She knew Ryan so well that sometimes it was hard to see him. They’d been in the same form since they started at Buckthorn. Memories of him pissing her off came more easily to mind than half the things she was supposed to know for her exams. He did all the same stuff as the rest of the rowdy lads and the girls that thought equality came in the form of lowering themselves to the same level of gross-out humour and devil’s advocacy. But Ryan was someone who took it too far. The kind of person that got yelled at by the teachers for real.
Maybe he hadn’t been all bad all summer. There had been moments when he’d made her laugh. And there were times, when it had been just him and the Buckthorn lot, when she’d almost thought he was all right. Moments when Kellan wasn’t there for him to compete with.
“He won Freya,” she said, mood buckling beneath a weight of sorrow brought on by the thought of how close her best friend had got to someone else without Sophie having a clue.
“People aren’t prizes,” Win said, switching her attention from Ryan to Sophie. “And even if they were, do you really think it’s winning to have someone you care so much about keep you a secret and then leave without a word?”
WIN
Only as Sophie sat up a little straighter did Win realise how she’d been leaning her weight against Win’s side. It hadn’t been a problem.
“Your sister and Lucas are adorable,” Sophie said.
A change of subject Win could permit.
Those two were playing a dancing game against each other, only Sunny kept nudging and bumping and shoving him, constant contact under the guise of cheating. As Win watched, Lucas wrapped his arms around Sunny and lifted her high enough that her feet couldn’t make contact with the dance pad. The squares lit up beneath her as she squealed and kicked and made like she wanted him to put her down.
“You know him better than me,” Win said. She liked what she’d seen of Lucas; not so much the things she’d heard. Sophie had known him longer, seen him out and about with Kellan. “Should I be worried? Go full scary big sister on him?”
“I thought I knew him.”
“I think you do,” Win said. She heard the melancholy dip in Sophie’s voice and felt frustrated that a question about Lucas had invoked Freya. She really did want to know more about Lucas. “Lucas and Big T are different in name only. Not everyone’s hiding something. Or, at least, they’re not hiding it from you.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely. If there’s any hiding Lucas is doing, it’s from his friend Kellan.”
Sophie didn’t reply immediately, and Win turned to look at her.
“I guess.” She sighed. “I’m not so sure I’m all that good at knowing people, Win. I liked Kellan just fine – I’d stick up for him when Freya was being all emo about him because I thought it was just her being dramatic. Now she’s gone, I can’t help thinking that was part of the problem, that I never actually listened…”
“Funny how every conversation comes back to Freya, even when it’s about someone else,” Win said, ducking her head down so that her hair fell forward, the ends of her bob tickling the hollows of her cheeks. A second later, she turned to look at Sophie. “She’s very good at being the centre of attention.”
“Maybe at some point I’ll notice other people exist for longer than twenty seconds?”
“I can wait,” Win said.
LUCAS
“Tell them you need to go and get some money from the cashpoint,” Sunny whispered, eyes full of stars and promise.
So that’s what he did. Even though he had ten pounds in his wallet.
No one fell for it. Win gave him a look that threatened castration and Ryan muttered that the public toilets looked spacious. Sophie made no comment, but she was smiling. A lot.
As soon as they stepped beyond the beeps and bloops of the arcade, Sunny fisted her hand in the front of his T-shirt and pulled him over the road towards a promenade swept clean by the sun. A wide-open world, when Lucas would have preferred somewhere more private. Ryan’s comment about the public toilets came to mind, making Lucas feel dirty and guilty, as if wanting to be alone with Sunny was something to be ashamed of.
But that was what he wanted. To have her all to himself. Preferably with her hands somewhere on his body – maybe around his neck, or curled around his sides – and her face so close that kissing was the only option. Every glance, every touch, every moment he couldn’t kiss her was the worst. Yesterday, the thought of having her this close would have been enough, but after last night, after they’d kissed…
All he wanted was for it to happen again.
At the railings, Sunny bounced up to sit facing him on the sea wall. Sun glinted off the stud through the nub of her right ear and a single pink gemstone glittered in her lobe.
“This is better,” she said, her head exactly the height of his. Lucas took in the way she moved her eyebrows and the curve of her eyes, the line of her neck and…
“Are you wearing a Peppa Pig T-shirt?”
Sunny looked down, scandalised. “How dare you! This is Daddy Pig. Peppa’s a horrid little nugget.”
She was too much. He wanted to laugh with her and hold her and kiss her – he wanted to scoop her up in his arms and press his face into the curve of her neck and grin into her skin as he kissed it.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” But even her self-consciousness shone with laughter.
“I like looking at you.” For a moment, Lucas’s attention wavered between her eyes and her lips. “Especially when you’ve got this smile going on.”
“I have others?”
“So far I’ve seen this one…” He reached out and traced his finger lightly along the line of her lower lip. “It only comes out when you think someone’s looking. I like it a lot.”
Helpless in the face of a compliment, Sunny’s other smile broke free, soaring on the sea breeze.
“But this one’s got the edge. You get this, here.” He waved across the bridge of his own nose, the place where Sunny’s skin scrunched up as she wrinkled nose and eyes and brows in delight. “And there’s a dimple. Here.” Lucas touched his thumb to her skin, filling the hollow of her dimple.
Sunny’s teeth, set free by her smile, nipped at her lip.
“That one’s new,” he murmured, leaning so close into her that looking at her lips turned into kissing them, Sunny sighing into him, like she’d been longing for this moment as much as he had. He lifted his arms up to cradle her head lightly in his hands, fingers in her hair, and Sunny twined her arms around his neck, leaning so far into him that she slithered off the wall to stand on her tiptoes, not breaking contact.
The kiss flooded his senses. The hesitant touch of her tongue on his, her breath on his cheek, every curve and bump and plane of her body as she pressed against him…
“Wait.” Sunny broke away with an urgency that startled him. “I need to check something.”
The way she said it, the look she was giving him – both were so earnest that Lucas felt a pang of fear that she was about to ask him what he was going to do about Kellan, which was the last thing he wanted to think about.