3 nights

Somewhere, far out in the sticks of my mind, I can hear a door open. I can’t be arsed to look up and see who it is ‘cos my head feels way too heavy, and I can see red through my eyelids so I know the early afternoon daylight would hurt like neat alcohol if I opened my eyes. So I listen to the disembodied voice, and I can tell it’s Neil, even though his voice is a guitar string lower than normal and rough as stubble. “Hey mate, how’re you doing?” he asks, as if it’s not bleedin’ obvious to look at me, slumped in an armchair, my limbs splayed out like a corpse. But still, I ought to answer, so I tell him straight: “I feel like shit, mate,” I say – but I mutter it ‘cos my mouth is a dry riverbed, and he should know better than to talk to me when I feel like this... So begins a tale of six friends and their bids for lust and love in the time of binge drinking. 3 NIGHTS is the debut novella from a very British enfant terrible.