Crushworthy

by Sara Lawrence

  “The bruises!” Jinx screamed, punching Chastity’s arm in excitement as she realized they must have been training in secret all term. No wonder they’d hardly been around and when they had they’d suffered all those suspicious injuries. It was such a cool thing to do, the three on the sidelines couldn’t help but feel slightly envious. What a freaking achievement.

  Before they could scream and yell at each other any more, Charlie’s round finished and it became obvious Liv was next. Charlie barely had time to pull her helmet off and wave at her school friends before she was surrounded by a crowd of skater boys, all of whom were clearly madly in love with her and showering her with more praise and attention than the others had ever seen at one time. This was an actual master class in how to make guys dig your action going on right in front of them right here.

  The others looked on, laughing. The music was so loud they could hardly hear themselves think, but they caught occasional glimpses of Liv leaping into the air above the heads of Charlie and the myriad boys gathering round to pat her on the back, kiss her cheek, and stuff their phone numbers into her deep pockets. Jinx, Liberty, and Chastity were transfixed by the spectacle, madly impressed, and very proud of their friends.

  Liberty spun around as the dark-haired boy from the party appeared from nowhere, tapped her on the arm, leant forward and whispered something in her ear. Whatever it was, it was clearly to her liking, for she beamed and leaned in close to hear the rest. His extremely tall, dark, and very handsome friend stared at Chastity for a second before instantly starting to chat her up. Jinx smiled at them both, moved away and turned round to scour the crowd, looking for Jamie. Her attention was momentarily diverted by a man clutching some delicious-looking sticky hot wings.

  Jinx stared at him and wondered if she was hungry. She was aware of something going on behind his head, but it took her a second to realize what she was seeing…

  There, to the side of the lowest tier of the silver bleachers, was Jamie. And he wasn’t alone, oh no, far from it. Attached to his face like a giant squid was a tall, leggy, very familiar blonde. Jinx turned round to check that Liberty and Chastity were still occupied before moving to the side to get a closer look.

  Yes, there was no mistaking it. Jamie and one of the triplets were engaged in a serious snogging session. The pair of them were sucking each other’s faces practically off down there, and they didn’t seem to care who saw them at it.

  Jinx stood there and stared at them. So many things flashed through her mind and she wondered if she’d been an absolute idiot about the whole Jamie thing. The two parties where he’d dumped her as if she had a severe case of nits when George had turned up; the way he’d always involved her friends in things, especially the night Chastity and Paul broke up; how it had taken him eight days to contact her after she’d last been seen leaving his premises in the back of a police van. Realizing Liberty and Chastity were engrossed in conversation and that Liv and Charlie were unlikely to emerge from the midst of their adoring throng anytime soon, Jinx got a fast grip on herself. She made the executive decision to remove herself from the scene ASAP, before Jamie looked up or she bumped into her brother—George was forever turning up where he wasn’t wanted; it was one of his special skills.

  Jinx turned on her heel and started marching determinedly up the steps to the main road opposite East Street. She was getting the hell out of here and she was getting out fast. The main thing bothering her was how foolish she felt. Not to mention how embarrassed she’d be when her friends found out. She needed a coffee and she needed to have a think, away from the hustle and bustle and the suddenly too-many dudes.

  Jinx paused on the esplanade and turned round to survey the scene on the beach beneath her. Jamie—the fucking snake—was still lip-to-lip with the triplet. Jinx gasped as she looked slightly to the right of them. There, as bold as you like, was another triplet, also busily kissing a boy who looked, on closer inspection, very familiar indeed. Shading her eyes with one hand against the bright March sun reflecting off the sea and almost blinding her in its intensity, Jinx used the other to steady herself against the railings and leant forward to get a closer look.

  “No way,” she muttered under her breath, hardly able to trust the incontrovertible evidence laid out right there in front of her eyes.

  “Way,” she said to herself, disbelievingly, as the boy relinquished his stranglehold on the triplet’s neck and turned his face towards Jinx’s general direction. She’d thought it was him, but Jinx was still shocked as hell to realize the second snogger was most definitely Paul. Chastity’s most recent ex-boyfriend was clearly as over their relationship as she was. Jinx giggled. She couldn’t help herself. She was pleased Paul wasn’t weeping over Chastity somewhere, but really—the whole scene was just too unexpected, too goddamn radical, and too freaking unlikely.

  Jinx stood by the traffic lights, waiting to cross the road. However much she tried to force herself back into a state of emotional devastation—what she imagined was appropriate when one has just seen the supposed love of one’s life kissing someone else by the bandstand—every time she thought about Jamie, Paul, and the triplets, a massive grin completely ruined the effect. Whichever way you looked at it, Jinx decided as she strode towards town, you had to hand it to the triplets—those girls really didn’t let anyone or anything get in the way of what they wanted. And what they wanted—and what they got—was fun, great big bucket loads of it.

  Jinx wended her way slowly through the back streets, thinking about how random and weird things were. She was just congratulating herself on how well she was holding herself together, and pondering her most recent realization that a girl could waste her whole life worrying yet still have no idea what was round the corner, when she heard a volley of beeps from a car horn. Jinx turned round ready to give the perpetrator the finger, or at the very least a bad death stare, when she clutched her hand to her mouth in shock at what she saw.

  Driving erratically down a thin alley to her left was a very familiar-looking battered black Volkswagen. As the car skidded to a halt, a tall, leggy blonde—unmistakably a triplet—moved out of the shadowy doorway she’d evidently been loitering in whilst waiting for her paramour, threw open the passenger door, sat down, and treated the driver to a tender kiss. Jinx snorted with a mix of glee and horror as she saw the driver’s profile. Although George was right there in front of her, she still had a hard time believing her own eyes. Those girls really didn’t care about what they did. But her crush and her brother? This was a hat trick of the first class. The car sped off up the hill and disappeared from view, but Jinx stayed rooted to her spot on the pavement. It really was, she decided, best to take life in a simplistic way; to deal with things as they came up, and not spend too much time endlessly agonizing, analyzing, and obsessing.

  She almost—just for a second—felt sorry for Lydia. “Nah,” she muttered to herself, “that bitch deserves everything she gets and worse.”

  Although Jinx herself would never dream of going anywhere near any of the boys her friends had had dealings with, however small, she almost admired the triplets’ insouciance. They’d never let a little thing like an unwritten rule about not going after your friends’ crushes get in their way. But Jinx’s female friendships were way more important to her than any stupid crush. Even the remembered pain of nearly losing Liberty at the end of last term was far more acute than the current mélange of squeamishness, embarrassment, and bemused anger she was now feeling thanks to Jamie’s performance on the seafront.

  After a ten-minute, mostly uphill march, Jinx sat at one of the tables clustered together outside Café Nero in town and disconsolately stirred two lumps of crystallized brown sugar into her soy latte. As she contemplated the sad fact that dressing all in black like a suicidal French poet was never going to be a good look for her, even if she had just been kind of dumped in the most publicly humiliating fashion, she wondered why people never had sugar like this in their houses?

  It was fair to
say she was rallying admirably when she bent down and saw the cutest, tiniest Boxer puppy with the wrinkliest face and softest nose she’d ever seen nudging her leg under the table. She held onto his collar and looked around for his owner. It being a biting cold Wednesday afternoon in March, the square was pretty much deserted.

  Jinx pulled him onto her lap and searched for an identity tag. Bingo—there it was, attached to the circular join on his collar.

  Jamie was the last thing on her mind as she held the pup close to her chest and reached for her phone. Punching out the digits she wondered what kind of retard would let the cutest little dude in the world roam around the streets of Brighton on his own like this. She resolved to give the owner a piece of her mind as the ringing tone started. The voice that answered the phone, however, was beside itself with worry. Jinx found herself reassuring a woman who sounded about the same age as her mum that her puppy was fine. She told her where they were sitting and settled back to wait, delighted beyond reason to have this cutie to herself for a few minutes.

  She hardly noticed the man who appeared in front of her until he coughed and said her name.

  “Yes?” said Jinx, looking up and blushing instantly at the vision of masculinity she was confronted with. Tall, bronzed, about her age, and with thick, shoulder-length, dark brown hair, this guy was seriously stacked and very good-looking. His green eyes bored into her own as he pulled up a chair and reached over to tenderly stroke the side of the squirming puppy’s little nose.

  “My mum said you were sitting here,” he said to her, laughing as the boxer caught his finger in its mouth and started nibbling it furiously. “I was furious with her for leaving the back door open, but I had no idea this one was clever enough to seek out such a gorgeous rescuer.”

  Jinx blushed and reflected that, on balance, she really was over Jamie. He was so spring term. And since that was nearly over, it seemed fitting her crush should be, too.

  “I don’t suppose,” he said, leaning forward and smiling at her, “you’re doing anything on Tuesday, are you?”

  Jinx smiled beatifically and mentally gave Irina, Masha, and Olga the biggest high five. Thanks to them, kind of, Mrs. Bennett had rescinded their Tuesday punishment cleaning and the girls had one free Tuesday afternoon left.

  “Nothing,” she said, stroking the puppy’s back as he fell asleep between her thighs, looking up at him. “And I’d love to.”