“Here. I bought a crapload of chocolate. I’m PMS-ing. Are you PMS-ing? Ever since our cycles started to sync, I feel like I—” She stops when she notices Smoker Dude （what’s his name, anyway?）。 I’m yet again mortified that now he not only knows my entire sexual history but also all about my menstruation cycle.
“。 . . Hi?” She cocks her head in confusion.
He reaches into her plastic bag, grabs a chocolate bar, tears the wrapper, and eats it in one clean bite. “Hello, cigarette snatcher.”
Pippa’s mouth is agape. “What else do you eat like that?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“I would, actually.” She throws him a sultry smile.
He gives her a bored bad-boy stare of the type that convinces teenyboppers to buy posters.
I look between them, nervous that I’m witnessing an epic falling-in-love moment.
I suddenly realize that I really, really don’t want to hear from her how he kisses. I don’t want to aww and ahh and pretend that I’m happy for her after the inevitable happens and they sleep together. The more they stare at each other, the more cold sweat forms over my skin. Until it becomes unbearable. The silence. The prospect of Pippa and Smoker Dude locking lips in a dim corner of a Barcelonese nightclub to a slow Arctic Monkeys song while I engage in mindless conversation with one of his buddies.
Whatever happened to Mainstream people aren’t revolutionary?
Pippa opens her mouth, no doubt to flirt with him. Something seizes me. I grab her by the wrist and pull her away. She is stumbling behind me, trying to yank herself free. But I’m propelled by fear and motivation.
“What are you doing?” she demands. “Ugh, he gave me big-dick energy! Let’s go back.”
“Nope.” The air-conditioned pharmacy spits us out to the tree-lined avenue. “I’m not going to let you fall in lust and disrupt our entire girls’ trip by planning your schedule around some guy.”
Apparently, this is the reason for our early departure. I pulled it out of my ass, but now that it’s here, it’s my hill to die on.
“Oh my God, you nutcase. Is that why you did this?” She stops when we’re on the corner of the street, then slaps my hand away. “You thought I was about to hit on him?”
We’re a good yard away from the pharmacy. I come to a halt, glancing around me.
“Or he was about to hit on you. Whatever. Same stuff.”
“Well, joke’s on you, Lawson, because when I said he was cute, I meant for you. He looked like a reflection into your soul. I’ve never seen anything like it. You smiled like two idiots when you were talking. I was going to make sure you got each other’s numbers. It’s not every day my best friend shows signs of life.”
Now it’s my turn to be speechless. “That’s why you did it?”
She smacks my arm with one of her shopping bags. “Yes, dufus!”
“But you two stared at each other.”
“He was giving me make-yourself-scarce looks.” She laughs. “He wasn’t subtle about it either.”
I want to throw up. In fact, I think I did, a little, in my mouth. Just now. “So why didn’t you?”
“I was trying to make sure he didn’t mess it up.”
“Oh, Pippa.”
“Don’t Oh, Pippa me. Run back in there and give him your number!”
“Just like that?” I blink, still rooted to the ground.
She hitches one shoulder up. “You can flash him your boobs for dramatic impact, I guess.”
I cut through the air like a bird of prey. I burst inside the pharmacy, whipping my head from side to side. If Smoker Dude asks why I’m here, I’m going to tell him I lost my wallet. I pace the aisles. I check the restrooms. Even the photo booth. Smoker Dude is nowhere to be seen.
Panic grows inside me. What if he left? It’s not like he really came here to buy a lip pencil. What if I’ve missed him? What if this is it? I’ll never find out his name. Where he lives. Whether he is Team Guns N’ Roses or Nirvana （he’d better be Team Guns N’ Roses, or he’ll have a lot to answer for）。
“He go after you,” tsks the pharmacist over the counter in a thick Spanish accent.
I turn to him. “He did?”
“Yeah, he was fast.” He smiles apologetically. “But you, faster.”
TWO
For the next week and a half, we eat and drink and visit cathedrals and Camp Nou and Bershka. Pippa hooks up with guys in clubs, I shop till I drop, and Smoker Dude becomes almost a myth, someone I’m not sure even existed anywhere but in my head.