Diary of a Crush: French Kiss (6 page)

‘About six weeks. Not that it’s any of your business.’ I’d changed my mind about having an argument. He didn’t want me so he didn’t have the right to get all narked just because someone else did.

‘He looks like he failed the auditions for
One Direction
,’ Dylan suddenly spat out. ‘I thought you had better taste.’

‘Just ’cause he…’ I was going to say something bitchy about Dylan but I thought better of it. This was Dylan and…
it was Dylan
and I couldn’t bear for him to be angry with me.

I reached across the table and touched his hand. He didn’t touch me back but he didn’t pull away either.

‘Oh D, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Josh, but please let’s not fall out. Please.’

For a second, I thought he was going to get hissy at me again but he turned my hand over and stroked the back of my knuckles.

‘You’re right,’ Dylan said smoothly. ‘But I still think he’s a loser.’

I pulled a face at him. ‘Whatever. Anyway have you heard about this Paris trip?’

‘Yeah, I’m not going.’

‘Why not? It’ll be fun. Educational fun, what’s not to like?’ We were still holding hands. I don’t even know if Dylan realised that he was still stroking the backs of my fingers.

‘Can’t afford it,’ he said shortly, dropping my hand and picking up his fork. Dylan never talked about his family and stuff but Shona had told me that Dylan had to pay his own way.

I decided to change the subject. ‘So am I allowed to come to your anti-Valentine’s party or what?’

It sucks when Valentine’s Day is on a Sunday and there’s no post. But there were two cards waiting for me when I finally emerged from my bed.

One of them was from Josh. How did I know? He’d signed his name, that’s how, and the soft focus, dew-dripping rose was just soooo Josh.

He’d also got me one of those hideous teddy bears that have ‘I love you’ written on their stomachs.

The other card was home-made and unsigned and featured a cartoon of me as a superhero complete with lightning flashes, and underneath the words ‘She’s Electric’.

It could only be from Dylan, couldn’t it?

I got woken up at the crack of dawn by the doorbell.

Mum had already gone to work so I had to stagger out of bed and stomp down the stairs, swearing each step of the way, to find Shona leaning on the bell.

‘Sorry, did I wake you up?’ asked Shona, not sounding at all repentant. ‘It’s so cool, they’ve opened up places on the French trip to the entire college and I’m going!’

‘Great,’ I mumbled, though it
was
great, especially as I’d worn the ’rents down through the medium of nagging and my place was guaranteed, deposit paid. ‘Now go away. I’m having a lie-in.’

‘There’s no time for that,’ Shona snorted. ‘We have to plan what we’re going to wear!’

Before I kicked her out, I promised to meet up with her in the college canteen later.

When I managed to make it into college a couple of hours later, Dylan was hanging out with Shona. As I walked towards them, he looked me up and down. It made me feel all hot and bothered in a way that Josh’s kisses never did. Getting to their table seemed to take forever and I was painfully aware of every bit of me. Of how lanky my limbs were and the spot on my top where I’d tried to cover up some nail varnish spillage by sewing a tiny flower patch on it.

When I pulled out a chair, Dylan raised his eyebrows at me like I’d asked him a question and he wanted me to repeat it but I just screwed up my face in a fair approximation of a smile and tried not to look at him. Some days it’s like that – he’s just too much.

Shona couldn’t stop talking about Paris. I think she’s desperate for anything that will take her mind off the fact that Paul and Mia are still an item. But Dylan was like, ‘Can’t you shut up about the bloody French trip? It’s getting so boring.’

Then he asked me if I’d been on any good dates lately, and when I blushed and began stammering about ten-pin bowling, he started laughing. Sometimes I really hate Dylan.

Latest news on the Paris trip is that Mia’s going. Shona is practically vibrating about it. I swear to God, I thought she was going to literally levitate when she told me. And I had Josh on the phone first thing this morning asking if he could come.
And he doesn’t even go to our college
. I was trying really hard to be supportive of Shona but by lunchtime she was doing my head in, so I pretended I had to run some ’rent-type errands. I was sitting in the park, chucking bits of the chicken sandwich I’d abandoned at the ducks, when I saw Dylan on the other side of the pond. I didn’t think he’d seen me but he waved.

‘Meet you halfway,’ he shouted. The irony of his words was not lost on me.

It was very romantic. We sat on a bench under the weeping willow, hidden from the rest of the world. Dylan was, God, just being utterly adorable. I’d forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of his sultry looks. He
has
to practise them in front of the mirror. There can be no other explanation. This little half-smile plays along his lips, his eyes glint and his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. It makes me feel all unnecessary.

When I asked him if he minded not going to Paris Dylan just shrugged and said Paris was just like Manchester but with French people. And I was like, ‘Yeah and the Eiffel Tower,’ and even though it was the feeblest joke in the world, he laughed.

Weird! I bumped into Dylan ambling down my road, even though he lives on the other side of town. For one moment my heart leapt at the thought that he’d come to see me and to hell with having to go forty-five minutes out of his way. That little illusion lasted the five seconds it took Dylan to say: ‘What are you doing here?’

I huffed indignantly, ‘I live here, remember.’

Dylan was acting very strangely (even for him). In fact, he was being positively shifty, shuffling his feet, tugging at his Trash shirt and refusing to look at me. I was just about to walk off when he suddenly blurted out that he was painting a portrait of this woman’s cat to get some extra money and did I want to go with him?

Turns out the woman was Mrs Williams across the road. Her cat, Henry, is fat and mean and not a quarter as nice as Pudding. I had to hold the spiteful little bastard still while Dylan made sketches. I nearly got scratched to death, but it was almost worth it to see Dylan being well-behaved. When Mrs Williams asked if we ‘were courting’, he joked that she was the only woman in his life. He’s such a flirt. I liked watching him work though. He was completely focussed on the sketches, staring intently at me and the furiously wriggling Henry and then glancing down at his pad. When Dylan concentrates his forehead scrunches up and the tip of his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth. It’s very guh-making.

It would have been easy to fool myself that all that attention was for me and only for me. But it wasn’t. It was for a bad-tempered, overweight ginger cat. Ho hum.

It was dark when we finally left. Mrs Williams had force fed us so much home-made Madeira cake (which, actually, yum) that I felt kinda queasy. I was wondering what I should do; whether I should invite Dylan back for tea ’cause it was late. But then he’d have to sit down in front of the suspicious and over-protective gaze of my father, who had once said (in a not very jokey way) that he didn’t plan on letting me date until I was at least thirty.

I was deep in thought about how to prolong this unexpected Dylan contact without having to formally introduce him to either of my primary care givers when he suddenly flinched. ‘I’ve got an eyelash in my eye,’ he groaned.

He pulled me under a lamp-post and squinted down at me. ‘Can you see it?’

Then we had to do the whole ‘pull your eyelid down, look up, look down, look at the tree’ thing until I said, ‘Yeah, hold still,’ and ’cause it was an emergency, I licked the corner of a tissue and tried to gently ease the lash out. It worked first time and then I realised how close we were standing. I think Dylan did too ’cause he lowered his head like he was about to kiss me. Our lips were nearly touching – all I had to do was move my mouth a couple of millimetres and we’d be kissing.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he drawled, kissing me on the forehead like I was five and loping off.

Aaaaaaaaargh!

I realised while I was walking to college that the extra money Dylan was getting for painting Henry could pay for the Paris trip. But when I asked him, he practically bit my head off. In fact, he said that he
would
bite my head off and flush it down the nearest toilet if I mentioned the words ‘French’ and ‘trip’ ever again in his hearing.

‘He’s acting weird,’ I moaned at Shona.

‘He
is
weird,’ she replied sagely.

I decided to avoid Dylan for the rest of the day but when I came out of my English class he was lurking in the corridor.

‘So, d’you reckon I need to pack my nicest hoodie?’ he asked me, following me to my locker.

‘What are you going on about?’ I said in my most withering voice.

‘I’m asking for some sartorial advice on what to wear in Paris, of course,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that I’m going, didn’t I?’

I glared at him. ‘I really hate you!’

‘Sure you do, Edie,’ Dylan purred. ‘Anyway have to go. Shopping to do and stuff.’

I was going to kill him before we got to Paris. Fact.

But, big squeeeeeee!, Dylan’s coming to Paris with me (and forty-eight other people). Yay!

This time on Saturday I’ll be on my way to
la ville de Paris
. That is, if my mother actually lets me leave the house. She’s stressing-out in a major way. It’s not like it’s the first time that I’ve been away without her and Dad to remind me to do my coat up or check if I’ve got credit on my phone. I was like, ‘You weren’t this bad when I went to Brownie camp.’

‘But I can’t believe I’ll miss your birthday,’ she said, her voice going all squeaky.

‘Well, you can give me my present to take with me,’ was not the right thing for me to say, as I realised as soon as the words had left my mouth and her face kinda collapsed in on itself.

She wanted me to tell her that I was going to miss her and how my birthday wouldn’t be the same without her and Dad having an argument about whether I was too old to still have candles on my cake. But it would have given her too much satisfaction. Then she tried to play with my hair. I reckon she’s having a mid-life crisis or something.

Anyway, I’ve got more important things to worry about. Like, how will I cope spending five days in close proximity with Dylan? And will he try to kiss me again? And will I manage to be strong and stick to my decision to make a go of this thing with Josh? Josh is nice, super-nice, in fact, but I’m not sure if I want nice. All I know is that when I see Dylan and he gives me
that
look (the one where I get the feeling he can see through my clothes or something) I could forget that Josh ever existed.

All this stuff rocketing round my head just makes me want to eat copious amounts of chocolate.

Shona’s invited herself over to stay tomorrow night. The official reason is so Dad can give us a lift to the coach on Friday but really she’s coming round so she can cut my fringe, make a couple of playlists and help me plan my Paris capsule wardrobe.

The trip has become all about the clothes. We were sitting in the canteen just before I went off to Photography and all we could talk about was what we were going to wear.

‘Y’know how all those famous people reckon that they have one black dress, one pair of jeans, a cardie and two simple T-shirts that they can dress up or dress down?’ I whined. ‘Well, I don’t get it. How do I know what I’ll feel like wearing on Monday? Or what hairslides will suit my mood on Wednesday morning?’

‘It’s all rubbish, Edie,’ snorted Shona. ‘Famous people have walk-in closets stuffed full of designer outfits. And they get free clothes to go to swank parties in.’

‘It sucks,’ I said with such vehemence that Shona looked at me in surprise. ‘And they have stylists to help them put together their outfits.’

‘Even Ke$ha,’ Shona said, holding up her copy of
Heat
, which showed a picture of Ke$ha wearing something that looked like an explosion in a denim factory. ‘But you’ve got something that Ke$ha hasn’t. You have fashion sense.’

She was right, I did. ‘And every morning I wake up and thank God for my unique ability to accessorise!’

I giggled and even Shona managed to crack a smile, which was all that she’d allow herself when she thought something was really funny. Then suddenly I was plunged into darkness as someone put their hands over my eyes and a deep voice said, ‘Guess who?’

I knew it was Dylan. I could smell the old leather of his jacket and the faint scent of oil-based paints. I didn’t know what to do. If I told him that I knew it was him, then it’d look as if I was really sad and obsessed. And if I just ignored him, I’d look stupid and like I couldn’t take a joke. So I just sat there frozen, kind of revelling in the touch of his hands on my face.

‘I think it’s an Art Boy,’ I said at last. ‘Yup, I can definitely smell Art Boy.’

He took his hands away, brushing my cheek as he did so.

‘Edie’s having trouble planning her outfits for Paris,’ said Shona with another smile. That was almost two in five minutes, she was going to have to watch that.

Dylan gave me a knowing look. ‘What? You can’t decide which Marc Jacobs dress to pack?’ he asked me with a teasing smile.

I stuck my tongue out at him and then wondered if that was the wrong signal to send out to someone who was just a friend. ‘It’s OK for you. All you have to decide is which pair of tatty jeans and faded T-shirt to wear.’

He failed to rise to the bait. ‘They may seem like tatty jeans and faded T-shirts to the untrained eye,’ Dylan informed me smugly, ‘but they’re actually really expensive designer clothes that just look like I found them in a skip.’