CRAIG
CRAIG
Sitting beside Alex on a flowerbed wall in Steph’s garden is exactly how I’d spent her last house party, too. A beer in hand, relaxing into the surrounding fun, it’s as close as I ever feel to my old self, and it’s pleasant.
There is one very significant complication to my smooth enjoyment of tonight, though. And it comes in the form of somebody who had been a nobody to me those few short weeks ago until he drunkenly mouthed off at Alex in this same spot and made his spectacular declaration.
Mikey spouted shit he had no right knowing about me, unaware he was saying it directly to my face. He admitted kissing Tate. But far worse was that he’d come to the party with Lyndsay that night, and his proud Coming Out speech to a crowd of peers had been immeasurably crueller than anything I’d ever done to her.
“It was my mouth attacking his,” I remember his words. “Mine. And here’s something else for you: I liked it!”
Now I’m watching Lyndsay link an arm through his and lead him across the garden while Derek, her oh-so-protective cousin, waves them off without the remotest hint of disapproval.
“You’re necking them a bit fast tonight, aren’t you?”
I don’t know when Steph joined us, but as I lower my bottle and drag my eyes away from their covert tracking, I see her at Alex’s other side, leaning around him to study me. “And it’s good to see you, too, Stephanie.”
“I mean, I fully appreciate your generous contribution to our bar,” she grins, “but please don’t feel the need to work your way through it singlehandedly.”
“You need to slow it down, bro,” Alex chips in, eying me like he’s only now thought to be concerned.
“This is only my second.”
Swiping the beer from my hand, he gives the dregs a shake. “Yeah, and you opened it less than five minutes ago.” The bottle is tossed onto the lawn. “You’ve got Roxy with you, remember?”
Of course, I remember. My best intentions left the house with me this evening.
“Oooh,” Steph trills. “We should take her out for a drive!”
“And abandon your own birthday party?”
“Sure,” she shrugs at me, her gaze coy on Alex. “I have complete faith you lot will keep it tame in our absence.”
I turn away from them. “Hardly seems wise.”
Mikey and Lyndsay have disappeared inside the house, but I spot Ashleigh and return her wave as she dances past me. Pink hair flaring, grin razor-sharp, she holds me in her sights for longer than I’m comfortable with. Having dodged her advances twice already, I’m relieved when she makes no attempt at a third. A group I recognise from the YCS athletics team beckons to her, and she shimmies on by.
Steph’s whispered murmurings have me fully prepared for what follows from my brother a minute later.
“So, can we borrow your car?”
“I think not.”
“For ten minutes?”
“Still, no.”
It’s obviously the answer they both anticipated because neither one pushes it further. Instead, Steph stands and holds her hand out for Alex. “Fend for yourself for half an hour then while I entertain your brother here in other ways.”
Also not a surprise, but my grimace is entirely the reaction she hoped for. “Half an hour? What you going to do with those extra twenty minutes?”
“Now, that’s a question I’m sure you don’t want the answer to, Craig,” she laughs, hauling Alex away. He only shrugs as he practically trips over my feet.
What does startle me halfway out of my skin, though, is Derek dropping down next to me not more than thirty seconds after I’ve been ditched. “Hey, so, you and Bastian, huh?”
I gape for a long moment before I manage to ask, “Wh — what about me and Bastian?”
“Nothing,” he shrugs, sounding as amicable as can be. “Just wondering how it is that the two of you know each other.”
“We don’t.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s really not.”
I watch an inked hand stroke over the dark stubble of his head, cupping his jaw. The kick to his lips swiftly blinks me down to the disappointment of my empty hands.
“That’s almost exactly what he said, too,” his friendly tone continues to disturb me.
“Right. Because there’s nothing else to say.”
“Except, when I saw you two together, he seemed mighty irate. As did you, actually.”
“So?”
“So, sparks don’t fly without some kind of catalyst, Lawton.”
There’s no need to look back up at him to know his smirk has gained a much keener edge. Aside from him being Lyndsay’s older cousin, Sebastian’s issue of discontent, and the drummer of Desperate For Aces, all I really know about Derek is that he’s out and very proud and that I really don’t want to be talking to him.
With a shake of my head, I move to get up, and my recoil is instinctive when he grabs my wrist, halting me.
“Boy, I really did a number on you, didn’t I?” I can feel him probing.
I say nothing.
In all fairness, the threat he made to me was actually justified, and it’s not like he hurt me. But yes, I’d been thoroughly terrified by him.
This was in the wake of the whole Tate and Tinwell debacle, my lowest point. Lyndsay and I had tagged along to some pub out past Exeter, sneaking into one of his gigs. Derek saw me kiss her that night, so he could make a reasonably intelligent guess at the nature of our evening.
After the band’s set, when Lyndsay was ready to head home, she sent me looking for him. And it’s then the incident occurred. I found him in a small backroom with the barman, engaged in far more than a kiss, and I did not turn on my heel. His companion noticed me first, and he made the hasty exit I should have. Derek was probably as much pissed at the interruption as anything, but my reaction was unguarded — telling — and his warning on Lyndsay’s behalf had not been one to take lightly.
Gritting my teeth, I attempt to twist my arm free of him, but he tightens his grip, not quite painful.
“Bastian’s a good bloke,” he says.
“I know.”
“Intense sometimes, but good.”
“I know.”
“Beneath that hard shell of his, he’s all heart.”
“I know.”
“You could do worse.”
Snapping around, I discover him looking far more amused with himself than he has any right to.
“Your line is ‘I know,’ ” he stage-whispers.
I’m released now, the instant I put force against him, and I stumble a few steps backwards before I can recover myself. “Go fall in a hole!” I snarl.
And on that note...
On that note, screw restraint!
Best intentions be damned. It’ll be a wish granted, bestowing Roxy into Alex’s capable care.
Sat on an upturned recycle box beneath the neighbours’ overhanging tree, two empty cans of cider crushed at my feet and a third in my hand, that’s how Ashleigh next finds me. On my own. Being a nuisance to no one.
“What are you doing out here by yourself?” It would seem my dismissive wave isn’t good enough for her this time. Because of course . “You okay?”
I don’t think I’m subtle when I lean back against the fence and close my eyes, yet she still approaches and drops down to sit cross-legged on the gravel beside me. “No intervention needed this time,” I say, shifting my leg away from her touch. “I’m not even tipsy.”
“Meh.” She rests her head against my arm instead. “I’m off duty, anyway.” There’s a click and fizz as she helps herself to a can from my stash. “We can get tipsy together.”
“Don’t much want company.”
“Well, that’s a pity.”
My teeth grind together, and I peek out at her through slits, shaking my head. “Please stop.”
A frown fixes on me, baffled enough that I could almost believe it to be genuine if I didn’t know better. The cider halted halfway to her mouth begins to lower. “Stop?”
“Yes.” Straightening up, I sever her contact. “Whatever this is you think we have going on, Ash, we’re not together. You stand no chance of us ever being together. So, please, please stop hitting on me.”
“Hitting…?” she gapes at me, and I put everything I have into holding her gaze—making myself explicitly and unmistakeably clear. “Now you think I’m hitting on you?” Then she laughs, her animated mouth disappearing behind her free hand. “Seriously? That’s hilarious!”
And I’m knocked more than a little off my guard. “Practically the first thing you ever said to me was that you had a massive crush on me.”
“Oh, wow!”
“And you waste no opportunity to drape yourself all over me.”
She blinks, instantly sobered. “You actually are being serious, aren’t you?”
“I know I’ve never led you on.”
“This is entirely unnecessary.”
“It makes me uncomfortable.”
Her lips press tight, and then she leans in, reaching her hand out again for mine. It’s like my words are just bouncing off. “Must you be so determined to find an ulterior motive for my friendship, Craig?”
“You need to back off, okay? There’s nothing between us.”
“I disagree.”
“There is no possible way I can be any blunter here.”
“No? I’m sure you could if you really try.”
My temples are throbbing, so I take a drink from my can to soothe them. It doesn’t work.
She takes a swig, too, her gaze remaining watchful of me. “I wasn’t much a fan of the wine you got me. Tasted like vinegar. This is much better.”
I snap. “Wake the hell up, Ashleigh! For fuck’s sake, you’re not the heroine of my story!”
For the second time in as many interactions, I see the hurt of insult prick her amber eyes. Guilt stubbornly niggles. She’s not provoked into walking off on this occasion, though. Nope . Instead, she smiles through it, causing me to look away.
“I know people see me as a ditz,” she says, her tone soft. “They think I float in my own little frivolous bubble. But you know what? That’s okay. Because what no one seems to realise is that when they assume that I’m not looking, I get to see so much more.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means there’s actually very little that gets by me.”
My head turns back to her even as my gut warns me that I won’t like where this is going.
“I like you, Craig, yes. Possibly more than I should. But you need to trust me; I have no agenda. I am your friend, whether you accept it or not. And all I want is for you to understand that there is nothing of yourself you need to hide from me, okay?”
Her gently spoken words fill the narrow alley like a thunderclap. A deafening silence follows after, and there’s an instant — one dangerous, lightning-strike instant — that I think to crush her mouth with mine, to prove… what? … I don’t even know.
Then, she’s baulking away as I jolt to my feet. “No!”
“I’m not —”
“Enough.”
“I’m not Tinwell, Craig. I would never —”
“I said enough!” My heart slams my ribs, and I’m unwilling to look at her anymore. “You need to go. Now. Please, just go.”
With a heavy sigh, she finally listens to me.
I don’t watch her leave. I don’t move from my hiding place.
Slowly but surely, the party migrates from outside to indoors. The volume of the music increases, and the pace of my drinking does, too. My mood, however, plummets on par.
It’s a group of stoners who next intrude on me, and I’m finally smoked out from my spot. They block my way back through into the garden, their sickly-sweet fumes thick on the chilly air, but it doesn’t matter. Roxy is parked out in the street, the safest of havens to hide until Alex sees fit to come find me. Don’t know why I didn’t think of her before.
With Bohemian Rhapsody pounding through the bricks and the last lonely beer clutched in my hand, I follow the wall around to the front of Steph’s house. Soft light spills across the tidy little lawn from the bay window. And there, the last shred of sanity clung to by my sleep-deprived and intoxicated mind buckles.
Because there, stood right. Fucking. There — at the corner, staring through the glass into an environment he belongs less than I do — is Tate.
I stumble straight into him, disturbing his fixation on the dancing Magpie in the overcrowded lounge. The instant his startled glare crashes into mine, an ugly cocktail of loathing, remorse, and need floods my undefended headspace. He jolts when I grab him.
“Why do you get to move on?”
“Craig? What—?”
“Do you know that Tinwell goes to college with me now?” My voice is hoarse, as though rusty from disuse. “Yeah, he’s in my class, chipping away at the pathetic life I’ve made for myself there.”
“I… Shit, Craig! Your fucking breath’s stinging my eyes!”
“Do you know that I barely even have Al anymore? Or that some days I struggle just remembering to breathe?”
“Get the fuck off me. Please. We’re not doing this shit again.”
“My parents despise me,” I blast over him, keeping a tight hold of his sleeve. I know he’s not hearing me, but he has to understand. It shouldn’t matter that our cracks are different; we’re both damaged. “Why do you get to move on, and I don’t? How is that fair?”
“You’re a mess!” His arm tugs against me, futile.
“Exactly!” I press in closer. “That’s it exactly , T!”