the awkward girl that somehow becomes a friend with the two MCs because fuck logic.
How is it illogical? Hollys awkwardness makes it less likely that she gets partners, true, but both Ian and Lena can muster up a solid reasons why they bother to hang out with her.
Ian writes a book and Holly is his co-worker that musters up the courage to ask him if she could help revising it. If Ian is interested, he can ask for more personal meetings, all of it lining up for the book fair, an event that combines Ians professional interest (meeting Victor) with his personal (banging Holly). His potential interest with Holly is linked with his aspiration as a writer and journalists to make a name himself in the literature world. He also finds common ground on their shared perspective of why they write.
Lena is already a fan of her works and like Ian, she has an intellectual side (music and song writing) which is why she could be attracted to Holly. Her meeting Holly is as contrived as her meeting Ian. It's apparant that Holly as the sole character that is accessible for both main characters is designed to be slightly more intertwined and linked to them, hence she has more focus than say Alison or Louise, characters that mostly (bar some potential threesomes) exist for only Ian and Lena respectively.
