Chapter 3 #2
“I know. I’m so sorry. But I’m begging you—this one last time,” he says quietly.
I nod and let go of his hand.
James turns to Wren. “The others don’t know yet. Please don’t tell anyone that she’s pregnant.”
Wren nods briefly.
Then James walks down the steps and joins Lydia in the car. Percy shuts the door and walks round to the driver’s side. For a split second, our eyes meet over the back of the Rolls-Royce. Percy looks every bit as sad as I feel.
Then he gets in too and starts the engine. I watch the red rear lights until they’ve vanished through the gate, my pulse racing furiously.
“Shit,” says Wren.
All I can do is nod silently.
We stand there a few minutes longer, staring in that direction, long after the Rolls has driven away. Then Wren sighs.
“Come on,” he says, “let’s think about something else.”
Alistair
Training is shite today. Neither Wren nor Cyril puts in an appearance, and neither of them lets the coach know, so he’s pissed off.
He barks orders at us and has us running around like headless chickens, and once the ninety minutes are finally up, I’m dripping with sweat and thanking my lucky stars that it’s over.
All I want to do is get my water bottle from the bench, but I don’t get far.
One of the new lads barges into me from the side. He catches me so unawares that I almost fall, only just steadying myself in time. I glare at him, and he just glares angrily back. This is the last thing I need. I take a threatening step toward him.
“Got a problem, Kenton?” I inquire.
“It’s thanks to your fucking pals that Freeman was acting like that today,” he snarls, spitting on the ground by my feet.
“And that’s my fault because…?”
“You can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Some of us actually take this game seriously, you know.”
With that, he stomps off toward the changing room. It’s a real effort not to run after him and show him what I think of impudence like that. I grit my teeth and rip open the Velcro on my gloves. I pull them off and shove them in the pockets of my joggers.
Despite myself, my eyes roam over to the goal, where Kesh is picking up the balls and putting them away in a crate.
Any other time, I’d have gone to rant at him. Kesh has the ability to calm me down in situations like this, just by listening to me.
When Kesh listens, you feel taken seriously.
He’s calm and chill, and his advice is always sound.
That’s one of the things I’ve always liked best about him, especially as I’m the total opposite—quick-tempered and impulsive.
We balance each other out perfectly, which is another reason Kesh has been my best friend for as long as I can remember.
Used to be, I correct myself.
Kesh used to be my best friend.
Sometimes I wonder if I should never have got involved with him. Maybe that would have saved our friendship. But then I think back on what we’ve had together and feel an echo of the tingle and the emotions that he stirred up in me.
But we’re over and I can’t see any way of unmaking that mistake.
After Kesh had a go at my brother a few weeks ago, things escalated between us.
I told Kesh that I didn’t want to go on the way we were and that I couldn’t carry on acting like just friends at school when, anytime it was just the two of us, we were more like an item.
That I wanted to be able to kiss him in public, to hold his hand when we were out with the lads.
And that, if he couldn’t give me that, then I wanted to go back to the place we were a year ago.
I wanted to be best friends again. Just best friends. And nothing more.
Kesh’s answer was a calm “sure,” and while that felt like a slap in the face, it also gave me hope that we could at least give our friendship a second chance now that things were finally cleared up.
But however hard we try to act natural around each other, since then nothing’s felt like it used to do. There’s something between us that I just can’t ignore, and the more time I spend with Kesh, the stronger it gets.
Or the longer I stare at him—I absolutely have to stop that.
I turn my eyes away and walk to the edge of the field, where my bag is lying on a bench. I pick up my water bottle with one hand and pull out my phone with the other. Wren has messaged.
Help! Can Ruby and I come over? There’s some shit going down at the Beauforts’ and we need a change of scene.
“Fuck,” I mutter. This is just what I need.
“What’s up?” Kesh says from behind me. He’s at a safe distance, and yet the hair stands up on the back of my neck. I focus on typing my answer to Wren, then shove my phone back in my sports bag.
“Wren and Ruby are coming to mine in a bit.” I turn to face Kesh. His eyes meet mine, and I have to fight down the way my body reacts to him, every bloody time.
“Ruby must be feeling like shit,” Kesh says. He picks up his stuff off the bench, and we walk toward the changing room together. “Apparently, she got caught with Sutton and she’s been suspended.” His skeptical tone makes it clear that he doesn’t believe a word of the rumors.
“She was definitely not involved with Sutton.”
Kesh glances inquiringly at me.
“You were there when James took those photos, right?” I ask. Kesh is observant. He won’t have missed that.
“Yeah, but I can’t believe he showed anyone else. There’s got to be something else going on.”
I give a confused growl. James has done way worse in his time than forward a couple of photos, but I absolutely can’t imagine him doing anything to hurt Ruby like that.
I clear my throat. “Want to come?”
Kesh stops in the corridor. He looks questioningly at me.
He always wears his hair in a messy bun for training, and it’s coming loose.
I long to reach out a hand and tuck the stray hairs back behind his ears.
I fight the impulse and grip on to my bottle instead, squeezing so hard that the plastic pops.
“D’you want me to come?” he asks in return.
Kesh and I haven’t spent much time together since the fight.
I can’t remember the last time we had a proper conversation without the others around.
The moment we’re in the same room, the air crackles between us and I have to move away for fear of making the same old mistake of accepting the only thing Kesh can give me—stolen kisses in the dark and constant secrecy.
But I hope things can go back to the old days and that we can manage to be good mates again. No more and no less. So I nod, even though I know it’s probably not good for my heart to spend the evening with him.
“The more the merrier.” I meet his eyes. I’m sure he can read what I’m feeling. You learn stuff like that when you’ve been friends for so long, and even if you didn’t, Keshav is one of the most empathetic people I know.
I sometimes wish he’d used that gift before he broke my heart.
“Then yeah, I’d love to,” he says quietly.
“OK,” I cough. “Cool.”
“I need a shower,” Kesh says, pointing down the hallway.
I feel the heat rising, even though my pulse is vaguely normal again now after training.
I hurry past him to the changing room. “I’ll wait for you outside,” I call over my shoulder.
All the way, I feel Kesh’s calm, knowing gaze on the back of my neck.
Ruby looks like she’s had a long, tough day. The moment she got to my house, she dropped onto the sofa in my bedroom with a pale face, and she hasn’t moved since. Everyone else has changed, but she’s still wearing her uniform. She looks so sad. You can’t help wanting to look after her.
Kesh is linking his phone to the sound system to play some music as I walk into the kitchen to see what there is in the fridge.
We don’t have so many kitchen staff now that my siblings, Elaine and Fred, don’t live at home, and Mum and Dad don’t insist on a family dinner anymore.
Not that the last bit’s a hardship. I spent most of the time sitting hunched while they talked to Fred—and mostly about Fred.
Now, I can go days without setting eyes on any of my family, and that’s fine by me. I like time to myself. This way, I don’t have to fake it, act like my parents’ behavior doesn’t hurt me.
I pull a ready-made lasagna from the fridge and nuke it in the microwave.
Then I load up four huge platefuls and carry them up to my room.
I put two down on the coffee table, for me and Ruby, hand one to Wren, then hold the fourth out to Kesh, who is sitting at my desk, tapping on his phone.
Then I go back downstairs again for cutlery and glasses, which I put down on the table.
“Here,” I say, holding out a fork to Ruby.
“Thanks.” Her voice sounds hollow.
I sit next to her on the sofa and start wolfing down the lasagna. I always feel starved after training.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Ruby pick up the fork and take a tentative bite, then let the plate sink back onto her lap again.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask cautiously. “Or would you rather ignore what’s happened and chat about something else?”
Wren, who is sitting in the armchair facing the sofa, lifts his head and looks at Ruby, but she just shrugs as if she’s past caring about anything.
“Mortimer has kicked Lydia out,” Wren says.
Kesh looks up in surprise. “What?”
“I was giving Ruby a lift to James’s,” Wren explains. “But when we got there, the car boot was full to the brim, and Lydia was crying. Then they all got in and drove away.”
“Fuck,” I breathe. “What the hell did Lydia do?”
Ruby and Wren exchange glances, then stare down at their plates. Clearly, they know something that nobody else is meant to hear about.
“I’ve told James we’re here,” Wren says after a long pause, dodging my question. “He’s coming round the moment he gets back.”
“OK.” I finish my pasta, even though the thought of how Lydia must be feeling has spoiled my appetite. I put the plate down on the low, glass table and glance back at Ruby. She’s hardly touched her food, is just stirring it around with her fork.
“I heard what happened at school,” I say quietly.
Ruby looks up. There’s no mistaking how hard she’s trying not to lose it.
“I was there when those photos were taken, Ruby,” I admit.
Anger flashes in her eyes, but I go on before she has a chance to say anything.
“James didn’t know you then. The only reason he took them was as insurance.
But then he fell head over heels for you.
I don’t think what happened today is down to him. ”
“I need to hear that from him.”
I nod. “I get that.”
Silence grows between us. After a while, Ruby puts her plate down and looks around my room.
Her gaze rests on a framed photo of James, Cyril, Kesh, and me.
We’re wearing our lacrosse uniforms, and we’re caked in mud from top to toe.
But we’re beaming, and James is standing in the middle, holding the league cup, which we’d just won for the first time.
I still remember the feeling. The euphoria.
My eyes dart over to my desk and meet Keshav’s, like he was just waiting for me to look at him.
Abruptly, I lever myself out of the sofa.
“I need a drink,” I announce, walking over to the cupboard where I keep my booze. I pull out half a bottle of whisky and pour three glasses. I put one down in front of Wren, then take another over to Kesh, but he shakes his head and points to the water bottle on the desk beside him.
I stare uncertainly at the two glasses in my hand. Then I walk back to the sofa and offer one to Ruby.
She eyes the glass in my hand. I’m expecting her to refuse, but, to my great surprise, she reaches for it. Even before I can clink her glass, she throws back her head and downs it, almost in one.
I whistle appreciatively. Ruby holds the glass out again and looks expectantly up at me.
I only hesitate a second, then I refill it.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Wren asks, looking from Ruby to me.
At that moment, Kesh starts playing a song with a fast, thumping beat.
“No,” Ruby and I say at the same time.
I drop onto the sofa, and this time I do clink glasses with her. “To bad ideas.”
For the first time this afternoon, the hint of a smile spreads over Ruby’s lips.