“With me,” Sophie finished decisively.
“Oh yeah?” Kellan stared down at Sophie like he was hoping to get more out of her, but Sophie sweetened her silence with a smile. Giving the two girls a final speculative look, Kellan twitched his head towards the door and said to Lucas, “Going out for a smoke. You coming?”
“Actually,” Sophie leaned across and looked at Lucas, her arm sliding from around Win. “I was hoping to borrow him for a bit.”
“Need a bodyguard do you?”
When Sophie smiled, it was with the same brand of confidence as Freya – that sleepy, slightly flirty vibe that came when she knew she was about to get her own way.
“I know someone who’d like to get to know Big T a little better.” She gave the slightest nod in the direction of the lounge.
“First Ryan, now you…” Kellan shook his head like he wasn’t sure what the world was coming to, grinning all the while. “Buckthorn girls used to have taste.” He saluted the girls and gave Lucas a jock-like slap on the back. “Let me know how it goes.”
The three of them watched as he went out the door, arms spreading wide as the group littering the patio furniture turned to welcome him. Then, before Lucas could ask Sophie what she’d meant about someone wanting to talk to him, Win’s phone flashed up.
She held it up to display a picture of someone pulling a cat-eared beanie all the way down over their face with the contact name Most Annoying Avenger.
“I’m guessing Sunny’s found Ryan.”
SOPHIE
Going back through the house was like walking through a microcosm of memories. The back garden had reminded her of summer evenings sitting with her feet in a paddling pool; the conservatory of whispered misery the night Freya and Kellan had fallen out over how hot she thought Shawn Mendes was because even famous men were a threat to the ego of the Commissioner of the Thought Police.
Then there was the nook, with its standby-button glow and perma-scent of Diesel and leather, where Lucas had left his bag next to a sofa weighed down with boys more interested in gaming than girls.
It wasn’t until the three of them stepped back into the hall that Sophie remembered she’d kissed one of them at Kellan’s last big party – or rather, the last she’d been to. They’d kissed here, on the stairs, when whoever-he-was misread friendly for flirty and Sophie figured she had nothing better to do since all her friends except Freya had already gone home.
He’d tasted like the e-cigarette he’d been smoking on the front steps.
The next day Freya had laughed herself half-silly about it, turning a disappointing snog into something Sophie could laugh at too.
I thought you were off boys?
I am, but this one was right there. Boys are so much easier than girls.
Too easy, clearly.
“Sophie?” Win was waiting for her by the arch that led into the creepy dining room.
They found the others by the wall of worship. Sunny was a firework close to exploding the second Lucas noticed her, while Ryan modelled the hunched shoulders and shifty expression of a dealer about to get picked up by the police.
On seeing Sophie, his eyes narrowed to nothing.
“Big T,” Ryan said, flicking the briefest of glances at the others. “Girl I don’t know—”
“That’s my sister, Win!” From an indignant Sunny.
“Carbs. This is a horrific surprise.”
“Anything to do with you is horrific,” Sophie said, putting her can down on the side and scanning his forehead for any trace of her drawing. “How’s the head?”
All she got was a scowl.
“So.” Ryan slid his hands into his back pockets, one of them crackling with the pack of sweets Sophie could see stuffed in there. “What’s all this about a present?”
Hearing him call it that annoyed her.
“It’s a parcel. Not a present.” To spite him, she added, “There’s probably one for someone else inside.”
“Yeah, well, hand it over.”
Sophie looked to Lucas. This was it, then. She was glad they’d found Ryan so soon – no, relieved. An hour was enough to convince Sophie she didn’t have it in her to last much longer. Another hour, tops. Constantly standing, walking, paying attention when her brain kept buffering would have been hard enough, but being in his house and seeing Kellan was definitely too much.
Pretending she was fine took more energy when all the things were sub-optimal.
Lucas was rummaging in his bag for the parcel, finally handing it over with a, “Here you go. From Frey—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Ryan snatched the package. “Anyone ever tell you what subtle means?”
Apparently no one had told Ryan, either. The way he stuffed the package into the waistband of his trousers and swept a glance round the empty room was anything but. Sophie had expected scorn, something dismissive and mean, but that was fear.
“You worried about Kellan?” Lucas asked, and Sophie thought of the way Kellan had reacted when she’d asked to see Ryan.
“Don’t want him in my business, that’s all.”
“Do you two not like each other or something?” Sunny piped up.
“He’s family,” Ryan said, lips sealing the sentence shut as he shot a warning look at the rest of them.
But Sophie had exhausted what little patience she possessed: the only thing that mattered was the next layer of the parcel.
“Are you going to open it? We can go somewhere—”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Ryan was watching her too closely. Had seen how much she cared. With a spiteful twitch to his lips, he edged round them and out into the hall. “Think I’ll go somewhere a little more private. Enjoy the party.”
RYAN
The safest place to open Freya’s parcel was at home, far away from prying eyes. But that required patience and Ryan was running on empty. Five months was too long.
In the year following his parents’ divorce, when Mam and Ryan and Jules had lived here, the downstairs toilet had been a dingy little panic room he ducked into whenever he wanted to escape. Time hadn’t changed his instincts, but it sure as hell changed the décor.
While Mam spent all her free time trying to make money, her sister spent all hers wasting it. Like everything else in this house, the toilet had been done up in the last year: a fresh coat of paint; new sink that looked like a shallow glass bowl; a posh new loo. Still the same Auntie Lou flourishes – towel folded in perfect pleats over the rail under the sink, hand cream and soap lined up with the labels on show, and on the far wall a row of wooden letters spelled out the word fresh!
Lowering the seat, Ryan sat down and tore into the parcel, shredding the paper in his haste to reveal the treasure inside.
When he got there, all he could do was stare.
Dad’s T-shirt. The one he’d hidden and hung on to because he’d wanted something of his dad, Mam binning everything else – forever determined to erase every trace of the man she’d married, regardless of what her kids wanted.
If he’d known Freya had taken it, he’d have told her to keep it. It had been something of his dad; maybe Freya had wanted something of him… But now she’d returned it.