by Paige Toon
‘Are you nervous?’ she asks quietly. ‘I am.’
I laugh. ‘I am a bit. But you’ve got nothing to be nervous about. Chris really fancies you.’
‘Well, Tom definitely fancies you.’
‘Can you two keep it down?’ Stu moans from the front seat.
Lou and I giggle, but ride the rest of the way in silence.
We’re almost ten minutes late by the time we arrive, but Tom and Chris are nowhere to be seen. Lou spots them playing on a Formula One simulator. They’re sitting side by side behind their respective steering wheels, deep in concentration.
‘Boo!’ I shout, poking my face between their heads.
They both jump in fright and then swear at me and nearly crash their cars.
Lou and I crack up laughing while they try to finish the game.
‘Ha!’ Tom says to Chris, holding up one finger in his face to signal he came first. ‘You didn’t help,’ he says, pointing said finger at me as he climbs out of his seat. He raises an eyebrow in amusement and walks a couple of steps towards me. My heart skitters as he stops and stares down at me with his dark-brown eyes. I smirk up at him.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Chris says, shaking his head with mock disgust as he joins us. ‘You can tell someone’s getting his driving licence soon.’
‘I’d better be, after spending half my life practising on my uncle’s farm.’
‘When’s your birthday?’ I ask, as we set off towards the foyer.
‘Wednesday.’
He nods at the confectionery stand. ‘We’ve already got the tickets, but do you want popcorn?’
‘Definitely!’ I reply. ‘I’ll get it.’
‘No, no, it’s alright,’ he says, digging into his back pocket for his wallet. Chris does the same.
‘If you bought the tickets, we’ll buy the popcorn,’ Lou reiterates firmly, and they reluctantly put their wallets away.
‘Shall we share?’ I ask Tom, as we go to stand in line.
‘Sure.’
‘Sweet or salted or both?’
‘Both?’ He screws his nose up.
‘It’s the best, I promise.’
He grins. ‘OK. I trust you.’
His words, although flippant, do nothing to tame my butterflies. We don’t really speak as we approach the front of the queue, but I can hear Lou and Chris chatting and I feel slightly self-conscious at the lull in our conversation.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tom rake his hand through his brown hair. His toned arms are the colour of honey, and he’s wearing casual black trousers and an army-green T-shirt with black graphics on the front.
He is so gorgeous.
We stand off to the side once we’ve got our popcorn and drinks, waiting for Chris and Lou. I can see her laughing and him grinning across at her. They’ve really hit it off. I try to think of something to say to Tom.
‘So your uncle has—’
‘What did you do—’
We both speak at the same time. He laughs awkwardly and grabs a couple of kernels of popcorn from the large bucket I’m holding. ‘You first.’
‘So your uncle has a farm?’ I ask.
‘Yeah,’ he says between munches. ‘In Suffolk.’
‘Can you honestly drive?’
‘Mmm.’ He nods. ‘He taught me to drive a tractor when I was thirteen. A car’s pretty easy in comparison.’
‘That’s so cool! When are you going to take your test?’
‘In three weeks, but don’t tell anyone,’ he says with a cheeky smile.
‘Why not?’ I didn’t have him down as the shy type.
‘I don’t want the pressure of everyone knowing.’
‘I won’t tell anyone.’ I can’t help but feel pleased that I’m not ‘everyone’.
‘It’s just as well I trust you, isn’t it?’ He grins down at me. ‘And you were right about the popcorn.’
I laugh. ‘Told you! You’ll never have it any other way now.’
We barely notice when Lou and Chris approach.
‘Ready?’ Chris asks.
Tom nods and leads the way in, passing the tickets to the girl on the door.
We file into a row of seats – Chris first, then Lou, then me, and Tom on the aisle. The trailers are already playing and, as we sit down, Lou flashes me a smile in the darkness. I grin back at her and slide down in my seat. To my left, Tom does the same. I offer him some popcorn and he takes a handful, then leans his head close to mine.
‘What did you do last night?’ he asks, as the trailers continue to screen.
‘Went out for dinner with my dad,’ I tell him. I’m not going to lie if I don’t have to. And I’m hoping to be able to tell him the truth eventually.
He glances at me. ‘Mr Taylor?’
‘No, my real dad. He’s over here at the moment.’
‘Oh, wow. What’s he like?’
‘He’s great,’ I reveal with a shrug. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ I add in a quiet voice, nodding at the big screen. The film’s about to start.
He keeps his head tilted towards mine, and I’m so aware of him sitting right next to me that I find it hard to follow the thriller that we’re watching. His knee jigs up and down occasionally and I’m distracted by his hand resting on his thigh. His fingers brush against mine as we finish the popcorn and I feel on edge as I put the empty bucket on the floor.
When I sit back in my seat, my arm rubs against his and the contact gives me goosebumps. I instinctively put distance between us, then want to kick myself because what I want is more contact, not less. I stare down at his hand and rest my own on my leg, willing him to take it. I can smell his aftershave or deodorant, whatever it is, and it’s distracting. I cast him a sideways look and he glances back at me, his dark eyes shining from the light of the screen. We return our attention to the film, but the restless winged creatures inside my stomach show no signs of calming down.
I shift slightly so our forearms are only just touching and I resist the urge to pull away. I’m so aware of the small contact that I’m barely breathing. His arm radiates heat. A torturously amazing couple of minutes pass, and then he moves. My heart free-falls for a split second until his arm crosses mine and he takes my hand.
It’s the most innocent gesture of all, yet I feel like my heart is going to peter out. I smile at him shyly, then try to concentrate on the film. But it’s completely futile. All I can think about is To m .
When he starts to stroke his thumb across my wrist, it occurs to me that if I feel this way about hand-holding, how am I going to cope if he kisses me?!
When he kisses me…
Before I know it, the credits are rolling. Tom gives my hand a squeeze and lets me go. I flash him a tentative smile and then straighten up and turn to our friends.
We decide to go for a pizza and the four of us spend the next two hours laughing and chatting about everything from the film and school to the summer holidays and how Lou’s finding her move.
‘Better since I met Jessie and you guys,’ she says, which makes me feel warm inside.
After dinner, Chris and Lou decide to catch a taxi from the train station and Tom offers to walk me home. I know Stu told me to call him for a lift, but he’s overreacting – we only live ten minutes away. And anyway I want some alone time with Tom…
‘I’m so stuffed,’ he groans, putting his hand on his flat stomach.
‘Me too.’
‘You didn’t eat much,’ he points out.
‘I wasn’t hungry after all that popcorn!’
‘At least you didn’t force any more weird food combinations on me.’
I elbow him. ‘You said you liked the sweet and salted.’
‘I like you.’
My stomach goes haywire. I cast him a sideways look and find him smiling down at me. He reaches over and takes my hand as we walk.
‘Do you remember this?’ he asks, coming to a stop on the railway bridge. He stares down at the dark space where the tracks are.
‘Yes,’ I
reply quietly.
Before the summer holidays, he walked me home from the train station and I stood right here with him, talking about my real dad and where he could be.
‘You were the one who gave me the idea to ask Stu about him,’ I tell Tom. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I might not know my dad now.’
‘I’m glad I could help,’ he says, smiling. ‘So what’s he like?’
‘He’s really cool. And his wife is nice. I was a bit worried about how she felt about me at first, but I think she’s getting used to me.’
‘Do you know why your mum didn’t tell you about him?’ Tom asks.
I look away. ‘I guess she didn’t want to lose me, but I’ll never totally understand. It’s not like I can ask her.’
My voice trails off and he turns to face me, hooking his forefingers through my belt loops and tugging me a step closer.
I know in a heartbeat that this is it: he’s going to kiss me.
A car zooms round the corner, the headlights temporarily blinding us. I giggle, but he’s unfazed by the rude interruption. The next thing I know, his lips are on mine.
He kisses me slowly, but soon deepens the kiss, parting my lips with his tongue. I feel giddy as I kiss him back, and then another car zooms round the corner and its driver honks at us. We laugh against each other’s mouths and break away. He kisses me again gently.
‘I wasn’t sure you liked me,’ he says.
‘What?!’ I exclaim. ‘What made you think that?’
‘Well, you know, when I walked you home that time we spoke about your dad – we talked about going to see the film, then you went really quiet on me.’
‘Only because I asked Stu about him the very next day,’ I explain, placing my hands on his waist. ‘I was completely distracted. I’d spent practically my whole life wondering about him and suddenly I knew who he was.’
‘And then the next time,’ he says with a small shrug, staring down at me meaningfully.
I rack my brains to remember the last conversation we had before the summer holidays. We talked about going to see a movie when I got back from… Oh. That’s right. I told him I was going to LA to stay with ‘a friend of my mum’s’.
‘Sorry, I should have told you I was going to stay with my real dad,’ I apologise. ‘But it was all a bit weird. I wanted to tell you…’ I try to reassure him, but I can’t give anything away yet. ‘It was complicated because he had a family of his own and none of them knew I existed. They made me do a paternity test.’
‘Did they?’ He looks shocked.
‘It wasn’t a big deal.’ I brush it off.
I take his hand again and we carry on walking up the hill at a leisurely pace. I don’t live far from here, and I’m not ready for this to be over.
‘It’s just…’ he starts, still seeming uncertain. ‘I thought about you a bit over the holidays.’ He laughs lightly, but it doesn’t cover up his awkwardness. ‘You didn’t text me when you got home.’
I’m slightly taken aback. His confidence is wavering before my very eyes. I want to reassure him, but what can I say? Yes, I was busy with my grandmother’s funeral and seeing Johnny and co, but I wasn’t so busy that I couldn’t send a simple text.
The truth is, of course, that my head was still so full of Jack. I didn’t know where to start, or how to pick things up again with Tom. But I can’t explain that.
‘The last couple of weeks of the holidays were a bit of a blur,’ I say. He doesn’t meet my eyes, looking straight ahead as we walk. So I tell him about the funeral.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ He’s immediately sympathetic, and I feel so guilty for distracting him from the other side of the story.
‘It’s OK. I’m just sad that I barely knew her,’ I say. ‘But she pretty much disowned my mum when she fell pregnant with me.’
‘Jeez,’ he murmurs.
‘And also my dad ended up coming back to the UK with his family, so I was with them quite a bit.’
‘I see,’ he says, nodding as we reach the close where I live.
I hope that’s enough of an explanation. I squeeze his hand and pull him to a stop. He looks down at me. He’s so lovely. I like him so much – both his confident side and this less secure side that he’s letting me see now.
I want to tell him everything about Johnny, but it’s too soon to open up. I don’t know where this thing with Tom is going, but I need to be patient, just in case it all goes wrong and he somehow blows my cover.
I feel a trickle of fear at the thought of the press blowing it first. Tom would find out from the papers before he finds out from me and that would be awful. But now is definitely not the time to spill.
‘Thanks for tonight,’ I say, glancing at my house to see the lights in the living room are still on. Stu’s up, probably waiting for my call. Oops.
‘See you tomorrow?’
‘You will,’ he says, and I notice he’s still regarding me a little warily. He knows something’s missing from my story.
Jack.
But no, that’s over, I tell myself with steely resolve. He had his chance. Now I’m here with Tom.
I stand on my tiptoes and press my lips to his. He cups my face in his hands and kisses me back, and the giddy feeling returns. He breaks away, keeping our faces close together. I let out a little sigh. He’s such an amazing kisser.
‘See you tomorrow,’ he murmurs, kissing me one more time quickly before letting me go and turning away. I walk backwards a few steps, watching as Tom Ryder lopes away from my house, glancing back to flash me a grin.
I dizzily open up the front door and walk into the hall, jumping as Stu appears in the living-room door.
‘I told you to call!’ he says accusingly the moment the door closes behind me.
‘Tom walked me home,’ I say, annoyed with him for bringing me back down to earth with a bump.
‘We had a deal!’ he says.
‘What’s the big deal?’
‘Don’t you be clever with me, Jessie. I let you go out tonight and—’
‘As if you could stop me,’ I scoff.
‘Oh, so we’re there again, are we?’ he says angrily. ‘I thought you might’ve grown up in LA.’
‘Seriously, Stu, you’re completely overreacting. I walked home from the cinema down the road! I’m supposed to be doing normal things, right?’
‘Not any more,’ he says, a new flatness to his tone.
‘What’s happened?’ I ask, suddenly scared.
‘The story’s running in the national papers tomorrow, Jessie.’
All hopes that Meg might have got the story pulled vanish.
‘Apparently they’ve got other shots of you,’ Stu continues. ‘I don’t know how recognisable you’ll be in them, but at some point someone will realise it’s you and tell the press.’
My heart sinks.
‘You need to prepare yourself,’ he says. ‘Johnny’s been talking to me about moving to a more secure house.’
‘I’m not moving!’ I yell, fury and fear twisting my gut.
‘I don’t want to move, either,’ he says, and through my red mist I can see the tears glistening in his eyes. But I don’t wait to see if they’ll spill over, shoving past him and hurrying up the stairs.
Instead of turning into my bedroom, I go into the spare room, just stopping short of slamming the door behind me.
And then she’s there with me.
Mum.
This is the room where we keep all of her belongings – neither of us has been able to bring ourselves to throw anything out yet, so we just shoved it all in here.
Tears track down my cheeks as I breathe in the scent of her perfume. Piles and piles of folded-up clothes have been taken straight out of her drawers and laid on the bed. Her dressing gown is folded up on the pillow and I reach for it, feeling the silky satin against my fingers. I put it to my nose and inhale, imagining her arms folding round me. In my mind, she holds me tight to her chest and I squeeze my eyes shut, then start to sob silen
tly.
I fall asleep there, among her things. I don’t want to be anywhere else.
Chapter 6
The following morning I’m so distracted reading the newspaper stories about me that I barely feel nervous about seeing Tom at school.
The story from the local newspaper website has made the front page of the print version, and the sight of the headline about me being a local girl scares the life out of me. It’ll be all too easy for someone I know to recognise me.
In the national papers, though, the story isn’t front page. In fact, a couple of the papers only mention it in passing in a tiny column, but one of the tabloids has done a whole spread about me, including photos of the time I went with the Jeffersons to the theme park on Santa Monica beach. The shots are crystal clear, but I’m wearing my sunnies again, so it’s still not easy to make out my face.
It occurs to me that more people in LA know who I am than they do in Maidenhead. I grew up here, but I was in LA with Agnes and all of her friends when the news first broke about Johnny having a secret teenage daughter. There was one girl, Lissa, who was especially bitchy towards me. What’s to stop her or any of the others from telling the press my name? I’d have the paps on my doorstep within hours.
I wonder if I’ll hear from Agnes when she wakes up in LA and discovers that the news about me is hotting up. I wonder if I’ll hear from Jack, I think, with a guilty rush.
Has he thought about me at all since I left? We said we’d stay in contact, but he couldn’t even be bothered to reply to my casual, chatty email. I won’t be sending another. Especially not now I’m with Tom.
A strange muddle of emotions passes through me. Butterflies at the thought of seeing Tom this morning, and a weird aching feeling at the thought of not seeing Jack again. I try to ignore the latter and focus on the former.
Stu and I get to school a little later than usual after spending ages scouring the newspapers. My eyes dart around, looking at the students already arriving. Have any of them seen the papers this morning? It’s the local paper I’m most worried about, the one screaming about me being from around here.
There are a few ‘Alright, sir’s directed at Stu, but no one gives me so much as a second glance as we wander into school past the cafeteria.