Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Maddy

E veryone was asleep. Liv was snoring, Ana was sucking her thumb like a toddler, and Emma was muttering about unicorns and Harry Styles. Whereas I couldn't shut my eyes because there was far too much going around in my head.

My conversations with Zak. How Zak laughed. How he held his head to one side as he listened to me. How when he left Emma's house, he walked backward down the driveway, talking to me until he disappeared around the corner.

Did any of it mean anything? Did he like me? When he gave me a hug before he left, was it a little longer than the one that he gave to the others?

I turned on my side, away from Liv on the blow-up mattress we were sharing, and flicked on my phone to scroll through the pictures I'd taken earlier. I quickly flicked through the ones of everyone else, until I got to the three or four that I'd taken of Zak on his own. The first one he was smiling with his perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth showing, and his blue eyes bright. Liam had been talking to him, but Zak's eyes had been on me as I snapped away. The next one was Zak smoking a cigarette in the garden. He was sitting on the bench again and I'd caught his side profile. His strong, square jaw and the little dimple right at the corner of his mouth. The smoke was swirling up in front of him, and if I'd had any talent as a photographer, it could easily have been the cover picture on one of the books that Louise, Liam's mum liked to read.

I stared at it and wondered what he was thinking about in that moment. Maybe it was me. We'd been getting along, chatting, laughing. Perhaps he was thinking about asking me on a date. I thought about how he only ever took a couple of drags on his cigarette and then put it out. What was the point of smoking? Glancing back at the picture it struck me how cool he looked with a cigarette in his mouth. Maybe that was why. Yet he didn't strike me as a boy who cared whether he looked cool or not. What if it was all an act and he was sweet and funny and, what…

"Shit," I groaned and rolled onto my back, holding my phone to my stomach. A small chink of light escaped lighting up my chest for a few seconds before it faded out.

I was being stupid. He could have any girl in school that he wanted, so why would he be interested in me? I wasn't anything special. My eyes were a little too big, and my top lip was bigger than my bottom one. I couldn't dance for shit—I got that from my dad, he was awful. I was hopeless at sport too. Zak Hoyland would, and probably should, end up with a girl like Becky Marshall. She was Head Girl and captain on the school netball team. She was much more Zak's level.

"What are you doing?" Liv's voice was muffled by the pillow she was face down in. "What time is it?"

I lifted my phone and brought it back to life. "Three."

"Morning or afternoon?"

"Morning. You've been asleep since nine-thirty. You really are a lightweight."

"Everything feels wrong." She moaned like she might be about to puke.

I turned my head to face her. "Do you need a bucket or something, because you know Emma's mum will kill you if you vomit on her carpet."

"Nope." She lifted her hand to swipe at her mouth. "I need water."

I reached across my body and picked up the bottle of water I'd taken to bed with me. "Here, have this."

She shuffled around until she was in a sitting position and took the bottle from me. "Thanks, you're a life saver. Vodka is a bitch."

I lay on my stomach, still watching as she gulped back almost all the bottle in one go. Her blonde hair was a messy halo around her face, and she had mascara smudged under her eyes, yet she still looked pretty.

"Liv."

"Hmm," she said around the rim of the water bottle.

"You know when you dated Joshua, how did you know that you liked each other?"

Her little button nose wrinkled. "You told me," she said, holding the bottle against her forehead. "You came up to me in PE and said, ‘did you know that Joshua Brooks wants in your knickers?' I said no, and you said that I should go speak to him, so I did." She grinned and pushed her messy hair from her face. "And you were right. He did want in my knickers."

"I remember," I said. "I caught you with your knickers down, if I recall."

"Do you think you two could stop talking about knickers," Ana complained from Emma's bed. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

"Sorry," I whispered. "Go back to sleep."

"I can't now. Not until you tell me why you want to know how Liv knew she liked Joshua."

Shit. Liv was a little self-centred and I could have easily got her off the subject by talking about, well, Liv. Ana was different though. She wouldn't stop hounding me until I gave her something.

"I was just wondering that's all," I replied, rolling onto my back.

Ana snorted. "Wow, you're some sort of English wizard and you can't come up with anything better than, ‘I was just wondering'? Shit, Maddy, up your game girl."

"What's going on?"

"Oh crap, now we've woken the monster from the deep." Ana sighed. "Go back to sleep, Em."

"I can't not if you're all talking about something. You know that I hate being the last to know." She reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp. "Spill."

"I was just asking Liv how she and Josh knew they liked each other." I dropped my forearm to my forehead and sighed. "It was nothing important, you can all just go back to sleep now."

I heard the bed clothes rustle and then feet land on the floor. I turned my head to see Emma sitting on the edge of the bed. Ana lay next to her on her side with her head propped up on her hand. Both were staring at me expectantly.

Liv shifted so that she was also watching me. "Okay, the gang's all here. Go for it."

"Go for what?" I asked.

"Go for the full deets on why you were asking about me and Joshua."

"I'm just curious that's all." All three of my friends burst out laughing. "You know I hate you all, right?"

"Whatever," Ana said with a yawn. "Tell us so we can get back to sleep."

"I'm not stopping you."

"But you are, Maddy." She yawned again, stretching out the arm that wasn't supporting her head. "You know we'll lie awake wondering."

"She's right," Liv added. "So, just tell us why you're asking."

These were my friends. My best friends who would have my back through thick and thin, so why was it so hard to tell them?

"Does this question have anything to do with a certain cockney boy with a nice arse?"

"No," I answered too quickly, seeing as they fell about laughing again. " Why are you laughing ?"

"Sush," Emma whisper hissed. "You'll wake my mum."

"Sorry, but you were the ones laughing."

"Because you're lying to yourself, and us," Ana sighed, dropping to her back. "Now, let's start again. Are you asking because of Zak?"

There was no point in lying. "Yes. Okay. It's to do with Zak. I don't know whether he likes me or not."

"He likes you." Liv snorted a laugh and then moaned. "Shit, that hurt my head."

"She's right, he likes you," Emma added. "He spoke to you more than anyone and he gave you're a really long hug when he left."

I sat up. "You saw that? I didn't imagine that, right?"

"Oh yeah, we saw it. I thought he was going to drag you from my house and make you go home with him."

I pulled up my knees, hugging them to my chest, wondering whether I'd have gone willingly. It didn't take long for me to decide, I would have.

"I just want to talk to him all the time," I admitted. "Look at him all the time."

"Totally understandable," Liv replied. "Like Emma said, he's extremely good to look at. Like a juicy burger."

"I wish you wouldn't liken him to food," I groaned. "For one thing, it makes me hungry."

"Yeah, for his big cockney dick," Ana said, laughing.

"She wants him and his big cockney sausage for breakfast," Liv added, in a dubious cockney accent, which made us all laugh.

"His huge pork sausage with beans on the side."

"Ugh gross. Who has sex covered in beans?" Ana asked.

"I didn't mean that she… oh fuck off," Emma said, turning to poke Ana in the leg. "You know what I meant." She lifted her shoulders and pouted. "Why do you always do that. All of you pretend that I've spoiled the joke. You do it every time."

We didn't; she either went too far or just didn't get the joke.

"The point is," I said to avert some sulking on Emma's part, "how do I know if he likes me? And if he does like me, what do I do about it?"

"That's easy," Ana replied. "You flirt with someone else, and he'll get jealous and ask you on a date."

"No way," I objected. "I'm not doing that. Besides I'm no good at flirting."

"Liv could teach you," Emma announced, scrambling over Ana to get back into bed. "She does it with your dad all the time."

"That's just gross." I shuddered and threw Liv a narrow-eyed glare.

"Maddy," she sighed. "We've discussed this. You know I think he's hot, but I would never do anything about it. I could never have sex with a man that old. Fantasise about him, yes, but actual sex…" she shuddered and shook her head, her lips all pinched.

"Wow," I murmured. "It's great knowing you think about my dad while you touch yourself."

"What, don't tell me you don't have a visual when you're flicking your little bean?" She actually sounded annoyed.

I closed my eyes and slapped my hands over my face. "Let's just go to sleep," was my muffled response. "I really don't want to talk any longer."

"Yeah," Liv agreed. "I think I need to sleep before I vomit."

"My mum will kill you if you do."

"Your mum will kill all of you if you don't shut up," Emma's mum yelled from her room across the landing.

We all giggled and settled back down, and within minutes they were all back to sleep, whereas I continued to think about the blue-eyed boy with the perfect smile and cute dimple.