Flirting Games Trilogy Edition: Books 1 - 3

by Wilkinson, Stella

  She should get back to the school, it was nearly time for the six course lunch in the upper school hall followed by presents in front of the log fire lit next to the huge Christmas tree in the library.

  Rose headed to the library, where everyone was meeting. Armchairs had been laid out in front of the fire and the lamps had all been covered with red shades to create a warm glow.

  Ellie was on the floor, playing with a small black kitten. Her face was shining with joy.

  “My present from Mum and Dad. Isn’t he wonderful?” She enthused as Rose went down onto her knees beside them.

  “Adorable,” agreed Rose rubbing him behind one ear. “What will you name him?”

  “Sherlock.” Ellie said laughing, “Because he’s been sticking his nose into absolutely everything.”

  “Good name.” Rose agreed as the kitten’s head disappeared under her jumper and he tried to investigate her belt.

  Rose turned to greet her aunt and uncle who had arrived while she had been outside.

  “Rosie. I swear you’ve grown even more beautiful since the summer.” Her aunt Nora pulled her into a bear hug. “I’ve put your main present under the tree but I saw this jumper just yesterday and couldn’t resist buying it for you. I thought it would look perfect with your hair.” Aunt Nora fingered Rose’s auburn hair. “Why don’t you run and put it on so we can check it fits, I can always change it if you don’t like it.”

  Rose smiled a thank you, talked briefly with her uncle, exchanging news on her parents, then took the package up to her room.

  She dragged off her white jumper and pulled on the new one. A perfect fit. It was a mossy colour and really brought out the green in her hazel eyes. She brushed her hair so it gleamed like freshly spun rich copper and for good measure she added a little bronze lip balm to her mouth. She considered changing her jeans; they were kind of a snug fit. She turned trying to see her bum in the mirror wondering if looked ok, and decided she would have to pass on Christmas pudding if she didn’t want her stomach to pop out. She would start a diet tomorrow she vowed, before bouncing back down the stairs leading to the hall.

  Leo was already seated at the near end of the table with several others and Rose had to walk right past him to the far end where Alex was waiting. She deliberately didn’t look at him as she went past. But even with her head down she couldn’t help the warm feeling that washed over her at being so near to him. She just hoped the heat didn’t reach her face as it really didn’t suit her when she blushed.

  The meal passed in a jolly way with lots of banter and silliness. The Falcons and the Parkhursts were especially exuberant, but apart from uncle John saying “Now, now,” at one point, no one bothered to restrain their high spirits.

  As Rose laughed loudly and placed a paper crown on her head from out of her cracker, she happened to glance down the table and caught Leo looking at her.

  He winked.

  Rose quickly looked down, grinning at her plate. She felt so aware of him. She could still feel his eyes, she concentrated hard on the plate. It was daft but it made her feel wonderfully happy just because he winked at her.

  “What are you smirking at?” Alex leaned over to examine the plate she had been staring at.

  “I’m not smirking!” She replied still trying not to look at Leo.

  “Yes you are, like the cat that stole the cream.” Jack joined in from across the table.

  “Oh don’t be ridiculous!” She really didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. Bloody Leo. Perhaps she should get him back later somehow. At that moment Sherlock the kitten caused a distraction by jumping on the table to try and catch a spinning top. Bending her head once more to her food she allowed her hair to swing in front of her face, disguising her expression as she began to smile again.

  Chapter Six

  Ok, so what would be the harm in a little flirting? Rose watched Leo from under lowered lashes as he lounged in front of the fire that evening. Her aunt and uncle had gone home and she was sat with Toby and the Parkhursts around a game of Risk, while he sat alone near the fire with a book open in his lap.

  She didn’t have to be his girlfriend or anything. They didn’t even have to be friends. But it would be fun to flirt with him a bit.

  Sophie and Grace were always flirting with boys. She could practice some of the moves she had seen them constantly use to get boys to notice them.

  Grace, the more quiet and intellectual of the two, would develop the hobbies of those boys who took her interest. She would learn all about the subject and be able to impress if necessary. She would arrange ways to constantly be bumping into the boy until he thought destiny kept throwing them together. Rose would tease her that it was tantamount to stalking but it did actually seem to work with alarming consistency and Grace was regularly asked on dates. However Grace found fault easily and tended to dump every boy after one date. Rose sometimes wondered what Grace was holding out for.

  Sophie was more outgoing and used a lot of loud laughter and hair flicking to attract boys to her side. Sophie said she enjoyed the game of flirting so much that she went off a boy as soon as it actually seemed to be going anywhere. However Rose knew that this was really because the only boy she was remotely interested in was Jack and all the others were just practice till the day he noticed her.

  She thought about the two techniques. She already shared his main interest of art. She was passionate about art and spent a lot of her spare time in the school art studio. It was only now, as she was thinking about it, that she realized so did he. Other than that, she couldn’t think of any thing else he did regularly in his spare time. Reading perhaps, could she see what he was reading? She tilted her head sideways to see into his lap. Oops! He caught her looking at him, and not at his face! Damn. She pretended she had been bending down to pick up a piece of fluff from the floor. She would swear he had that smug smile on his face again though. She could feel it from several feet away. She tried to look focused on the board game.

  Ok, she could find out what book it was later, and maybe get a copy and read it as well. What else could she do that Grace would do? Run into him more often. Well they were already in the same schoolhouse so they already had a lot of lessons together. How could she mastermind doing that if it already happened anyway? Hang on though, didn’t that mean she’d already got that one covered? Perhaps she could see him more in the Common Room, maybe first thing in the morning, before anyone else was about, he was an early riser. But everyone knew that, so wouldn’t it be a bit obvious if she suddenly started getting up early and hanging out in the Common Room? Hmm, stalking was harder than it looked!

  She had her turn, tried to invade Canada and lost about fifty troops. She really ought to be paying the game more attention.

  Instead she pondered on what Sophie would do. Ok, that was easier, it didn’t require anything but him being in the same room. She wound a lock of hair round her finger as she had seen Sophie do when flirting. She played with it for a while slowly. Was he looking? She couldn’t check or he might see.

  At that moment, Alex made a funny comment about Jack’s intentions towards Poland as Jack amassed a huge force in Germany. Rose laughed loudly at Alex’s joke and tossed her hair back.

  He was bound to be looking over now. What should she do next?

  Ah ha! Sophie’s ‘I’m interested in you too,’ double glance. There was a masterpiece of body language, which she well remembered Sophie teaching her.

  The trick was to look up, see a boy looking at you, and then look down and smile. If you looked to the left or right then you were saying: “I’m not interested”, so it was important to look down. Hold the eyes down and smiling pose for two seconds then look back up at him again. Hold his gaze for maybe three seconds, which is too long for it to be meaningless, and keep smiling to make yourself seem friendly and approachable. Then turn back to your friends, more laughing and hair flicking, then time about five minutes for him to get the nerve up to come over. Sophie swore it never
ever failed.

  Rose looked up. What were you supposed to do if he wasn’t looking at you?

  As if he felt her eyes, he did suddenly look up, only to catch her looking at him. Damn damn! She was doing this all wrong. She smiled and looked down. One – two. She looked back up just as Diana came into the room. Leo was looking at Diana.

  Rose ground her teeth.

  Diana dropped onto a cushion at Leo’s feet and leant back against his chair. He put his hand on her shoulder and rubbed it.

  For goodness’ sake, thought Rose. They should just get a room. What on Earth was she doing, trying to flirt with him anyway? He was a Flanagan, not to mention an annoying git.

  She tried to focus on the game again.

  As Leo watched Rose laugh and play with her family, he longed to go over, to be a part of their easy-going group.

  The boys had always been nice to him. Not over-friendly, but perfectly nice. They hadn’t invited him to join the game, but then he had never done much with them socially. If he went over to the group he was sure they would welcome him to join them.

  Leo looked down at Diana. She looked like she had been crying again. He sighed and stayed where he was.

  It was nearly midnight when the family games came to an end. Ellie was asleep in her chair and Toby was getting grumpy with tiredness, which was never fun. Everyone else had gone to bed ages ago. Christmas was over. Rose waited for the others to go up to their dormitories then poked her head into the West Tower Common Room. She glanced towards Leo’s favourite chair but it was empty.

  Actually it wasn’t totally empty. His book was lying in the chair. This would be a good opportunity to see what he was reading. She walked over and picked it up.

  At that moment Leo walked in from the stairs to the boys dormitories. Wearing only pyjama bottoms.

  Rose felt her mouth drop.

  Hot damn! She had felt up his arms when they kissed and she had seen him in a wet shirt after playing sports in the rain, but never had she thought his chest would look so amazing. She had seen her dad’s chest, lots of hair and a bit of a tummy. Alex still had a pretty skinny frame, his chest almost concave. OK, so Jack had filled out and looked good without a shirt, but most of the boys her own age were fairly unimpressive. But Leo had muscle definition. His muscles moved when he walked.

  Rose could remember him when they had started Compass Court, he had been shorter than her then. Not any more.

  Perhaps he did weights in his room? He must be really vain. But even as this thought crossed her mind, Rose dismissed it just as quickly. Leo wasn’t vain.

  If anything he looked really embarrassed. Rose quickly shut her mouth, which was still hanging open.

  “Looking for me?” She tried for a flirty tone.

  “Uh, no. I forgot my book.” He gestured to the one she was holding.

  “Then come and get it.” She tried to bat her eyelashes. Wasn’t flirting supposed to be easier than this?

  She had accepted that they were attracted to each other. It was nothing more. So maybe that could be fun. Except he didn’t seem to be playing along now.

  He didn’t move.

  Rose took her courage in both hands and decided to step it up a notch.

  So she went towards him instead, using his own technique to back him against the wall, she leant into him. But he just groaned in a frustrated way, clenching his fists as he fought not to touch her back.

  Rose pressed closer and he could smell the dusky rose perfume he knew she wore on special occasions. Her breath feathered his ear as she whispered “Don’t you want to kiss me?”

  “Yes, very much.” He said, giving in and to hell with his conscience.

  They kissed passionately against the wall, and then for another fifteen minutes with her on his lap in the armchair. She got to run her hands all over his upper body, though he managed to restrain himself from doing the same to her.

  They didn’t speak, they barely breathed, just kissed, shifting positions to get as close to each other as they could.

  Finally, as he nibbled her ear, he said, “If we are going to do this are we going to be able to keep it a secret?”

  “Definitely.” Rose nodded. She had no desire for her family to hear about this. Not just how embarrassing that she was kissing a boy, but the reaction if they knew it was Leo Flanagan.

  ***

  Jack went up to his room after the family games session on Christmas day and switched on his phone. He looked again at the reply he had received from Sophie a couple of days ago.

  “Who is this?”

  He smiled again at her boldness. He was pretty sure she knew perfectly well that the text message complimenting her on her new haircut had been from him. She had suggested he text her sometime and ten minutes later, he had. He still didn’t know why he did it. But now she was just punishing him for taking months to text her by pretending she didn’t know it was from him. But she was trying to play a master. He could see straight through it.

  That is, he was fairly sure she knew. Or maybe he wasn’t sure at all. Perhaps she had a lot of boys sending her messages? There was no doubt she was a pretty girl. And it was true he had never given her his number so maybe she genuinely didn’t know who it was from?

  Just in case she did know and was trying to play it cool he had waited a couple of days, reviewing her reply. His instinct had been to text her straight back, with an outraged: “It’s Jack!” but he held himself in check. That was surely exactly what she had hoped would happen. Girls could be manipulative and if she were trying for a reaction she wouldn’t get it. At least not straight away; she had waited two days before replying. Two could play those games.

  He checked the time. It was after midnight, so strictly speaking he had let three days go by.

  Maybe it was time to respond. If she then waited another two days to answer then he would know for sure she was just trying to appear aloof and it was all an act. Somehow he hoped she wouldn’t. He’d had a few glasses of red wine with dinner. It had been laid on for the adults and as he was nineteen in a few weeks he counted as an adult now. The wine was still in his system, making him feel like he wanted to keep going, but everyone else had been ready for bed. If he’d still been at University then he and his mates would have gone looking for a party, but at Compass Court he heard only deathly silence.

  He had briefly considered knocking on Anne-Marie’s door and seeing if she wanted to take up their kiss where it had left off on Christmas Eve under the mistletoe, but he didn’t know which was her room and was bound to wake up the wrong person if he went blundering around the girls dormitories. In truth, Anne-Marie wasn’t his type anyway. She had just been the only girl there worth kissing.

  He wanted to text Sophie back. Sophie was certainly his type to look at; she’d be anyone’s type, he thought. But he had been put off by her keenness. He liked her when she was fun and flirty, he hated needy and easy.

  Though to give her credit she had never once called him after their night together. She could easily have gotten his number from Rose. But she hadn’t, she wasn’t needy. She didn’t even seem to have mentioned it to Rose. Also she definitely wasn’t easy, maybe she had been with him, but he knew for a fact that it had only been him. While that was very flattering it was also concerning.

  He tapped his phone, he didn’t want to hurt her, he wasn’t looking to get involved and he didn’t want to lead her on.

  Though she couldn’t be that keen on him after all, if it had taken her two days to reply. He scrolled through his contacts until he came to her name.

  What should he put? Nothing flirty. Just a nice message to let her know for definite that the last text had been from him.

  He typed and deleted a few times then settled on:

  It’s Jack. How was your Christmas?

  There, nice and bland. He hit send and chucked his phone on the bedside table. Turned out the light and prepared to go to sleep.

  Beep beep.

  He sat up and grabbed h
is phone in the darkness. He hadn’t expected to hear back that night. He hadn’t expected to be so happy about it either. He blamed the wine and the boredom of school.

  Hi Jack. My parents are driving me crazy already. I wish I were there.

  He furrowed his brow trying to work out if her quick reply this time meant she had known who it was last time or not. Maybe she hadn’t after all. That nettled him. He acknowledged ruefully that he was contradicting himself. He wanted her to want him but not too much. He decided to stop thinking about it. He was putting way too much thought into all this. It wasn’t his responsibility whether she liked him or not. He fancied a bit of Sophie and she could handle it.

  I wish you were here too. Right here in this bed

  The darkness around him created an intimacy and he felt full of anticipation. There was a long pause before she replied:

  Tough luck

  He laughed, so she wasn’t going to be easily seduced into flirty texting.

  Can I call you? He typed. He felt confident he could talk her round.

  No, the walls here are paper-thin and I’m going to sleep now, maybe some other time.

  Ok. Good night Sophie.

  She didn’t reply again. He smiled as he put the phone back. She was definitely punishing him for not calling her sooner. Fair enough. But her tactics were working. He wished now that he had called her before. He would definitely try again at some point.

  Sophie sat on her bed with her knees pulled up to her chest. She’d totally ballsed it up. He’d wanted to talk and she’d blown her chance. But she had thrown herself at him once before and he hadn’t respected her for it. He’d behaved like a total pig. She liked him so much, but she had some pride. Yet her stupid pride might have cost her the only opportunity she was going to have to get close to him once more. She’d be lucky to ever speak to him again.

  Chapter Seven

  Rose was awake early the next morning. She wanted to go down to the Common Room and write to her parents. But instead she lay in bed. She had dreamed of Leo. He might be in the Common Room and then what? She desperately wanted to see him but she was also so unsure how to act. Had they agreed to secretly ‘date’? Were they just going to fool around together for a while when no one was looking? She already ached for him to kiss her again.