As we passed, Jory and Cody were harassing a kid a few grades below us.
“Yeah, I thought so, four-eyes,” Cody said.
Zane paused and I felt kicked in the gut. I had no idea what he was going to do here.
“Nice glasses, man,” was all he said to the kid and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Eye blinked rapidly behind those glasses. “Uh…” He looked around like he was expecting the punchline. “Thanks, Zane.”
Zane nodded, then looked at his friends. “Come on, boys.”
“You dating Baines, mate?” Cody asked, his eyes narrowing.
Jory stepped up behind him, as did Harvey a little less enthusiastically.
Zane squared up to his friends. “Yeah. Got a problem?”
Cody looked at me and I looked right back at him.
The guy had always been a bully. I’d set one foot in Saint Michaels and known he was a bully. I blamed his bad influence for Zane’s awful behaviour. But I was going to take Brendan’s advice and use it as a teachable moment.
The bullies only won when we stopped stepping up.
Finally, Cody looked back to Zane. “Top of the Pop and Queen of the Dweebs dating?” he asked. “Nah. Guess not.”
Zane nodded. “Good.”
“Told you, you wanted to bone her,” Jory laughed.
Zane grinned. “That’s none of your business, man.”
They all had a ‘mate’ moment complete with guffaws and fist bumps and overlapped conversation I didn’t think I needed to be involved with.
I hovered around a little uselessly, looking around the corridor.
People were still looking. I tried not to let it bother me, but how often did I just hang around while Zane and his friends talked.
“Zane?” I asked, trying to get his attention.
“Yeah?” he turned to me.
“I’m gonna go find Penny and Jett, yeah?”
He nodded. “Sure. I’ll see you later.”
He leant over to kiss me in front of everyone. I’d have minded if I didn’t like it so much.
“See ya later, Charley,” Cody said, for the first time I could remember calling me by my first name.
I nodded to him. “Later.”
Zane insisted on acting like a couple at school. In his words, it meant we weren’t ashamed of our relationship. I told him wanting to keep people out of our business wasn’t shame, it was privacy. But again, I cared less than he did and cared more about complaining, so I went along with it.
I even actually started to enjoy it.
But I enjoyed it more when it was just the two of us, when we could just be us the way we wanted to be and not the people we were at school.
And, with Eden on uni holidays, my house after school it was.
I was really hoping to pull Zane through the house with no one seeing us. But no dice.
“You two need something to eat?” Brendan asked from the kitchen.
My intention was to keep moving and pretend he hadn’t seen us. Zane had other ideas as he stopped in the archway. My hand still in his, I was pulled to a stop as well.
“What’s recently out of the oven?” Zane asked.
“I hope that’s not some kind of subtle reference to Charley’s oven,” Mum asked as she walked in from the laundry.
“Mu-um!” I cringed.
“What?” she asked innocently.
I shook my head. “We’ll be in my room.”
“Speaking of ovens…” Mum started.
“Do we need to lay down some new ground rules now you two are dating?” Brendan finished.
I felt like I went bright red and Zane chuckled.
“Oh, my God,” I hissed.
“I don’t know,” Mum said to Brendan. “Do we make an open-door policy?”
“No touching after nine?”
“Constant parental surveillance.”
“Jesus!” I cried. “Stop. Really? You haven’t cared about finding him in my bed for years and now you do?”
Mum smirked. Brendan was no better.
Brendan’s smile softened. “You think for one minute that we would have been okay with that if we didn’t know Zane didn’t just respect our home, but you as well?”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “Oh.”
“We have faith that whatever you two do and don’t get up to, you’ll be sensible, respectful and ready for it,” Mum added.
I wrinkled my nose in distaste. “Enough.”
“Thanks, guys,” Zane said proudly.
“We trust you with our girl,” Mum said.
“Naw, guys…” Zane cooed.
“See?” I said. “He is totally your favourite. Why don’t you just adopt him already.”
“Well, we thought about it,” Brendan started.
“But we can wait for the wedding to really call him son,” Mum finished.
I spluttered and Zane laughed.
“Very sweet of you, Kate.”
Mum just had to continue. “Of course, I think Charley should take Zane’s name.”
Quite aside from the fact no one was marrying anyone, I had to respond to that. “What? Why?”
“Because Zane Baines sounds far less elegant than Charlotte Lindon.”
“I dunno,” Zane said thoughtfully. “Sounds kinda like a superhero’s alter ego.”
I didn’t care we were seventeen and literally a week into a proper relationship, I melted at the cocky grin on his face. I wasn’t quite so far gone that I was going to ask but, had he asked, I certainly wouldn’t have counselled against it this time and I probably would have even said yes. I’d have instantly realised how stupid that was, but I still would have done it.
“Zane’s dream come true,” I replied.
There was a very pregnant pause and everyone looked at Zane before he said, “Oh, I have a comeback. I just wasn’t convinced it was appropriate for the ‘rentals to hear. Did you want me to–?”
“No!” Mum, Brendan and I all laughed loudly.
“How about we take this to the bedroom?” I asked.
“You want to rethink that sentence?” Mum asked me wryly.
“Really no need,” Zane said cheekily.
I rolled my eyes as I started pushing Zane to my room. “Kay, thanks, bye!”
“Let us know if you need anything!” Brendan called.
“I think we can work it out for ourselves, thanks.”
Chapter 24: Zane
Things were different. But this time it was a good different. I could feel it like something in the air. It was all around me. As the older generation are fond of saying: it was the vibe.
Maybe it was me.
Over the next few weeks, I found more and more courage to stand up to my friends and tell them when they were being dicks. Sometimes they listened, sometimes they called me pussy-whipped and ignored me.