Love Bomb (13 page)

‘I’d kiss you.’

‘Thanks!’ I look at the time. I can’t go yet – it’s too early. ‘I wish I had someone to walk in with,’ I say.

‘As soon as you see Toby, you’ll be fine,’ she says. She starts to make her lips bright red. ‘So, tonight could be
the night
.’

‘The night I am kissed,’ I say, my voice a bit flat.

‘Excited?’

‘Yes … definitely excited.’ I lean over her shoulder. Our faces are close together in the mirror. ‘Can you do that on me?’ Bea gets out a tiny pencil and draws an outline round my lips. Then she fills it in with a brush.
I watch in the mirror as a sweeping red smile appears on my face. I’m wearing my hair down, and my only other make-up is eyeliner and mascara. My long, straight fringe hides the top of my eyes.

Bea sits back and studies me. ‘It looks nice,’ she says. ‘It goes with your freckles.’

Suddenly, a warm little hand pats my leg and I look down to see Emma lying on the floor, staring up at me with a crazy look in her eyes. She’s wearing a curly blonde wig.

‘Emma’s into creeping up on people at the moment,’ explains Bea. ‘The other night she got into the shower with me and I only noticed when I trod on her.’

‘Hello, Betty,’ says Emma, stroking my leg. ‘Your tights are soft.’

‘Thanks,’ I say. I pull on my panda hat. I’ve decided I’m going to walk to Toby’s very slowly.

‘Will you suck my finger?’ Emma asks, sticking her finger up at me.

‘Whatever you do, don’t suck her finger,’ says Bea.

‘I think I’ll pass tonight, Emma.’

‘Why?’ She looks at the end of her finger, tying to work out what’s wrong with it.

‘Because I’ve got a very important date with a first kiss,’ I say. Then I smile a brave red smile and wave goodbye.

I take my time getting to Toby’s, making a little detour to the park, where I go on the swings for a while. I swing really high to get my adrenalin levels up and to keep my smile in place, but by the time I’m walking down Toby’s street, the smile has disappeared and I’ve developed total kissing-fright. I pass dark houses, sweeping drives and high metal gates. My footsteps echo on the pavement and my stomach churns. To distract myself, I think about Kat and Bill, wondering how her windsurfing lesson went and if they’re having their barbecue by the beach. I imagine the coals
glowing, their cold fingers wrapped round sizzling food.

Too soon, I’m standing outside Toby’s front door. It’s huge, like the door to a giant’s castle. I can hear the distant
thud, thud, thud
of dance music. I pull off my hat and sort out my hair. Then I take a deep breath and ring the bell.

There’s no answer. I try the door and it swings open.

Even though we’ve had rehearsals in the garage, this is the first time I’ve ever been inside Toby’s house. In front of me is a shining wooden floor and a wide flight of stairs covered in a deep red carpet. Cinderella could sweep down these stairs. There’s even a chandelier hanging above me, filling the hallway with a warm glow.

I dump my stuff by a pile of coats and head towards the noise. I walk into a lounge heaving with teenagers. A few I recognise from school – Jess Cobb is laughing hysterically at something a boy in a rugby shirt is saying – but most of them I’ve never seen before. I guess
Toby’s mainly invited friends from his old school. I spot him in the corner of the room, fiddling with his iPod. His hair is carefully styled and he’s wearing a shirt with half the buttons undone.

Bea’s right. I do feel fine now I’ve seen him. Better than fine. Quickly I work my way through a group of dancing girls.

‘Hey!’ I say, standing in front of him. He looks at me and grins.

For a moment I feel shy, but then he clutches me to him and says, ‘B-Cakes!’ into my hair. Keeping me squeezed against his chest, he starts dancing with me and singing along to the music. I laugh and just as I’m wondering why he’s being so affectionate I see the beer bottle in his hand.

‘Where’s your mum?’ I ask.

‘Decided to go out,’ he says. ‘But she took me shopping first so we’ve got everything we need. He waves his bottle around.

‘Toby!’ yells a voice from the door, and he lets go of me.

‘Get a drink,’ he calls over his shoulder as he goes to see his friend.

Everyone in the kitchen seems to know each other. I try to be smiley, but they’re heavily into a conversation about someone called Sophie the Slagasaurus and a stolen lipgloss and they all ignore me. I search through the half-empty plastic bags that are stacked along the worktop and grab a bottle of watermelon Bacardi Breezer.

By the time I get back to the lounge, Toby is dancing in the middle of the room with a group of girls. Just by looking at them, I can tell they’re different to me. Everything about them shimmers – their hair, their lips, their clothes. I take a sip of my warm drink and force myself to smile. Why should I worry? I’m Toby’s B-Cakes, the singer in his band, the girl he buys jewellery for.

I give the pointy nose of my fox necklace a stroke and drop down on a huge white sofa. The Bacardi Breezer
tastes like cough mixture and is making me feel sick. I shouldn’t have skipped dinner tonight. I’ve only drunk a couple of times before – at a party Ollie had and Gramps’s seventieth. When Dad caught me drinking sparkling wine at Gramps’s, he said I was poisoning my body, so I don’t think he’d be too happy about this.

‘Hello,’ says a voice from my side. I turn round. I do know someone else at this party. Pearl is sitting next to me on the sofa, half buried under scatter cushions and discarded cardigans.

‘Hey,’ I say cautiously. I’m so desperate to talk to someone that I’m almost pleased to see her … Not something I’ve felt a for a long time. She’s got a heart-shaped cushion clutched to her stomach and her feet are up on a coffee table. She looks at me through her thick black eye make-up, a bored expression on her face. Her skin and lips are as pale as the sofa we’re sitting on.

‘You alright?’ she says.

‘I’m OK,’ I say, then we both go back to watching the dancers. ‘How come you’re here?’ I ask after a minute. ‘I didn’t think Toby was your favourite person.’

‘I think he’s a dumbass,’ she says, ‘but I don’t like hanging around at home.’

‘So where are Lauren and Holly?’ The three of them are usually joined at the hip, but, come to think of it, Pearl’s been on her own a bit recently.

‘They’re mad with me. I signed Mrs P up to a cougar date site –’

‘A what?’

‘Cougar – a dating site for men who like mature ladies, like Mrs P.’

‘That’s quite funny,’ I say.

‘Well, they didn’t think so,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘I used Lauren’s school account … and Holly’s name.’

‘Still quite funny.’

‘They got excluded from school for a week.’

‘Oh.’

‘And there was some other stuff … on Facebook. Stuff I wrote about them.’ Pearl has a small pile of peanuts on the cushion. She starts flicking them across the room. One pings off a girl’s skinny-jeaned bottom and Pearl sniggers. ‘Urrh,’ she says. ‘Look at that loser.’

‘Who?’ I say, following her eyes. ‘Toby?’

She grins and looks at me sideways. ‘Now why would I be talking about Toby? You fancy him
so
much!’ Then she points into the crowd with a bottle of WKD. ‘No. That’s the loser … my brother.’

I see Pearl’s older brother, Alfie, at the edge of the room. He’s got a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and he’s dancing on his own. It’s hard to see what’s annoyed her so much, but when he sees her watching him his eyes narrow and he stares at her. Then, still staring at Pearl, he stubs out his cigarette on the side of the mantelpiece, leaving a black circle.

I haven’t had anything to do with Alfie for years. When we were little, he was always freaking out at us
for touching his dinosaurs. He loved dinosaurs. Then I think of something Pearl and I did to Alfie. Something so funny I have to share it with her. ‘Pearl, do you remember when we stapled Alfie’s clothes all over your house?’

She thinks for a moment then snorts and clutches her hand to her mouth to stop herself from spraying drink over the sofa. ‘You stapled his pants to the stairs!’

‘And his socks to his bedroom door and we filled them with his dinosaurs,’ I say. ‘We’d never used a stapler before. It was fun.’

‘How old were we?’

‘Five?’

‘After your dad picked you up, Alfie stapled my finger.’ She points at a tiny white mark just under her nail.’

‘What?’

‘Not really,’ she says. Then she laughs and lets her head flop back on the sofa.

Pearl and I hang out for ages, chatting about when we were little and playing some skilful games like Get the Peanut in the Coke Bottle, and Would You Rather …

‘OK,’ says Pearl, ‘this one is hard. Would you rather
dance
naked or
bowl
naked?’

‘Tricky,’ I say. ‘Any type of dance?’

‘Energetic disco dance.’

‘Bowl. I reckon I could do it gracefully, but I definitely wouldn’t use the between-your-legs technique.’

Pearl laughs and feels about under the sofa. Eventually she pulls out two more bottles, but this time it’s beer. ‘You want one?’

I nod and she opens them with a Homer Simpson bottle opener she’s got tucked under her cushion. The beer tastes even worse than the Bacardi Breezer, but at least it’s distracting me from the sight of Toby, who’s now paired up with a girl in a strappy black and silver playsuit.

‘So, you going out with Toby, or what?’ asks Pearl as the girl loops her arms round Toby’s neck.

‘Kind of,’ I say, but then I see Toby’s hands fall on to the girl’s hips and I watch as he draws her closer to him. An icy sickness creeps through me. All I can do is sip my disgusting beer, and keep telling myself that they’re probably old mates, just like me and Bill. Only, I’d never do that with Bill.

I get out my phone to see if he’s texted me. I’m curious to know how he’s getting on with Kat. Nothing, but Toby’s picture has finally come through. I open his message and the picture appears, pixel by pixel. My phone is so annoying.

At first, all I see is his dark hair, and then his blue eyes are staring straight at me. Next, his grin and then …

‘Oh my God!’ gasps Pearl, peering over my shoulder. Together we watch as Toby’s naked torso fills the screen. I slam my phone face down on my lap and feel my cheeks burn. ‘Are you two
sexting
each other?’

‘What?’ I say. ‘I mean, no!’ Even though I’m not looking at the screen I can still see his pale chest, his nipples and, peeking out of the top of his jeans, the elastic on his
pants
. ‘We’ve never even kissed,’ I say, knowing how pathetic I sound.

‘Well, he’s sexting
you
.’

The room seems to spin. This photo changes the meaning of
Looking forward to tonight … x

‘He should be going out with someone like me,’ says Pearl flatly. And, just as I’m thinking, what am I doing here, talking to this girl who hates me and wants to steal my boyfriend, she adds, ‘You shouldn’t be chasing a dumbass like that.’ Then she pulls herself forward and gets unsteadily to her feet. ‘Laters, Sweaty,’ she says, then she ruffles my hair and wanders off in the direction of the kitchen.

Someone has turned the music up. I feel dizzy so I lean back and stare at the ceiling. I think about what Pearl said. Why would she want to go out with
someone she doesn’t even like? Turning my phone over, I try to look at the photo like I’m looking at my boyfriend, but I just feel embarrassed so I turn my phone off.

‘Dude!’ The chest, thankfully clothed, looms over me. ‘Been looking for you, B-Cakes.’

‘Been right here,’ I say. ‘Just watching the dancing.’

He grabs me by the hand and pulls me to my feet. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ Then he leads me through the dancers, across the polished hall and up the Cinderella stairs. As the high ceiling flies past, my heart speeds up. It’s going to happen. I know it is. The thing I’ve wanted to happen since the moment I set eyes on him … So why do I want to run back downstairs to Pearl?

‘Where are we going?’

‘Tour of the house,’ says Toby.

Because his house has about seven bedrooms, the tour takes quite a long time. Eventually, he leads me
down a dimly lit corridor and up a second, narrower flight of stairs. It’s quiet up here, and much cooler.

‘Shouldn’t we get back to the others?’ I hold on tight to his hand because we seem to be moving too fast and my legs are wobbly.

‘They won’t even notice we’re gone.’ We stop outside a door. ‘Behold, B-Cakes,’ he says, pushing open the door, ‘the Toby cave!’

I walk in and he shuts the door behind me. The sounds of the party disappear. His room doesn’t seem to fit with the perfection of the rest of the house. The walls are dark red and I have to pick my way over dropped T-shirts and jeans. I start to look around. Toby follows close behind. I hesitate by his desk and see a pile of abandoned books and some dirty plates.

‘I’m reading this in English,’ I say, picking up
Of Mice and Men
, but Toby ignores me and steps a little closer. I move away. ‘I like the bit about the dog … I mean, it’s sad, but it’s good.’

Toby’s only got two posters on the wall. One’s from the second
Hunger Games
film. It’s falling down in one corner so I stick it back up. The other one, the one over his bed, has ‘Various Babes’ written across the bottom. Toby sits down on his bed and I look closer. It’s a photo of five women standing in a row, all thrusting their hips out at sharp angles. They’re wearing undone denim hot pants and vest tops, and they’re staring and snarling through manes of glossy hair.

They look like the type of girl every boy is supposed to fancy. They look
nothing
like me.

‘Sit down,’ says Toby, patting his Union Jack duvet cover. My heart starts to thud and I drift over to his bookcase. On the top shelf is a row of model cars, all carefully arranged and pointing in the same direction. ‘This is cool,’ I say, picking up a little VW camper van.

‘Its doors open,’ he says. I use the tip of my nail to flip the back door open and shut.

Then, because I can’t put it off any longer, I go and sit next to him. Close, but not too close.