Our groupmates make mmm and nom-ing sounds while they lick frosting and bite into the moist cakes.
“So a girl can shite on a bloke then he can’t catch a fairy cake? Got it.” He leans back in his chair, crossing muscular arms.
The gash on his mouth seems to have healed, along with the bruising on his face, dark blotches fading.
He still needs a shave.
“Did you just call this a fairy cake?” Jamal holds his up for inspection, eyeing it this way and that.
“That’s what it’s called, innit?”
“We call them cupcakes,” Jamal tells him, licking the frosting from the side. “Dang girl, this is good.”
I sit up straighter under his praise, three cupcakes left in the box.
Priya took a pass, I’m not eating one, and I haven’t let Ashley take one yet; granted, they’re all technically for him, but…
He stares at me.
I stare back.
“You’re right. These were for you.” I hold the entire box out to him and he takes it, setting it on the floor next to his feet.
“What the hell is going on right now? Do you two know each other from outside of class?”
“We’ve met,” Ashley confesses, but with zero explanation or further detail.
“Soo,” Nalla says, “is this some messed-up foreplay?”
Ashley presses his lips together.
Nalla laughs. “Guess that answers that question.”
“We should keep moving,” Brian tells everyone, taking the role of leader. “We’re going to run out of time before she starts calling on groups.”
He’s right, so we hustle, coming up with a few more answers before our time is up.
Four
Ashley
“Hey Jones, you going to be at the house this weekend?” One of my teammates jogs up beside me on the field, his face streaked with mud from practically getting beaten into the ground during our game.
We’re both covered in a ruthless cocktail of dirt and blood, our hard-fought victory just minutes behind us.
“It’s Wednesday, Stewart—piss off.” Does anyone know what they’re doing this far in advance?
“I have someone I want you to meet.”
For some reason, the guy is always trying to set me up with his girlfriend’s mates—don’t know if that means we’re best mates or what, but he needs to stop.
I don’t need a girlfriend.
I won’t be here after the semester ends; I’ll be heading home to Surrey to work for my father, a goal I’ve always had. The last thing I need is some American girl getting attached and being left behind when I leave.
When my visa expires.
“Mate, stop trying to find me a bird. If I wanted to date, I’d find one myself.”
He trudges along next to me as we walk to the rented school shuttle; it was an away game and will take three hours to get home.
We toss our duffles in a pile next to the cargo doors then head for the steps.
“I know, but Allie wants to find a couple to double date with, and her friend Ariel thinks you’re cute.”
I glance at him over my shoulder. Some girl named Ariel thinks I’m cute? That’s a brilliant change considering Georgie would prefer a paper bag over my head.
I’m tempted to text Georgie and share the news—rub it in her face; too bad I don’t have her phone number, nor will I go hunting for it.
Not.
Bloody.
Likely.
Tossing my backpack into a seat near the back of the shuttle, I plop down and let my body relax, though it’s still covered in grime. We weren’t playing at a university or college stadium as we do on our campus—this school didn’t have a rugby field, so our match was at a big park.
No stadium, no showers.
It feels like I’m spending the entire ride in a soiled nappy.
My mobile rings. It’s my mum.
I swipe to accept the call and hold the mobile to my ear. “Mum, why are you awake? It’s one in the morning.”
She’s in Great Britain (obviously), and there’s a six-hour time difference.
“Couldn’t sleep, love. Dad was up making calls with the partners in Beijing and I could hear him from the study. He talks too loud.” Mum yawns. “Wide awake so I thought I’d call. How’s my boy?”
I hate when she calls me her boy; makes me feel like a tot.
“I’m good.” I glance out the window as the bus pulls away from the park. “Just finished a match so I’m bloody whelped.”
“Language,” she scolds, though I can hear her smiling. Mum is classy and sophisticated, and I’ve never heard her curse a day in my life.
“Sorry.”
She doesn’t have these problems with my younger brother Jack. Serious, studious, does what both my parents expect. Attending uni where he was supposed to—University of St. Andrews—and has had the same steady girlfriend he’s had since secondary school.
Lady Caroline Standish-Biddles, hailing from London and a real stiff—what do I care, though? I’m not the one shagging her.
Mum yawns again, which makes me yawn.
“Do you suppose you could check in more often?” she asks me. “And would it be a terrible burden to pop home for a long weekend? We’ve forgotten what you look like.”
That’s a lie; she and I video-chat plenty. She always calls ghastly early or ridiculously late. I’ve been in the States four years and we still haven’t managed to coordinate the time difference.
“Pop home?” I give it some thought, head resting on the window of the bus. “I’ll think about it. Maybe.”
I guess it wouldn’t hurt to grace them with my presence sometime soon.
“What else have you been up to, darling?” I hear sheets rustling. “Oh—Elizabeth Townsend is still single.”
I roll my eyes. Stewart and his girlfriend aren’t the only pair trying to match me off. Mum is the worst yet, always bringing up girls I’ve known since primary school, none of them my type.
City girls whose goal is living in a swank London flat, raising babies and lunching.
So insipidly English.
“Is she?” Shite, why did I say that? Now she’s going to prattle on about Elizabeth bloody Townsend, and I have no interest in hearing about her. If Mum goes on and on about it, she won’t stop with me—she’ll purposely mention our conversation to a friend of Mrs. Townsend, who will tell Elizabeth I asked about her, then out of the blue Lizzie will no doubt drop into my messages.
That’s just the way these things work.
“She is. Elizabeth was with her mum at the flower show in Chelsea and let it slip she didn’t have a date yet for the gala at Albert Hall.” Mum clears her throat.
I roll my eyes and glance back out the window.
We’re still quite a ways from campus—I’d rather not spend the ride talking about some girl I have no interest in.
“I’m not flying home so Lizzie Townsend can dig her claws into my arm and hold it like her ankles are broken.” Or like she has shackles on me. No thanks. “I’ll come home to see you and Dad, but not to date some spoiled—”
“Ashley.”