kind of magnetic field around her. Like he was drowning and she was the only air in the room. Without even knowing her name. Or her age. Or how she liked her eggs in the morning. But he imagined her. How she would laugh at his words and make witty remarks, or listen eagerly about the stories he had to tell whilst brushing a blonde strand behind her ear. Or maybe how he'd get close enough to count the freckles on her nose and the speckles in her eyes. And maybe she lived in daydreams with him.

But he stood still here.