Undeniable (7 page)

I creep out onto the landing, praying that there is no one in the bathroom. If there is, I would actually have to go and do it outside I am that desperate. Spencer might not try to kiss me again
if he found me weeing in his garden.

‘Hey,’ a voice calls through the banister by my feet, which makes me jump and (literally) almost wet myself.

Spencer comes up the stairs, also heading for the bathroom, but I nip in front of him to get to the door first. It’s locked. Someone is in there.

‘NO!’ I am almost bent double and doing a little side-to-side dance.

Spencer looks at me with mock concern. ‘What’s wrong?’

I give him a glare and a little jab in the ribs.

He shakes his head and then knocks loudly on the bathroom door. ‘Rav, get out.’

There’s the sound of some fumbling, then the door being unlocked. Ravi and some girl come out, looking dishevelled and a bit annoyed. I’m about to say, ‘Get a room’, but
then I remember we are sleeping in Ravi’s bedroom, so instead I just leg it past them and into the loo.

It is the best feeling ever. I am probably a bit too vocal about it, but I have honestly never been that relieved.

When I come out, Spencer is sitting on the stairs and he gives me a weird look. I sit down next to him.

‘Enjoying yourself?’ He tilts his head towards me.

‘That was the best and longest wee I’ve ever had.’

‘You’re quite different to other girls I know, Gabi.’

‘I don’t think I am. Anyone would have enjoyed that.’

He smiles and then looks more serious. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I came on a bit strong.’

He pauses, probably wondering if I’m going to say something, but all the stuff about Max catches in my throat again and I’m silent –
highly
unusual. So he carries
on.

‘If I like someone, I just go for it. But I’d really like to keep getting to know you. I promise not to kiss you again.’

‘Good, cos it was really gross.’ I smile at him, grateful that he hasn’t asked me to explain anything.

He nods. ‘Thanks for that.’

‘Do you want to stay here and chat?’ I ask.

‘Nah, sounds rubbish.’ He flashes me a grin, probably to avoid getting another jab in the ribs. Then he stands up and pulls me to my feet as well. ‘My room’s a bit more
comfy. As long as you think you can keep your hands off me.’

Spencer’s room is right at the top of the house. It has a slopey roof and posters all over the walls – all ones advertising plays. Some of the plays are famous,
like
The History Boys
, and Shakespeare ones. But there are also flyers and pictures from uni or school productions and a couple of them have Spencer’s name on them. The poster for
Julius Caesar
has a picture of him in a toga. I lean in to get a closer look at that one.

He sees what I’m looking at and says, ‘What?’

A few things have surprised me. He actually is really serious about acting.

‘You have a toned arm,’ I say, which was actually my main thought looking at the poster.

‘Do you want to see a good view?’ he says.

‘Of your arm?’ I reply. That would be a bit arrogant of him, not to mention weird.

‘No,’ he says shortly. And he climbs out of the window.

He’s climbed onto a ledge, which is a relief.

There is a bay window below Spencer’s room, jutting out from the front of the house and creating a wide ledge. It has a short stone wall running round it, but still looks precarious.
I’m leaning out of the window with the curtain closed behind me.

‘Come on.’ He pulls my hand. ‘What are you scared of?’

I look at him. ‘
Dying?
’

I am terrified of heights, which is totally logical. A bit like being scared of being hit by a car or thrown into a fire. As I explained to Max while I was being lowered down from the treetop
walk in Kew Gardens by the fire brigade, a fear of heights is far more rational than being scared of spiders because heights are actually dangerous and can kill you. Although he just narrowed his
eyes and replied, ‘The ones in Australia can.’

‘I’ll just stick my head out,’ I tell Spencer. Saves bothering the fire brigade.

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Wimp.’ And he leans back against the outside wall to my left. I lean against the window frame and look properly at the view. All the streetlamps and car
headlights are twinkling through the tops of the trees on the square. There’s a light breeze that is whistling through the leaves above the murmur of people over towards the high street
– still out at four in the morning. These crazy Londoners.

We stand there just watching and listening for a few moments.

‘It’s like it’s noisy and quiet at the same time,’ I say.

Spencer turns his head. ‘Deep.’

I reach out to biff him on the head and he laughs. ‘No, I know what you mean.’

And that’s it. I can talk to him again and we chat. About the plays he’s been in. How he loves the buzz of getting a line exactly right and feeling the reaction from the audience.
It’s stuff that Granny’s told me about, so I tell him loads of her stories. He says she sounds a bit like me.

He stands up and faces me. ‘You know, it’s brilliant getting to talk about this. People think I just joke around all the time, but that’s because it’s easier than saying
that there’s something you really want.’

‘Because you might go for it and then not get it and everyone would know,’ I say.

He nods. ‘Yeah.’ His eyes meet mine. They’re serious and sparkly. ‘So what do you really want, Gabi?’

I shrug. ‘I’m just here to see famous people.’

His eyes narrow. ‘That’s not true.’

Well, no, but it’s embarrassing admitting that I have loads of writing ideas in a notebook. They’re probably all rubbish anyway. I return his narrow-eyed look.

Spencer moves to climb back in the window. He puts his hand high up on the window frame to pull himself in and his T-shirt rides up again so I can see some of his stomach. I step back to give
him room, forgetting there’s a curtain behind me, so we sort of collide.

‘Well, this is awkward,’ he whispers.

I swallow. ‘Yeah.’

He doesn’t move, obviously thinking about the running away and freaking out, but I can hear him trying to steady his breathing.

But as he leans in I move my head a fraction. From this angle, the kiss would be on the lips. There’s a pause. Nerves and excitement and just
wanting
are all pulsing through me.

He edges closer. Our lips are almost touching. And we pause for a moment. Just waiting on the brink. Something invisible is pulling me into him and it takes all my effort to hold myself back.
It’s a leap into the unknown, just like before, and a ball of nerves and excitement pulses through me, but this time I think the excitement is winning.

And then we both push together at the same time. The tip of my tongue meets the tip of his. A feeling like fire is spreading through my chest and my legs and everywhere. And then he pulls
away.

‘Well, better get some sleep.’ His head is still inclined towards mine.

‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.’

It was NOT.

He offers to sleep on the floor, but as it’s a double bed I say that would be silly. Spencer agrees, as long as I don’t grab him in the night. I tell him I’m not responsible
for what I do in my sleep.

I’m turned towards the wall and grinning to myself as he slides under the covers. All this joking around, when there’s the real possibility of something happening beneath it, is
putting me on edge – in a good way.

On the wall next to his bed are loads of photos of him and his friends on nights out. In a lot of them he has his arms round girls and is grinning or pretending to kiss them. With Max, I knew
all his friends and he knew mine. Our social lives always involved each other and I always knew where he was. Spencer’s got a whole life that I know nothing about.

‘So have you shared your bed with many men?’ he says. It’s like he can read my mind.

I get that heart squeeze again. Imaginary Max pops into my head. All the times we were squashed up in my single bed. All the times we . . .

‘Just one,’ I say.

‘Really?’ says Spencer, sounding surprised.

I immediately turn over on the pillow. ‘What are you saying?’

‘No!’ Spencer tries to dig himself out. ‘I just thought – you’re all outgoing and confident. I thought you’d have lots of guys after you.’

I thought I’d only sleep with one guy ever. And now I’ll never be with Max like that again.

Well, that’s your fault
, says imaginary Max in my head. I wish imaginary Max wasn’t such a smartarse. And wasn’t right. And wore clothes.

I’m looking up at the photos on the wall again.

‘Have you slept with loads of people?’ I ask him.

‘Ha! You’re direct, aren’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ I say, still facing the wall.

‘Okay, then. Twenty-four.’

‘Oh my God!’ I spin round on the pillow and look at him.

He’s lying on his back, but he twists to face me. ‘It’s not that many!’

‘It is compared to one.’

He pauses for a beat. I’m fiddling with the duvet. I know I’ve reached the point where I should stop talking. But I also know that I won’t.

‘Why does that matter?’ He shrugs.

Well, because if I sleep with you then you’re way more experienced and I’ve only ever done it with one person, so I could have been doing it completely wrong the whole time and not
even realise.

I’m really glad I just thought that rather than saying it out loud.

Then I see Spencer’s face and realise I
did
say it out loud.

‘Not that I am going to sleep with you because things between us are strictly friendly,’ I say firmly and turn to face the wall again.

‘Of course,’ he says and kisses my shoulder.

When we get back to Granny’s the next morning she’s not there. It’s a relief to be honest because out of everyone Granny would probably notice that I seem
different and have a bit of a happy glow going on. I snuck back into the other bedroom in the morning and Nish and Rosie didn’t even realise that I’d left.

When they asked how I’d slept I heard myself telling them that it was fine apart from Rosie’s snoring. And then that was it – I’d kept it a secret.

After I’d told them how the first kiss freaked me out I didn’t think I could explain the second one. And since it won’t be happening again, they don’t need to know.

‘She’s gone for a run,’ says Nish.

‘What?’ I call down from my ladder room as I am getting changed out of the clothes I wore at the party. ‘Why?’

‘There’s a note. She’s gone with a friend,’ Rosie replies.

‘How has she found another old person who likes running? I didn’t even know Granny liked running. Or had friends. She only moved here a few months ago.
I can’t find my
stupid sock!
’

‘He doesn’t look old,’ calls up Nish.

I stop looking for my sock and come over to the balcony, which overlooks the living room. They are looking out of the window. I jump down the ladder and run over. Granny is waving at someone who
I only glimpse as he disappears behind a hedge – there is a hedge between this house and next door, he’s not hiding. I didn’t see much, but I did see black curly hair, tanned skin
and a
vest
.

Rosie smiles at me and I return it. I remember when she also brought cupcakes round to my house when my grandpa died. I wish she wasn’t so nice. It makes me feel awful for suspecting her
last night. And still now.

Granny sees us all lined up at the window as she turns back from the gate. She waves and grins at us, apparently not questioning what we are doing. The others scatter and look busy with
breakfast and I open the door for her.

‘Goodness! I am
shagged
!’ she says, sitting on the sofa to undo her trainers.

I feel my mouth drop open. The other two are trying to look interested in their mugs of tea, but Rosie snorts.

Soon we are standing on the platform at Waterloo and getting ready to wave them off.

They might have stayed another night, but Rosie has some family thing and Nish is going on some luxurious Istanbul trip with her dad and his girlfriend. Since Nish’s dad left her mum, he
always takes her somewhere awesome and she’s allowed to bring Effie along, all expenses paid. It’s balanced out by them having to hang out with her dad’s girlfriend’s evil
twin twelve-year-old boys, Jupiter and Jacobi. When he took them to Florida, Nish was majorly annoyed when they didn’t go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter because the twins said it was
a ‘stupid children’s book’.

I didn’t tell her that I haven’t technically read them either – I listened to the audiobooks with Max but I kept falling asleep and never found out who the monster was or where
they hid the thing. It definitely would have been
much
better if her dad had just given her the money and she’d taken us instead, though he didn’t agree when I told him that.

Me and Granny hug them both and I wish Nish luck on her holiday. Rosie catches my eye like she’s going to say something, but then she doesn’t and steps onto the train behind
Nish.

We were watching one of my teen drama box sets, which Max was really scornful of when his mates were around, but he secretly really loved. It was probably
Dawson’s
Creek
that we got from Han’s older sister – that was one of our faves.

I was supposed to be doing my English homework – a piece of creative writing – but every time the credits came up I kept saying
,
‘One more episode!’ Mum, Dad
and Millie were out at parents’ evening anyway so no one would check up on me. Then Max took control.

‘Babe, I won’t be allowed to stay round any more if you don’t do your work.’ He pushed my notepad towards me and handed me a pen.

I rolled my eyes. ‘Fine!’ I went over to my laptop. ‘I’m just going to do some research
. . .
’ I checked Max couldn’t see my screen and went to open
up Facebook
,
but the browser was blank. ‘Hey!’