Dan puts one hand on the bar top and vaults over it with impressive ease. Landing right in front of me. I’m close enough to distinguish the gray-green color of his eyes with no problem at all.
He reaches back to the bar and grabs another bottle of champagne. “It’s sort of hot in here, isn’t it? Want to go out on the terrace for a bit?”
I swallow hard. “There’s a terrace?”
Dan laughs. “You’ve never been here before, have you?” he says, and it’s not really a question. “Come on, I’ll show you. Prepare to be impressed.”
Dan holds out his other hand. I’m so unused to any kind of boy/girl stuff that it takes me a long time to realize that he wants me to take it. His palm is warm and dry, his fingers strong as they wrap around mine. Thank God I did my nails this morning.
That pang of relief doesn’t last, though. Right now I want to run away. I want to disappear in a puff of smoke. I want Dan McAndrew never to let go of my hand.
Dan is leading me across the room to a pair of glass French doors. I follow him. What else can I do? If he’d asked me if I wanted to watch paint dry, I would have gone with him and pretended that drying paint was the most interesting thing I ever saw in my life.
All of a sudden I start thinking about my New Year’s wishes. I already got my breasts. Could this mean I’m going for number three?
Might I actually get to kiss Dan McAndrew?
I’m still clutching my champagne glass, and now I gulp down the rest of the contents as we walk. The thought of kissing Dan is so frightening that my entire lower body seems to be losing control of itself.
Please, God, don’t let me make a fool of myself, I pray, more fervently than I’ve prayed for anything in my life. Please, God . . .
five
“SQUEEZE ME”
I don’t make any sort of exclamation when Dan and I step out onto the terrace, but that’s only because I can’t think of words big enough to convey my amazement. It stretches away in the moonlight, so large I can barely see where it ends. There’s a super-modern fountain in the center, a ribbon of water flowing over a granite loop. Topiary plants, those weird ones that snake up round a central wooden post, surround the outer wall, which, as far as I can tell, is made from sheets of glass.
The moon is nearly full, but even if it were pitch-dark outside, no problem, because, believe it or not, there’s actually lighting set into the stone floor. Dan turns to see my reaction, and it’s clearly all he hoped it would be. He bursts out laughing.
“Never fails to strike people dumb,” Dan says as he leads me along one side of the fountain to a little recessed stone bench surrounded by more topiary.
“It’s almost like being in a garden.” I hike up my jeans a little before I sit down. “You’d never know it was a roof terrace.”
“That’s the point.”
“Well, apart from the lights.” I lift my feet to see the dim light emanating from under the bench more clearly.
Dan reaches for my glass and refills it. “Yeah, you generally don’t get underfloor lighting in gardens.”
“They must have so much money,” I blurt out, and then I wince. Commenting on how much money people have is really vulgar. My grandmother would have a heart attack if she’d heard me say that.
But Dan doesn’t seem offended. “That’s why this place is party central. Nadia’s parents are never here, and they don’t care how much she spends on her parties, just as long as she doesn’t bother them. Same old story, just with a ton of money, right?”
There’s an edge to this I don’t quite understand, but I nod as if I do, and sip more champagne.
“So how come I haven’t seen you hanging out with them before?” Dan asks, shaking back his thick brown hair, so it’s no longer falling in his face.
I’m sitting demurely, legs crossed, like a lady (I’m too nervous to relax at all), but Dan is straddling the bench in what I can’t help feeling is a very manly way. His hands are pressed in front of him on the bench and he’s leaning forward, so his face is close to mine. It’s an overpowering sensation. I’m torn between simultaneous impulses to lean in and kiss him, and get up and flee. I almost think I’m going to get a cramp somewhere because the strain on my body is so extreme.
Dan is still looking at me with those captivating gray-green eyes, waiting for an answer.
“Um, I’m really busy a lot of the time with my gymnastics,” I eventually say.
I don’t want him to realize that I’ve only just been picked up by Plum and her set, like a toy they might have a craze for one day and forget all about the next. I don’t want him to know that only in the last six months, when I shot up a couple of inches and sprouted curves, have I remotely looked like the kind of girl that Dan McAndrew might want to take out onto a terrace for a tête-à-tête.
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Dan says. “You were in those workout clothes when I saw you the other day.”
“Yeah, I was a bit sweaty,” I say, utterly embarrassed. “I usually like to go and shower afterward, and then I have a lot of homework to do, so it’s hard to come out much in the evenings. Gymnastics takes up a lot of time. . . .”
God, I sound as if I’m a finalist in the Most Boring Teenager of All Time competition. Nice going, Scarlett. I sneak a look to see if Dan has nodded off to sleep, but he still looks interested. It’s some sort of miracle.
“Gymnastics, wow,” he says, his face lighting up a bit. “That’s so cool. I’d love to try that.”
I try to stifle a giggle, but I can’t. “You’re a bit old for anything serious now,” I tell him. “You have to start really young if you want to do competitions.”
Dan puts his hands on his hips in mock anger. “You don’t think I’m strong enough? I do a ton of sports!”
I’m goggling at him, I know, but I can’t stop, because now he’s rolling up one of his shirtsleeves to above the elbow. Dan flexes his arm and I swoon.
“Go on, feel!” he insists, flashing me his gorgeous smile. “Squeeze me!”
My cheeks feel hot and are probably as red as strawberries. Thank God it’s dark out here. “Well, I would, but—”
“Go on, Scarlett. What are you afraid of?” Dan taunts me playfully.
When I think about how those backless girls would be all over him by now, I reach out my hand without any further hesitation and gingerly squeeze his forearm.
You’d think I would be familiar with the feel of a man’s arm by now, after all the times Ricky has spotted me at gymnastics. But the sensations coursing through me are so different. Dan might be from a different species. His skin is velvety soft on the inside of his forearm, and the outer arm is lightly hairy, but the hairs are delicate, totally unlike Ricky’s rough scratchy ones. I squeeze more. To be honest, after Ricky’s bulging, gym-pumped muscles, Dan’s are considerably less evident, but I can feel the strength there, and it makes me blush even harder. Electricity fizzes through me and my hand feels as though it’s burning. I pull it back.
“See?” Dan says. “I could do gymnastics, right?”
“Um, yeah,” I mumble.
It’s difficult not to think about what other physical activities he’s good at. I have to distract myself or I might have a mini fainting episode like I did at the fountain.
“That was a good vault you did over the bar,” I say, inspiration striking me. I’ve heard that you should tell boys when they’re good at physical stuff—they love that.
“Oh, I do stuff like that all the time,” Dan says with a tinge of arrogance in his voice. It’s really sexy.
“You’ve got good pop,” I add.
Dan’s brow furrows in confusion. “Good what?”
“Fast-twitch muscles,” I explain. Now that I’m on my own ground, talking about stuff I know, I feel more at ease, which is why I swivel around to face him. “You need to have really fast reflexes to be good at gymnastics. Like when you land from a front handspring and just pop up in the air for a front somersault.”
�
��Pop! I get it,” Dan says, smiling widely. He’s enjoying this, and I feel a rush of pride that we’re having such a good conversation. “I bet you’re really good, right?”
Oh my God, I think I just batted my eyelashes at him. “I’m okay,” I reply, trying to be modest.
Dan doesn’t buy it, though. “Come on, you train all the time. You must be really good.”
“I’ve won some stuff,” I admit. “Not major competitions or anything like that. I mean, I’ll never make the nationals.”
Dan’s eyebrows arch up. “You’ve got medals?”
I smirk a bit at the memory of winning second place for the floor exercise a couple years ago. “Some trophies.”
“Hey, show me something!” Dan asks, his eyes shining.
“What?”
“Show me some gymnastics. Go on!”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. “It’s dark. There’s a stone floor. I’ve been drinking.”
“Ohhhh.” Dan does a sort of boy-pout. His lips look wonderful when he does that, all full and luscious. “There must be something you could do,” he says persuasively.
For a split second I actually consider trying to pull off two back handsprings on a stone floor after two glasses of champagne. I want to impress him that much. Then I roll my eyes at my own idiocy. God, the things we’ll do to show off for people we’re mad keen on.
Dan’s still staring at me, those gray-green eyes huge and beautiful. He blinks momentarily, and his feathery eyelashes seem long enough to brush against his cheekbones. He’s impossible to refuse.
I sigh, kick off my sandals, and give him my glass to hold.
“Woo-hoo!” he cheers.
My jeans are fairly tight, so I have to be careful. But I just realized that I don’t need to do anything that difficult. Dan won’t have the faintest idea what’s really hard and what isn’t. I stand up, flash him a smile (now that I’m performing I have all the confidence in the world, I’m so used to it) and lunge forward, kicking up to a handstand.
Dan hoots and claps gleefully, the idiot. Like this is even hard. I settle into the handstand and sink my back into enough of an arch to let me move. And then I start walking. Down the length of the terrace for ten feet or so; 180-degree turn, back arching just a bit more to pull that off. Walk back down again to where I started, hands sore from the cracks in the stone pavement. Right in front of the bench, I do a full 360-degree turn, front-splitting my legs for full effect. Dan is applauding like mad now. I bring my legs straight up, drop back into bridge, and stand upright. Ow, that last bit was too ambitious with the champagne in my system. I feel a bit sick and dizzy. I wobble on the balls of my feet before I get full balance. I am so not used to drinking.
But Dan is too busy cheering to notice.
“That was amazing!” he says with such enthusiasm I feel a huge wave of pride, even though I’ve been doing handstand walks since I was nine.
“Scarlett? My God, that was so good!”
Another male voice echoes in the night air. I swivel around and find myself looking at pink-and-white Simon, wearing a blue blazer and jeans, his blond hair slicked back. He looks quite good all dressed up, but I almost laugh because he’s goggling at me as if I’d just turned into a cartoon version of myself.
“Hey, Simon,” Dan says, and he’s clearly not happy to see him. “Show’s over, mate.”
“I know you said you did gymnastics, Scarlett, but that was incredible!” Simon compliments me, and although what I did was bog-standard in my world, I’m still flattered by his sheer, friendly enthusiasm.
“Thanks,” I say, mindlessly wiping my hands on my brand-new jeans.
“Venetia said she saw you going out onto the terrace, so I thought I’d find you and say hi,” Simon explains.
“Well, you’ve found her, and she’s busy,” Dan interrupts. “Take a number.”
Simon stuffs his hands in his pockets, obviously embarrassed. “Oh, am I interrupting? Sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“Scarlett, we need to toast your gymnastic skills!” Dan cuts off Simon’s apology. He’s refilled our glasses and now he holds them up, offering one to me.
“I’m sort of hanging out with Dan at the moment,” I say to Simon, equally embarrassed.
“Right, right, yeah, got it . . .”
Simon backs away. I think he keeps backing right through the French doors and into the flat again, but I don’t see him go, because I’m walking over to Dan to take the glass he’s holding out to me. He watches me all the way, and normally that would make me utterly self-conscious, but my success at the handstand walk, coupled with the fact that now I’m barefoot, which is a state in which I feel confident, helps so much that I actually manage a sort of sexy swing of the hips as I approach him.
I take the glass. I clink it against his. I gaze up into his eyes and smile. He’s really tall now that my sandals are off.
“You’re tiny,” he says, reading my mind. “I could pick you up in the palm of my hand.”
Wow, he thinks I’m tiny! Podgy, stomach-muffin me, with my thirty-four Ds and my big round bum! I melt toward him (literally), and the next thing I know, Dan is taking the glass from me and putting both of them down on the bench. And then he turns around and pulls me toward him, and my face is tilting up toward his as if an invisible hand was tugging it back, and I can feel his arms around my back, and his head comes down really slowly.
I feel his warm breath on my face. His chest presses hard against mine, flattening my breasts, which makes me feel really embarrassed about them. He nudges my head sideways so he can reach my mouth without our noses getting in the way, and I think Oh, so that’s how it’s done. . . .
And then his lips are gently pressing against mine. They’re really soft. I don’t know what I was expecting. I’ve never kissed anyone on the mouth before. Sixteen and never been kissed. God, how tragic. I’m terrified of doing it wrong. At least I’ve seen a ton of kisses on TV and in films. What did people do before television? How did they have any idea what it meant to kiss someone properly? You can read about stuff in books, but that’s nothing compared to seeing it happen.
It’s part of going to an all-girls’ school, of course: if I’d been at a normal, mixed school, I’d have snogged at least a few boys by now. But then this wouldn’t be my first kiss. With Dan. On this terrace. With a soft night breeze lifting my hair, and stars in the sky. So I’d rather have it this way. And it’s not as if he’s pulled away, laughing at me and telling me I obviously don’t know what I’m doing. . . .
God, Scarlett! Where is your brain going? I’m so dazed with what’s happening I feel like I’m on drugs, or drunk, or both. I feel as light as a feather (dizzy and spinning with the sensation of Dan’s lips on mine and the extraordinary concept that it’s me, out of all the girls here, that he wants to kiss) and as heavy as lead (I’m gigantic, I must weigh twenty pounds more than Plum, how can he bear to touch me?). Dan’s hand is on my waist and I’m terrified that it will (a) stray down and feel the fat on my side, or (b) stray up and touch my breast, which would make me scared that he’s only kissing me because of them, but he’s kissing me and kissing me and I’m kissing him back and suddenly I can’t think of anything but his mouth.
They say kissed, but really it’s hundreds of tiny kisses. You don’t see that so much on TV. I wasn’t expecting this: Dan is kissing all around my lips, till they feel swollen, big and pouty like a supermodel’s. And now he’s nipping at them, biting them lightly, but somehow that’s incredibly exciting. I feel something inside me melt and pour like honey, and I realize that I’m nipping back at him, teasing him with little bites like he’s teasing me. He groans. That’s a little scary, because he sounds like a man when he makes that sound. It comes from deep down inside him, like the part of me that’s melting.
And then Dan wraps his arms around me tightly, and his tongue slides into my mouth, warm and wet.
I knew this was going to happen. But I thought I would have to brace myself, because it wo
uld feel weird, and instead it feels unbelievably sexy. It’s the sexiest thing I have ever felt in my life. I hear someone moaning and I realize that it’s me, and Dan’s making that deep groaning noise again and clutching me to him, and I’m clinging on to him for dear life, and my tongue is meeting his.
We’re entwined like someone’s roped our bodies tightly together. We’re holding on to each other like we’ll drown if we let go. I can’t imagine ever wanting this to stop.
And then the terrible thing happens, and nothing will ever be the same again.
six
“YOU KILLED HIM”
All of a sudden, Dan’s grasp loosens. He jerks back from me so abruptly that cold air rushes in on the front of my body. My hands drop, too. I feel stupid, holding on to him when he’s let go of me. I must have done something that showed him how inexperienced I was. He’s probably embarrassed that he ever wanted to kiss me in the first place.
However, that fear drifts away and another takes its place when I see that Dan’s hands are scrabbling at his jeans pocket. His skin is losing its color and his eyes are fixed on me, like he’s in a state of sheer panic. He manages to gasp out some sounds that resemble words.
Oh my God. Now I realize that he’s choking—
“Scarlett,” he manages, clawing at his pocket. “Help me. . . .”
Inside my head, I’m screaming. What did I do wrong?
Dan staggers backward. He’s wheezing and clutching at his chest. When his legs buckle underneath him, the scream inside my head finally comes out of my mouth.
I run toward Dan and catch him just as he’s about to knock his head on the bench, and I lower him to the ground. It’s even harder to make sure he doesn’t crash and hit himself, because he doesn’t put his hands out to brace his fall, or cling to me: his hands have moved up to his throat. And when I’ve got my breath back, because six feet of teenage boy is not a light weight to support in your arms, I scream over and over again.
But the music is loud inside, and everyone’s laughing. I banish any embarrassment I might feel at shoving my hands in Dan’s pockets and dive in to see what he was looking for, if there’s something that might fix whatever’s going on with him. And I keep screaming at the top of my lungs, screaming till my throat’s raw and painful.
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