Somewhere Only We Know: The bestselling laugh out loud millenial romantic comedy. Erin Lawless

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СКАЧАТЬ said, moving past her flatmate towards her bedroom. “Don’t worry about it; everything’s going to be fine.”

      “But… I’ve lied,” Nadia said, miserably. “On an official document. I could get in some serious trouble over this. Things are bad enough already. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

      “Calm down,” Holly instructed, as she attempted to tame her heat-frizzed hair with a brush and pull it up and away from her flushed face and neck. She'd had a long, hot journey home on the stuffy Tube. “People lie on these things all the time. Besides, I wouldn’t even say you’ve lied, per se.”

      “Oh yeah? Well, what would you call it, then?”

      Holly considered her response. “You were just a little bit pre-emptive,” she said finally, scooping up an armful of dirty clothes from the hamper in the corner of her bedroom and moving past Nadia into the hallway again.

      “Pre-emptive?” Nadia echoed, as she trailed Holly to the kitchen. “How’s that? And stop it with that! I know very well that you only ever do laundry when you’re putting off doing something else.” Holly shot her a guilty expression as she shoved her load into the washing-machine drum. “Seriously, Hol, I am freaking out here.”

      “You don’t need to be!” Holly reasserted, standing straight and slamming the drum door shut. “It’s not like you told them you’d been happily married for ten years and are pregnant with your sixth child. That would have been a lie.”

      “And so just saying that I have a boyfriend is… pre-emptive?” Nadia asked, doubtfully.

      “Yup. Anticipatory. A little ahead of yourself.” Holly smiled helpfully.

      “More like way ahead of myself.”

      “Hey, it’s Friday night! If you want a boyfriend so badly, let’s hit the High Street and find you some idiot in a rugby shirt with a popped collar that you can change for the better.”

      Nadia sighed. "I've added some stuff to the Netflix list I thought you might like. We could crack on with some of that."

      Holly shot her a disparaging look. "I was thinking more along the lines of something where we break up the love affair that is your arse and our couch. Come on. We're going out."

      "Ah, Hols, you know I'm broke!" Nadia sighed, flopping dramatically onto said couch. The Home Office had taken away her working visa and her passport nine months ago and she had been existing on a combination of savings, overdrafts and waning parental generosity ever since. “I wouldn’t say no to sharing a bottle of wine from Budgens, though. I think I’ve got a few quid somewhere.”

      Holly cocked her head to one side and looked at her friend with exaggerated pity. “Oh, stop it, you’re breaking my heart,” she said, sarcastically. “Go and put some slap on, already. I've been cooped up in that office all week; I'm definitely up to stretching to a few drinks tonight."

      Nadia laughed, easily persuaded. “Okay, sounds good. But I will still go and spend my few precious pounds on that bottle; we can drink it while we’re getting ready.”

      “Sounds good. But I think I’m on the Mojitos later. I just really fancy a Mojito. Must be the weather.”

      “Okay, but please, let’s not wind up in that dive bar again, drinking double-strength Mojitos at four in the morning. You know I had to throw away that top after last time? I loved that top!”

      “I make no promises!” Holly laughed. “At four in the morning the liver wants what the liver wants.”

      “I guess it wouldn’t do to mess with tradition,” Nadia said thoughtfully; “especially as I am ‘constantly mindful and respectful of historic and cultural traditions’,” she laughed, quoting her recent visa application essay. Holly herself had come up with that particular piece of crap.

      “Agreed. A night where we hit Clapham High Street and didn’t over-indulge just wouldn’t be the same. Right! Do you think I'll be way too hot in my skinny jeans?” The cheap Ikea bureau in her bedroom groaned as Holly yanked open one of the drawers.

      And Nadia thought it, but didn't say it: this could be one of the last nights that she and Holly ever drank Mojitos together.

       Alex

      Alex had never had much of a life plan. He had an average grade in a broad subject, which – if anything – opened up too much choice, but the Home Office recruitment booth, decked out in Union Jack bunting, had immediately drawn his attention at that first careers fair. Seduced by aspirations of martinis – shaken, not stirred, naturally – and daydreams of parkouring across Middle Eastern rooftops after bad guys, Alex immediately signed up for their fast-track graduate scheme. Of course, it was just a desk job, the same as any other, and – with the recession double-dipping away – one that turned out to have no career progression, bonuses or benefits. Every year staff were reminded that their relatively low salary should be bolstered by a sense of accomplishment in knowing that they were working for the good of their country, which in the case of Alex’s role seemed to primarily consist of preventing people’s access to it.

      Monday morning meant a whole new batch of applications. Almost all of them would be the usual – EU citizens looking for student, or sometimes spousal, visas. All Alex had to do at this point was read through them, making sure the applicant had ticked the right boxes – both literally and figuratively – before sending those who’d got everything right up the management chain.

      It was all achingly repetitive – the insincere protestations of patriotism, the stiff Google-translated English, the bored-sounding formal references from companies who’d had the person in for an internship years ago…

      “One time, Nadia and I were watching University Challenge; the round was politics and she got every question but one absolutely right. How many natural British citizens do you think know that much about their country?”

      Alex blinked and re-read the opening line of the letter he’d just picked up. He felt his mouth twitch into a smile; it was a fair point. He skimmed through the rest of the wonderfully effusive letter, particularly affectionate sentences jumping out from the long, rambling paragraphs.

      “Nadia knows and excels at all the dance moves to Steps’ ‘Tragedy’ and ‘5-6-7-8’. Her ‘Macarena’ isn’t great, though.”

       “She ran a half-marathon dressed in a hot pink bra with me to raise money for breast cancer after my aunt died of it.”

       “I honestly think that were Prince Harry to meet Nadia, he’d probably want to marry her. How can you deny a potential future princess of this great nation the leave to remain in it?”

       “If Nadia is removed from the country, you will be breaking up an epic pub quiz team. We win the Bellevue’s quiz almost every week and would have serious trouble finding a replacement with Nadia’s niche knowledge.”

      Alex felt his smile grow wider as he read on; this was mildly insane.

      The concluding paragraph was neat and controlled and out of place in the general sprawl of the letter as a whole – as if the writer had belatedly remembered that she was writing a formal letter to the government.

       “You will СКАЧАТЬ