Popped

by Elizabeth Stevens

“Oh, didn’t you? My bad.”

  “Well, I’m not the one who said it was different.”

  “No. You’re the one who said you trusted me.”

  I had very little rebuttal for that because it was true. I had trusted him. He’d made me trust him. I’d thought he was the guy to make me believe not all guys were shit. And how had that turned out for me?

  “Excellent judge of character I am.”

  “Of course. It’s not that you’re finding any reason to push me away after I got too close.”

  “You’re the one who made a bet to pop my cherry!”

  “You’re the one who made a bet to pop my ego!”

  “I was the one who trusted a guy who just wanted the same thing every other guy did. And I was stupid enough to let him have it.”

  “You said it, not me.”

  Something about the look in his eye had me triple guessing everything. I couldn’t tell if he’d fallen for me and was hiding it or if it had all been for the sake of the bet. “This is all a joke to you isn’t it?”

  The Common Room started filling with kids wandering in to get their stuff to go home. And I wasn’t surprised they could feel the tension wafting off us.

  There was nothing sexy about his smirk. It was malicious. “Ding, ding. We have a winner. Or do we?”

  “You are such a wanker!”

  He shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practise in the last four weeks,” he said suggestively.

  “So, it was all just a bet to you?”

  “And, it seems, both of us lost.”

  I looked around the room and saw people whispering to each other. They might not have heard the beginning of the conversation, but it wouldn’t have taken a genius to come up with a variety of meanings from our words. They all guessed what bets had been made and Bash had suggested… Wait…

  “I beg your pardon? I–”

  But he stormed off and I didn’t get a chance to rebut his statement. I looked around the room hurriedly but all anyone had for me were looks of pity or surprise or confusion.

  Not one to be walked out on, I ran after him. “Sebastian!” I called.

  But he kept right on storming and I had no choice but to keep literally running until I grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him to a rather abrupt halt.

  “What do you want?” he snapped, the fury on his face evident.

  “Why didn’t you just tell them?”

  “Tell them what?”

  “That at least you won.”

  “You might have successfully tanked my reputation, but my fragile male ego doesn’t need anyone else to know you were the one who was popped to know I won the bet.”

  “Unless of course that’s just proof I did win.”

  He looked me over and icy was the perfect description for the expression in those pale blue eyes. “Popping your ego wasn’t part of the bet but, if you insist, I’ll be happy to oblige.”

  I laughed awkwardly. “My ego is in no danger, thank you.”

  “The girl who thinks she’s all that sees no parallels here?”

  “What? No.”

  “No. Of course not.” He leant towards me. “You complain everyone just wants the fantasy? Stop making it the only thing you give them.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “How about you get off your ego-popping power trip and check your own, princess.”

  “I don’t have an ego, problem.”

  “Now who’s lying to who?” he asked cryptically.

  This time when he stormed off, I didn’t stop him.

  But I didn’t stop thinking about what he’d meant. In what way could my ego have been popped? And what was with the lying to each other thing?

  Chapter 21: Bash

  Well, it had all gone to shit and I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure how.

  “Pass the popcorn, Leo,” Rufio said, sounding as listless as I felt.

  “Why are you guys here instead of at the formal?” he asked.

  “Because your brother and his princess managed to outdo each other in the fuck up awards,” Jendo replied.

  “Don’t fucking swear in front of the minor,” I muttered.

  “Yeah,” Rufio agreed. “My ears are not a toilet.”

  I managed to spare him a slight smile, but I felt like absolute shit.

  When Paige had accosted me in the last lesson the day before, I’d been totally blind-sided. I’d had no idea how she’d found out about the bet, but I’d been willing to try to work it out. Until I’d found out that, the whole time I’d been falling harder and harder for her, I’d been nothing but a bet to her.

  There was an annoying sense of karma about the whole thing and I knew I really shouldn’t have been surprised. It all just went to further prove that love was bullshit. Had love not been bullshit, we could have got through it like calm, rational people. But since love was bullshit, karma saved us all the hassle and ended it for us.

  Karma was the bitch.

  “How did he and Paige outdo each other?” Leo asked.

  I sighed. “Bets were made.”

  “Bets were won,” Jendo pointed out.

  “So why does it feel like we lost?” Rufio asked.

  “What was the bet?” Leo asked.

  I huffed another sigh. “I bet the boys I could pop her cherry. She apparently bet her friends she could get me to fall in love with her then break my heart and pop my ego.”

  “Ergo, they both actually won,” Rufio whispered to Leo.

  “But that’s good right? I mean the winning?”

  “What part of broken heart and popped ego did you miss?” I grumbled.

  “So, you do believe in love?”

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “No.”

  “But you just said–”

  I took a deep breath so as to not lose my cool. “If it was love, it would have worked out, Leo. It didn’t–”

  “Ergo, not love,” Rufio finished.

  “Then how did Paige win?”

  “Because numb nuts over here is lying to himself,” Jendo said.

  “If you arseholes hadn’t been running your mouths in the locker room, this wouldn’t have happened,” I snapped.

  “We said we were sorry,” Rufio answered,

  “Why did you make the bet anyway?” Leo asked.

  I rubbed my hand over my face. “I didn’t know her at the time. Besides, none of it was real so it doesn’t matter.”

  “A decent guy wouldn’t have made the bet in the first place.”

  “Well, Leo. I guess you can sign me up for being the bad guy.”

  “But why are you the bad guy?”

  I let out a very heavy breath and told myself to be patient with him. “I just am.”

  “Do you think it makes you stronger for me and Mum?”

  I surreptitiously looked at Jendo and Rufio. These were not the sorts of conversations I enjoyed having in front of them. Not because I was worried they’d think less of me, but because I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to call me out if they thought I was bullshitting.

  It helped then that I was averse to lying to Leo.

  “Honestly, yes,” I answered.

  Leo nodded thoughtfully, then turned to me and said, “You know being strong doesn’t mean you have to be a dick.”

  Rufio totally failed to contain his laugh, and Jendo wasn’t much better. Leo was smiling at me, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “Yeah. I guess I thought being strong meant bottling up my emotions – not showing weakness,” I said, shaking my head wryly.

  “Emotion isn’t weak, it’s human,” Leo said.

  “When the hell did you get so wise?” I asked him as the others laughed.

  Leo shrugged. “Eh. I got it off my brother when he was busy forgetting he was a dick.”

  “When was that?” Rufio asked, sounding like he didn’t believe it was possible.

  “When he was with Paige,” Leo sai
d simply and everyone’s laughter died on their lips almost reverently.

  “He’s right,” Jendo said.

  “Don’t remind me,” I begged.

  “Are you finally ready to admit you fell for her?” Rufio challenged.

  “Can I say no?”

  “If you want to lie to everyone and yourself,” Jendo answered. “Yes.”

  I groaned in annoyance. “I don’t want to admit it.”

  “Why not? She broke your heart. So what?”

  I blinked as I sat up and looked at him. “What do you mean so what?”

  “So, what are you going to do about it?”

  “What do you…?”

  “Are you going to sit around a mope like a loser?” Jendo asked.

  “Or are you going to do something and get your girl?” Rufio finished for him.

  “She… It was all a bet to her. None of it was real.”

  “How do you know?” Leo asked.

  “What?”

  “How do you know it wasn’t real? You said you made a bet, but you fell for her. How do you know the same didn’t happen to her?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Because she would have said something.”

  “Did you?” Jendo accused.

  “I tried to.”

  “How hard?”

  I stammered for a moment.

  How hard had I actually tried to convince her it wasn’t all for the bet? As soon as I’d found out she’d made her own bet, my pride had taken over and I’d lost my shit with her. I hadn’t tried talking to her. I hadn’t tried to tell her that she meant more than the bet to me because I was fixated on the fact there was no way I could have become more than a bet to her.

  I might have done my best to make her think otherwise, but she had actually absolutely shredded my ego and my reaction had proved just how apt the ‘fragile male ego’ description was.

  It wasn’t all she’d achieved though. I might have popped her cherry. But if a love cherry was a thing, she well and truly popped mine along with my ego. I’d fallen for her hard.

  So, I’d inadvertently lied to Leo. One of the things I promised myself I wouldn’t do. It seemed you weren’t the only person who could decide if love was for you. It seemed, if the right person came along, they could do a damned sight lot of convincing without you even realising it until it was too late.

  Not that I fancied myself in love with Paige. Not really and completely. But the potential had definitely been there. Whatever Paige and I had been doing had felt like it could have become something amazingly special in just how ordinary and normal it was.

  Because, I realised now, true love – real love – wasn’t all grand gestures and sweeping romances. It wasn’t all-consuming and obsessive like Jendo’s bloody romance novels.

  It wasn’t the big things that you could easily count off on your fingers like you had to justify your spending habits to your bank account or your calorie intake to your new jeans.

  It was the small things that you had trouble explaining because they sounded so ridiculously mundane to whoever you were talking to.

  Real love was in the way she smiled at me when she thought I was being an idiot, but she (not so) secretly loved it.

  Real love was in the way she had the confidence to speak her mind and not worry about me judging her for it.

  Real love was the way I felt like I’d stood up too quickly every time I saw her.

  Real love was the way it wasn’t just the thought of her tits or arse that got me hard, but the feeling of holding her in my arms and how sweet her kiss was.

  Real love just is.

  It was time to admit that real love just is something I had to take a chance on. And Paige was the only chance I wanted to take it on.

  Because the truth was, I didn’t have to see Paige to feel like I’d stood up too fast. I just had to think about her and my whole world turned upside down in the most amazing way. And if that made me weak, then consider me weak. We’d both made bets – by all accounts we’d both won our bets. But why couldn’t we win something else while we were at it?

  I just had to make her see that, even though I was trying to win my bet, that didn’t mean I’d lied to her. And I had to hope I wasn’t the only one who’d gone and lost even as I’d won.

  I gave a heavy, sighed laugh as I looked at Jendo, Rufio and Leo. I could see on their faces that they all knew what conclusion I’d come to. But they were all also going to make me say it out loud.

  “Okay. My pride got in the way and I didn’t try at all,” I told them.

  “To be clear, you’re admitting you’re in love with her?” Rufio asked.

  “Uh…” I started. “I’m admitting…” I sighed. “Fine. Fine. I’m so far gone for her, maybe I am in love with her.”

  “And what are we going to do about it?” Leo asked.

  “We?” I looked at him and he nodded.

  “We. What are we going to do about it? How are you going to tell her?”

  “Big gesture,” Jendo said.

  “This isn’t one of your romance books, mate,” I laughed.

  “No. But that shit works man.”

  “The formal!” Rufio cried excitedly. “Let’s do the late entrance, you see each other across the room while she’s dancing with some other shithead–”

  “Dean Longford,” Jendo suggested.

  “Dick,” Leo muttered.

  Rufio pointed at Jendo and Leo victoriously. “Yes! She’s dancing with Longford. She thinks the night is perfect aside from the ache your absence causes that she’s trying to forget. You walk in, looking fucking dapper in your rented tux of course. Your eyes meet across the room. She’s unsure what your intentions are. You smile hesitantly, apologetically, as you take a couple of steps towards her.” Rufio jumped onto the couch, in full dramatic mode. “She stops. Longford wonders what she’s doing. He looks at you and the challenge is given. But you’ve only got eyes for your girl and you’re watching, hope tearing at your still raw heart, as she lets go of him and steps towards you.

  “She’s got a question on her face. You hope yours has an answer. Longford tries to get her attention. But she shrugs him off, picks up her skirts and runs towards you. You catch her in your arms, kissing her deeply as you swing her around. Her arms wrap around you and, when you finally put her down, she asks you to forgive her. You tell her there’s nothing to forgive. She says ‘I love you’. You say ‘I know’. Another kiss, some laughter, and you dance the night away. We fade to black and everyone lives happily ever after.”

  Jendo and Leo started clapping and Rufio took a bow.

  I, meanwhile, couldn’t help laughing, but I was applauding him as well. “And we need Jendo, why?” I chuckled.

  “Thank you. Thank you,” Rufio said with another bow.

  I shoved him. “Yeah. I love it and we’re putting it in the next novel. But that’s not me, man.”

  “Novel,” Jendo breathed pointedly.

  “What about it?”

  “Do her up a page.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Yes!” Rufio and Leo cried.

  Jendo shrugged like it was obvious. “You don’t want to do the dramatic – if slightly clichéd – formal scene? Do you. Draw it.”

  I thought about that and, since I didn’t have any immediate arguments about it, decided I could do that.

  “Okay.” I got up and ran up to my room for my sketch book.

  “I didn’t mean now!” Jendo yelled.

  “And were we supposed to do the formal scene next week?” I replied sarcastically.

  “Fair play,” he called back as I thundered back down the stairs

  I dropped on the floor in front of the coffee table and opened my book. The others crowded me as I started sketching.

  “Go with the pop theme,” Jendo offered.

  “Explode into a heart!” Rufio said.

  “Tell her you love her,” Leo said.

&n
bsp; “Oh, make her a super hero.”

  “Go cliché, but not tired.”

  “Add a dragon!”

  I tried to block out their suggestions for a while, but gave up after about fifteen minutes of them arguing about the best way for me to tell Paige I loved her. They ranged from utterly sappy to the very definition of proud male ego.

  “Can you guys just give me a minute to think,” I grumbled.

  Finally, they just all huddled around me in silence as my pencil worked overtime to mock up my idea. Three pages later, I’d ended up with a mock up for seven frames. They weren’t perfect yet, but we had the concept.

  “There?” I asked, showing it to the boys.

  There was silence as they looked it over. I waited in the most nervousness I’d felt in a long time.

  Rufio got this glassy look in his eyes as he smiled softly.

  Leo was grinning like we’d won the lottery.

  And Jendo was nodding appreciatively.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “That is adorable,” Rufio told me.

  “It’s perfect,” Leo said.

  “Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Jendo finished.

  “Okay. So, we’re doing this?” I looked around at them.

  “Yep,” they all said.

  I nodded. “Okay then.”

  I spent the next two weeks of the holidays making it perfect. I filled half my sketchbook with different versions until Jendo threatened to send it to her for me because “it’s fucking perfect already, you pussy.” All three of them came with me to stick it in her letterbox the last day of the holidays.

  All I could do was hope that maybe we hadn’t lost everything.

  Chapter 22: Paige

  I’d figured it out. At least, I’d thought I’d figured it out. And I was a little embarrassed to say that Bash might have been right.

  The last Friday of the holidays, I’d found an envelope in my letterbox. In it was a folded-up page I instantly recognised as Bash’s style of graphic novel – I’d learnt not to call it a comic.

  There was the girl with the tattoos and glasses, looking totally badarse as she stood in front of the guy with the kilt. In the next frame, she took the lollipop out of her mouth and stabbed him in the chest with it and it looked like it was popping something. In the next, his heart was big and open. The guy in the kilt said, ‘Tease me, princess. But not like this.’ The next was just him, looking forlorn, saying, ‘I’m yours.’ The next was her, looking like a still from the part in Cinderella where she transforms. Next came her, simply…her as she looked at him in confusion. The final frame on the page had him reaching for her as he asked, ‘Can you admit you’re mine?’