‘I don’t fawn over him,’ I said.
‘Yes you do. And then I come over today and he’s lying on your bed.’
‘He doesn’t flirt with me,’ said Megan.
‘He flirts with most girls,’ said Connor irritably.
‘But not fat girls,’ said Megan.
‘You’re not fat,’ I said.
Megan laughed soundlessly and reached for another biscuit. ‘I’m just big-boned.’
Connor ignored her and glowered at me. ‘Are you going to the ball with him?’
‘No.’ I glared back at him.
‘You said no?’ His tone was disbelieving with the faintest flicker of a smile.
‘I didn’t have to. He hasn’t asked me.’
Connor looked confused. ‘But Friday, at the end of the day, I thought . . .’
‘You thought wrong. Ryan hasn’t asked me to the ball. Which is fine. Because I’m not going anyway.’
Both Connor and Megan looked at me.
‘You have to go,’ said Megan. ‘Everyone goes to the leavers’ ball.’
‘It’s a rite of passage,’ said Connor.
‘I’m not going,’ I said. ‘But since you two obviously feel so strongly about it, why don’t you go together?’
Chapter 8
Connor and Megan had been gone for nearly an hour when I noticed Ryan’s black jacket hanging on the back of my bedroom door. I ran my fingers down the material. Impulsively, I pulled the jacket down off the hook and buried my face in it, breathing in the scent of him through the fabric.
‘Eden!’
I stuffed the jacket into my backpack and picked up the tray of glasses just as Miranda poked her head around my bedroom door.
‘Ryan left early,’ she said.
‘Ryan and Connor don’t get on very well. He thought it would be better if he left.’
Miranda raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘Travis and I are going to walk to the shop to pick up some milk. Won’t be long.’
She took the tray from me.
‘Actually, I’m going to go out too,’ I said. ‘Ryan left his jacket behind. I need to return it.’
‘Fine. Wrap up warm. The wind is cold.’
My eyes stung as the wind blasted against my face. I blinked and marched on, keeping my head down. The wind’s sharp teeth ripped through my thin clothing. Despite Miranda’s warning, I hadn’t dressed for the weather; I’d stayed in the tight blue top I’d worn earlier, the thin one that hugged my body and made me look like I had curves. I’d straightened my hair again, touched up my make-up and sprayed perfume behind my ears.
It was pointless. Standing in front of his door, I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to sort out the unruly tangle of curls. My heart thudded harder in my chest. Would Cassie be there? What was his dad like? Why had it never occurred to me to ask about his mother? Just as I was about to knock, Ryan opened the door, catching me with my fingers knotted in my hair.
‘Eden! What are you doing here?’
I had the horrible feeling he wasn’t pleased to see me.
I unzipped my backpack and pulled out his jacket. ‘You left this,’ I said. ‘I thought you might need it.’
Ryan stood aside to let me in. ‘Looks like you could use a jacket yourself. Come inside.’
‘I should go.’
‘No. Come in.’
He smiled and my nervousness evaporated.
I followed him through the hall and into a room on the right. Heat blazed out of a fireplace in the opposite wall.
‘Warm yourself by the fire,’ he said. ‘I’ll make us hot drinks. What would you like?’
‘Whatever you’re having.’
I crouched in front of the fireplace, rubbing my hands together. Once I could feel them again, I took a look around the room. The walls were covered in a pink florid wallpaper that had yellowed in places and was smoke-stained around the old fireplace. The carpet was bottle green and textured, the sort of flooring that looked like it belonged more in a shabby hotel than a modern home. But the sofa was modern and looked brand new. There was a large plasma-screen TV hanging in the alcove next to the fireplace. The only other items of furniture were a bookcase stuffed full of books and a coffee table. There were no family photographs or ornaments, no pictures or plants or games or rugs. Functional, with a hint of grandma.
I went over to look at the bookcase. You can tell a lot about people from the books they read. There was the complete works of Shakespeare, and poetry by Ben Johnson and John Donne. I noticed the usual nineteenth-century novelists: Austen, the Brontës, Thackeray, Dickens and Hardy. The Rough Guide to Britain. A range of cookbooks. A guide to popular culture in Britain. Late twentieth-century fashion. World atlases and basic science textbooks. Biographies of Darwin and Einstein. All the books were well thumbed. Nothing pretentious or phony about this book collection.
I sat on the couch. Ryan’s backpack was on the floor, unzipped, a pile of books on the floor beside it. I glanced at the title on top. A History of Twentieth-Century Britain.
The door swung open and Ryan came in with two mugs of hot chocolate. He put them on the coffee table and sat next to me on the couch. I’d imagined Ryan as a strong-black-coffee kind of boy, not someone who would make hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles.
Although he had left a few centimetres of space between us, I felt suddenly conscious of his closeness; it was as though little electrical currents were running between his skin and mine.
‘Where’s your dad?’ I asked.
‘Out. Cassie’s out as well.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘We have the whole place to ourselves.’
I giggled nervously.
‘So what do you want to do?’ he asked, just the tiniest hint of suggestion in his voice.
‘You’ve been brushing up on your twentieth-century history this afternoon,’ I said, indicating the books piled on the floor.
‘That’s my weakest subject, as you know.’
‘I could test you,’ I said, unzipping my backpack and taking out my books.
Ryan laughed. ‘More studying. I’m not sure I can handle that much excitement in one day.’
I looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Half an hour and then we’ll do something fun.’
‘Is that a promise?’
‘Promise,’ I said, wondering what Ryan’s idea of fun would be.
He had clearly got to grips with his twentieth-century history. He had no difficulty answering questions about Hitler or Mussolini or Churchill; he had informed opinions on the causes of the First World War; described the cold war right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
‘You’re not just a pretty face,’ I said. ‘If that’s your weakest subject . . .’
‘Pretty!’ said Ryan. ‘Thanks a lot! How about gorgeous or handsome. Even cute is better than pretty. Pretty makes me sound like a five-year-old girl.’
I laughed. ‘You’re definitely not a five-year-old girl.’
‘Are we going to do something fun now?’
‘Whatever you like,’ I said, noticing that he had draped his arm along the back of the couch.
‘Hmm,’ he said, inching closer to me. ‘I can think of something . . .’
He shifted his gaze from me to the window. I heard the crunch of tyres on gravel, saw the headlights of a car sweeping across the window like searchlights, then the slam of a car door.
Ryan sighed. ‘We have company.’
‘I should probably go,’ I said.
‘Don’t go. I’ll introduce you to my dad.’
‘That’s just the sort of fun I was hoping for,’ I said.
‘We can go up to my room,’ he said.
The door to the sitting room swung open, but it was Cassie, not Ryan’s father. ‘You in here, Ry?’ she said as she ran in. ‘You’ll never believe . . .’