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Previously: A Statistical Anomaly
I'm going to be late, and I don't care nearly as much as I should. I've realised that halfway down the stairs, two at a time, and it doesn't slow me down a bit.
The coding was going well. That's my excuse, and it's a genuinely terrible one, because "I was having too much fun making a function recurse properly" isn't the sort of thing you say to a man you've asked out for drinks. But it's true. I remember the shower, remember grinning at myself in the mirror like an idiot while I decided what shirt made me look like a person and not a drowned CS student, and after that it's terminal windows and a muttered "yes" to an empty room when the thing finally runs clean, right up until I look up and the clock doesn't make sense: two hours gone, not the one I'd budgeted.
I'm laughing before I'm even out the door, at myself, at the sheer stupidity of it, at the fact that I genuinely can't be trusted near a keyboard with a deadline of my own making, and I'm still laughing, breathless with it, macintosh dragged on one-armed because the umbrella's buried under six months of good intentions somewhere in my flat and I didn't have time to excavate for it, and running with one open has never once worked for anyone in the history of umbrellas. The rain's stopped. I run anyway, because it's a good excuse to run.
I go properly flat out down the last street, coat snapping open behind me, and nearly take out a bloke walking a dog who shouts a warning I don't have the breath to answer and wouldn't apologise for even if I did. I'm grinning the whole way.
I catch the noise before I'm even through the door: someone's losing an argument with the jukebox. Then I'm through, at a dead sprint that only just converts into a stagger. My hands slap down on my knees. My chest's heaving, and the coat's still damp down the front from the run. I can't stop laughing. It's not a good look, probably, doubled over just inside the door of a bar I'm supposed to be charming someone in, but the whole farce of the night has me wheezing.
I straighten up still grinning, shove sweat-damp hair back off my face with both hands, and pat myself down out of habit, checking for my glasses first — and that's when I find the flat, empty pocket where my keys should be.
"Oh, brilliant." The scale of what I've managed to assemble in one evening is a little impressive. Glasses: present, or I'd genuinely be feeling my way along the bar towards the @Ryland shaped blob again. Keys are on my desk, in my flat, which has just locked behind me at a dead run.
I spot who must be Ryland by the bar and the Ms. Pac-Man machine before I've finished working out how catastrophic that actually is, and any thought of dignity goes straight out the window I just ran past. I cross the room still half out of breath, coat swinging open, hair a state, grin doing absolutely nothing to sell the idea that I have my life together. I'm ridiculously pleased to see that I was right about him being cute.
"I ran the whole way," I announce, arriving too loud for the room. "I sat down to finish one piece of code, one, and lost track of the entire two hours, and then legged it here like an absolute madman, and somewhere in the middle of that I left my keys on my desk, so I currently have no way home and no regrets whatsoever."
I drop onto the stool next to Ryland like I've been aiming for it the whole run, which I basically have, still catching my breath, eyes bright with the ridiculous joy of having made it. "Have you been waiting long? Tell me you've started without me. Tell me there's a Shirley Temple with my name on it, because I've earned it, and if I have to sleep on a doorstep tonight, I'd like to do it happy."