Crushworthy

by Sara Lawrence

  “Where are Liv and Charlie?” Jinx leaned over and yelled in Chastity’s ear as the two of them swayed next to each other in Jamie’s palatial front room, trying to make herself heard above the amazing tunes a female DJ—wearing a short, tight purple boob tube dress over bare shoulders and legs liberally dusted with sparkly body powder, strappy silver sandals and a pair of huge angel wings made of white feathers and silver sequins—was spinning on the decks. As soon as the dirty blonde, slightly louche-looking self-styled angel started playing Prince’s “Kiss,” pretty much everyone at the party rammed themselves into the living room at once. Big as the room was, since there was not enough space for anyone to throw any shapes to speak of, they were currently all jumping up and down in time to the beat. Bouncing off each other and everyone around them, splashes from raised drinks occasionally landing on their hot skin and momentarily cooling it down, the girls were having the most incredible time.

  Jinx had seen Jamie a few times out of the corner of her eye, but hadn’t yet managed to say hello to him. He was wearing now faded, once dark blue Wrangler jeans, a white T-shirt with a picture of KFC’s Colonel Sanders on the front in neon pink, kind of like an Andy Warhol print, and Spring Court shoes. The overall effect was way cool and pretty amazing to a completely smitten Jinx. Although the meeting and greeting of all his friends, as far as it appeared to her anyway, was obviously a bloody time consuming old business and Jinx was beginning to wonder whether she would ever get him alone.

  George had resurfaced and was studiously avoiding catching Lydia’s eye whilst chatting up lots of the more arty girls who were mostly wearing variations on tight black outfits accented with flashes of bright neon colour—shoes, handbags, hair bands, or chunky statement pieces of fluorescent jewelry. Lydia, conversely, was in the thick of what looked like an off-duty doting rugby scrum. Lots of well-built boys wearing pink, blue, or white open-necked shirts ubiquitously and unimaginatively paired with pale blue jeans and brown loafers were clamouring to fetch her more drinks or invite her to dance. She looked a hell of a lot happier than when they’d arrived, that was for sure.

  Although Chastity and Paul arrived at 8:30, about half an hour after Jinx’s crew, there was still no sign of Liv and Charlie and neither of them—most unusually—were answering their mobile phones. Whatever, it was now half past nine, the party was in full swing, and they were all so busy having a total blast they didn’t give the missing two more than the occasional, cursory thought and a quick, mental head shake at their amazing negligence.

  Jinx and Liberty both noticed Chastity kept edging towards them and away from her boyfriend during a few more energetic songs. Eventually, decidedly rosy-faced, the foursome stumbled outside to cool down in the chill night air. Sweating quite a lot after all that vigorous aerobic exercise on the dance floor, they were also flushed with the combination of great music, stunning raspberry mojitos, caipirinhas, and dirty martinis that the bar guys were dishing out inside at a rate of knots. They found a spare few silk-striped floor cushions scattered around a low table holding tea lights in glass jars, some dirty champagne flutes, and a massive bong. The girls flung themselves down and kicked off their shoes whilst Paul went to the bar on a cocktail mission.

  “Fucking hell,” sighed Liberty, taking a huge breath as she leant on her elbows and flexed her neck back and from side to side before exhaling slowly. “This party is fantastic. Where are Liv and Charlie?”

  “Don’t forget the triplets!” Jinx said, giggling as she kicked off her golden heels and curled her legs underneath her.

  “What about the triplets?” Chastity asked, reaching into the black quilted Chanel handbag on a gold chain her mum had given her for Christmas, pulling out a lump of sticky hash and chucking it at Jinx. “Are they coming tonight, too? When did you speak to them?”

  “We bumped into them on the street when we got here,” Liberty said. She was not so subtly eyeing a beautiful dark-haired boy who had just sat down at the next table and was smiling right back at her. “They practically created a public disturbance when they stopped to talk to us, as per.”

  “You’re damn right,” added Jinx, “and a private one too, judging by Lydia’s freak-out when George couldn’t take his eyes off them. I never liked her anyway. And she had the cheek to tell Lib and I we’d understand ‘one day.’ The fucking bitch is only bloody twenty-two. Anyway, I think he’s well rid of her.”

  “Yes,” Chastity said, in much quieter tones than her normal voice. She looked over her shoulder. Paul was coming towards them holding a circular silver tray laden with fruit-filled cocktails carefully in front of him. “I guess he is.”

  An Everybody’s Free remix came on and Chastity cocked her head to one side, frowning thoughtfully at the lyrics before she turned back round to face the table. Next to her, Jinx, who thought Chastity was definitely not quite as enthusiastic about the evening as she could have been, was offering her a toke on the bong. She held her hair back, leant towards the bong, inhaled deeply and exhaled a potent cloud of smoke alongside an appreciative naughty giggle just as Paul reached them with the tray.

  “For fuck’s sake, Chastity,” he said, looking really cross and not bothering to lower his voice in front of the others, “you know I can’t stand it when you get stoned.”

  “Stop being such a fucking knob, Paul,” Chastity hissed, her blue eyes flashing cobalt daggers at him. “You’re really bugging me. I can do whatever the fuck I like.”

  Even though they were pretty baked, Liberty and Jinx looked at each other in horror—they had never heard Chastity and Paul speak so dismissively to each other like this.

  “Mojito, Jinx?” Paul said, avoiding Chastity’s eyes and pointedly turning his back on her to face the others. “Liberty?”

  “Um…thanks Paul,” said Jinx quietly, not quite sure where to look. “That’s great.”

  Liberty accepted her drink equally meekly. They immediately started downing their cocktails in great long gulps—not least for something to do in the uncomfortable face of such icy froideur coming in waves off their formerly loved-up pals.

  Chastity stood up without a word, surprisingly steady on her feet given the huge amount of high-grade hash she’d just ingested. She turned on the thin steel heel of her black pointy Prada boots and stalked off in the direction of the relative privacy of the hallway inside. It was obvious to all of them that her intention was for Paul to follow right after her. Without a word and with an extremely pissy look on his face, he did so, leaving behind Jinx and Liberty, who were more than a little drunk, stoned as hell, and just as shocked by the angry scene they’d just witnessed.

  “Trouble in paradise,” said Jinx, giggling nervously at Liberty. “Who’d have thought it?”

  “I would,” Liberty replied mischievously, giggling right back at her. “They’ve been bitching and moaning at each other all term. I’m not surprised in the slightest. Oh look, here come the triplets!”

  “And Jamie,” Jinx moaned. She spotted him striding along purposefully behind the triplets. What she really felt like doing right now was putting her head in her hands at this unfortunate conjunction, but she knocked that impulse on its head and smiled widely and—she hoped—alluringly in the direction from which all four were descending on them. “Please God let me not make a fool of myself again,” she whispered, sending a not-so-silent prayer fleetingly heavenwards.

  “Don’t worry, Jinx,” Liberty said quickly, after catching all but the first word of this plaintive statement on the strengthening breeze coming off the sea. She gave the triplets an admiring once-over, squeezed Jinx’s leg in what was supposed to be a gesture of reassurance but mostly succeeded only in wrinkling the silk shift dress even further, and smiled encouragingly at her. “You look stunning. Anyway,” she continued, ruining somewhat the previous good effect of her words, “pretty as they are, you’re so much more fun than them. And Jamie likes you, we know he does.”

  Jinx’s attention was fully diverted from the triplets—and
indeed every single other person in the entire world—when Jamie dropped down right next to her, threw an arm round her shoulders, pulled her in close, and dropped a tiny kiss on the top of her head in greeting.

  It took Jinx a couple of seconds to come round from the inevitable swoon this action put her into. When she did so she found Jamie’s face level with her own. He was staring deeply into her eyes, his lips mere millimeters from her own, and the hand he’d snaked round to the nape of her neck was tugging suggestively on some curly blonde tendrils of hair. He was so close she could see each individual freckle on his nose, the different gradations of colour in his green irises and the creased vertical lines along the bottom of his lower lip. He was going to kiss her, she knew he was, and at that moment she both closed her eyes and did actually stop breathing. She felt the hand tighten against her neck, pulling her forwards slightly and then Jinx felt Jamie’s mouth press hard against her own. She parted her lips involuntarily and gasped and pretty much as soon as she felt his tongue enter her mouth he pulled away, squeezed her shoulder, and dropped into the seat next to her.

  “So, Jinx,” said Jamie, breaking away, hugging her close to his chest, and tracing the line of her jaw with his forefinger. Even though this position was actually quite uncomfortable and her neck was beginning to ache from being twisted unnaturally to the side, this action sent Jinx into practically the biggest spin she’d ever been in her whole life after the earlier kiss. “What’s up?”

  “Mmm,” she murmured, closing her eyes for a second, savouring the sensation and surreptitiously trying to stretch her neck by rolling her head round without appearing insane. “What a freaking great party. Thanks so much for…ooomfh!”

  Jinx sat up in surprise after finding herself suddenly launched from Jamie’s supportive arm into an undignified sprawl on her side of the cushion with no warning whatsoever. How did that happen? Where did he go in such a hurry? She looked round in confusion before frowning as the reason for Jamie’s sudden abdication swam into focus in front of her. Her gaze fell on her brother and stuck there. She might have known George would bloody well have something to do with it. There he was, the grinning idiot, shoving Liberty practically off her seat as he squeezed himself onto the corner of it, smarming over the triplets at the same time as patting Jamie vigorously on the back whilst congratulating his best friend for holding yet another brilliant bash.

  “Drinks, girls?” George winked at Jinx. He was obviously beside himself with excitement at his good fortune that the girls he was really talking to had actually turned up, and mistakenly assumed his sister would share his enthusiasm.

  “Yes, thanks,” Jinx snapped straight back, knowing what he was up to and deciding to play him at his own game. “We’d love some, wouldn’t we Liberty?”

  “Um,” George replied, looking around at the triplets’ full glasses, their elegantly crossed legs and their charming smiles and mentally cursed his sister in the worst way. Dammit. He knew she had him over a barrel. He could hardly not get her what she wanted for fear of looking like a churlish bastard in front of these total honeys, could he? “Sure thing, Sis,” he continued in a level voice, smiling winningly at the identical stunners opposite him. “Coming right up.”

  “Grab me a Corona, mate,” Jamie shouted after George’s retreat before sitting down again. This time, he was opposite Jinx and Liberty and adjacent to the triplets, who were sitting at the head of the table, most attractively arranged around each other in a coil of slender denim-clad legs, perfectly highlighted sleek ash-blonde hair and a veritable cloud of Opium perfume. Drink order duly noted, Jamie turned his attention back to the incredibly interesting group of young ladies at this table.

  “So,” he said, leaning forward and smiling inclusively round the table at them, “is it true that you Stagmount girls have got a housemaster looking after you up there?”

  The girls were giggling helplessly as George returned with a cocktail in each hand and two bottles of Corona with lime sticking out of the two deep pockets at the front of his jeans.

  “I think something’s going on outside, mate,” he said to Jamie, nodding over to the bar, where the student Jamie had paid to act as chief security man was now in an anxious-looking huddle with the bar men. “They said something about a fight? I’d go and take a look if I were you.”

  “My apologies, ladies,” Jamie said, jumping up and making a mock bow, “but this delightful chat is most definitely to be continued! Don’t move!”

  “I spat in it by the way,” George murmured in Jinx’s ear just as she was finishing her first long swallow of delicious Sea Breeze and he was moving over to shamelessly steal Jamie’s prime seat adjacent to the triplets. “Hope you enjoy it!”

  “You asshole,” Jinx hissed back, swallowing the urgent desire she had to give her brother the worst dead arm he’d ever experienced, along with the remains of her drink. Or, better still, she could give him a dead leg—a really good one of those would have him limping for a couple of hours at least. Aside from anything else, she was steaming cross that he’d so effortlessly succeeded in getting rid of Jamie. George had obviously, she thought with a smug smile, mistakenly assumed Jamie fancied the triplets and got him out of the way so the field would be clear for himself. Well, she concluded with another smirk as she pulled the bottoms of her skinny jeans back down over the tops of her shoes, he’d get a surprise and a half when he realized that it wasn’t the stunning triplets Jamie was interested in but rather his own dear sister.

  “Come on, Lib,” said Jinx, she grabbed a half full bottle of Smirnoff that no one seemed to be drinking, stood up and beamed at the triplets. God, it wasn’t their fault her brother was such a freaking moron—and the more she saw of these girls, the more she liked them. “Let’s go and find Chastity. We should at least see how she’s doing.”

  “Where do you think Igor is?” Liberty asked as they wandered over to the crowd that was gathering fast by the balcony railings, looking at something happening on the road down below. “They give him the slip all the bloody time now.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Jinx, not really paying too much attention to Igor’s whereabouts since she was now much more engrossed in finding out what everyone was gazing at over the side. “He’s the worst bodyguard in the world. You’d think their dad would at least get someone who was up to the job, wouldn’t you?”

  As soon as Jinx had managed to squeeze herself into a small gap between two whooping boys and peer down herself, she turned round with a horrified expression on her face, grabbed Liberty’s hand and without a word pulled her along the decking and down the main staircase that led to the street.

  The sight that greeted them just outside the front door was so shocking it pulled them both up short for a few seconds. Chastity, her red face transformed by a veritable river of tears running down both cheeks, was screaming obscenities into a very cross-looking Paul’s ear.

  Just as Jinx was gathering some air into her lungs with which to scream at Chastity to let him go and get the hell off him, a police van, complete with flashing blues and a screaming siren, screeched to a handbrake halt at the side of the pavement.

  “Oh fuck,” said Jinx to Liberty, grabbing her best friend’s arm in horror as three policemen jumped out the back of the van and surrounded Chastity and Paul. “Fuck, fuck, FUCK!”

  Chastity, stunned into sudden sanity by the lights, noise, and close proximity to the boys in blue, raised her ghostly, tear-stained face to the policemen and stared at them in bewilderment. Paul, his own face an unbecoming shade of green that was becoming more virulent by the second, looked round at Chastity. She, very over-dramatically as far as Jinx and Liberty were concerned, fell to her knees by the side of what the voyeurs were pretty safe in their unanimous assumption was her ex-boyfriend. She lay curled in a defeated little heap on the pavement, her Chanel bag to the side of her, prostrate at the feet of the police as if she were begging forgiveness.

  Without any warning whatsoever, the frozen tableau in front o
f Jinx and Liberty began to show signs of movement. Paul creakily raised his head once more, turned and proceeded to deliver a direct stream of evil-smelling, orange projectile vomit towards Chastity’s stomach area, legs, and—cue involuntary shudder from Liberty—Prada boots. What had appeared to be taking place in slow-motion rewind, a simulacrum more real than the present original, became a hive of frenetic activity.

  “What the…” said the eldest policeman in disgust, covering his mouth and nose with his hand in a vain attempt to disguise the smell. “I’ve seen some sights in my life,” he continued, very much in the manner of an actor doing some warm-up exercises before he goes on stage, “let me tell you. But that right there is the most absolutely disgusting one yet. ‘Ere, love!” He bent down to address a by-now quietly sobbing Chastity, who was staring at her vomit-covered body in utter disbelief and wondering if she would ever in her life recover from this terrible scene. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m the one that’s not all right, for fuck’s sake!” said Paul bitterly, standing up and steadying himself on the ornate street lamp next to him when it was touch and go whether his legs would support him. “Why are you asking her? She…”

  Whatever slander Paul was about to commit against Chastity’s hitherto good name was lost as another stream of evil sick, more orange—if that was possible—vomit careered out of his mouth onto the pavement next to Chastity. The force of the projection was so great that it seemed to go on forever, and created a fearsome amount of splash-back as it hit. Unfortunately, where Chastity had shuffled on her knees out of the way of the first puddle in order to assess the damage to her person was right next to where the second stream was hitting. Jinx and Liberty found they were too disgusted even to turn away as the splashes landed all over Chastity’s face, causing her mascara to drip down from her now stuck-together eyelashes and her hair to stick to the side of her head where the sick landed. It was the most filthy fucking shower any of them had ever seen, and that was for sure.