Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Alfie

N o party had ever taken up this much of my brainspace before. I was the king of Sandford parties, and everybody knew it. But this one… This had taken over everything.

It wasn't like it was the first time I'd had a conquest lined up at one of my events. God knew I'd thrown enough of them purely for that purpose. There was something about the lights and the music, coupled with the punch I always made, that somehow seemed to make girls more susceptible to my charms.

My performance on the football field had never been affected before, though. Yet, in the after school match against Allerton on Wednesday, I'd had a trifecta of nightmares. First, I'd bungled a defensive move and managed to lob the ball into my own net. Then I'd seen Summer in the crowd looking as perfectly put together as ever, wearing an oversize Sandford football shirt over the tightest pair of jeans I'd ever seen, and the next thing I knew, the ref was waving a yellow card at me for a mistimed tackle. And just to really top the match off, I'd seen red both literally and figuratively, when the Allerton captain had said something rude about my mum and I responded by headbutting him and breaking his nose.

I probably ought to have been sorry, but I really wasn't.

Until I saw my dad's face.

His usually fairly pale face was bright red, and even from the sideline as I left the field, I could see the big vein in his temple pulsing with fury.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he raged at me the moment we were safely in the car where nobody could hear him.

I didn't have any words to give him that would stop the tirade I knew was coming, so I simply shrugged in response and braced myself for his wrath.

"Not good enough. Where was your head at? I've seen girls put on better performances than that. I've got a good mind to double your workouts and ground you for a week."

My heart sank at those words. I had enough trouble keeping up with his workout demands as it was, without doubling them up. I was already going to struggle with the A-level work, which already seemed insanely harder than GCSE and we were only in the first week.

"Or maybe we should cancel your party on Friday?" he said, phrasing it as a question but making it very clear it was rhetorical.

My eyes shot up to his in panic, meeting merciless cold blue steel. "N-no. I'm sorry. My head just wasn't in the game today. It won't happen again."

He stared at me for the longest time, his gaze cooly assessing before he sniffed and started the engine. "See that it doesn't."

By the time I saw him and my mum off on Friday evening, his anger seemed to have abated, at least a little. Mum was dressed up to the nines, her face thick with makeup that Dad refused to take her out without. He always said that if she cared about their marriage, she would make an effort to look good when they went out together.

The moment the door shut behind them, Tom and I got to work transforming the house into party central. By the time people started to arrive, I was already pleasantly buzzed from taste testing the punch to make sure it was the right strength. All I had to do then was waste time greeting all the other people arriving, while secretly just waiting for the night's guest of honour to arrive.

When she did turn up, she didn't disappoint.

"Christ!" I breathed, flushing right to the roots of my hair at the sight of her.

She was wearing a baby blue dress that clung to her like a second skin, showing just enough cleavage to tease me about what was to come later in the evening. Her hair had been worked into perfect curls that fell around her face and down her back enticingly.

She was fucking perfect.

"You're not kidding," said Tom from beside me, whose mouth had also dropped open at the mere sight of her. In fact, looking around the party, there were very few male faces not staring at her in awe, except Noah Larson who had only ever had eyes for Lola Long. Even some of the girls looked like they were eyeing her up, though whether it was through awe or jealousy, I wasn't sure.

"Dibs," I replied to Tom with a smirk and a warning punch to his arm. Then I swooped in to claim my prize for the evening.

My fingers danced lightly down her bare upper arm as I approached her from behind, and she swung around instantly, her eyes taking a moment to meet mine and settle into my gaze.

"Hey," I said with a goofy smile that I hoped was adorable rather than creepy.

"Hey, yourself," she replied, returning my smile with a seductive one of her own.

"You look…" I looked her up and down, my eyes practically bursting with the tempting sight in front of me. "Wow!"

"You look pretty fine yourself." Summer adjusted her small handbag over her shoulder and then confidently took the cup right out of my hand and sipped my punch without breaking eye contact.

Daaaaaaaaamn!

This girl was going to be the death of me. And I was going to enjoy every last second.

"Let's dance," I suggested, mostly as an excuse to wrap my arm around her waist and guide her to the makeshift dance floor in the living room. She came along willingly, offering no objection when my hands slowly drifted south from her waist. Her body writhed provocatively against mine in time to the music, driving me wild with want and need. The sooner I got her into my bedroom, the better. "You never told me you were such a great dancer."

"There are many things you don't know about me, Alfie Wilson. I'll make you a deal." She inched herself closer to me so that there was barely a millimetre of space between our bodies. "Now's your chance to find out more. Ask me any one question and I'll answer it."

My mind roared to life with a million and one questions I could ask her, but I only had one, and I wasn't going to waste it on something stupid like her favourite film. Sucking in air through my teeth, I nudged her neck with my nose as I thought. The most obvious question seemed to be when do you want to go upstairs? But I didn't want her to feel disrespected. Not yet, at least.

"How does someone as hot as you not have a boyfriend?" I asked eventually. I needed to reiterate that I found her attractive in order to try to push the evening along, but there was a part of me, too, that was genuinely curious how she was so often alone, and never seemed to stay with any guys for more than a single night. Maybe she was my female counterpart.

Her bright red lips lifted in a knowing smirk, and instead of answering the question, she pulled from my arms and grabbed my hand, tugging me in the direction of the stairs. Her hips swung tantalisingly from side to side as she walked, and I watched, hypnotised, all the way up to my bedroom. Her head tilted at me in question, as though she was just checking. I slammed the door open and yanked her inside, letting it fall closed behind us while I shoved her gently onto the bed.

She shifted up the bed to the pillows then eased back onto her elbows, looking at me through hooded eyes, her lips open in a soft pout.

"Why are you still wearing clothes?" I demanded, my voice thick with need.

"Well, I figured I'd tease you a little bit more. Good things don't come easy, Wilson."

"Oh, you'll be coming, sugar, don't you worry. Now, this dress is very silly, don't you think?" I murmured, crawling up the bed and sliding her dress up her thighs slowly.

"Not as silly as your belt." Her fingers wrapped around the buckle, the back of her hand lightly grazing the hairs that led her to the treasure she wanted to unearth. As my belt flipped open, everything inside me froze when her lips meandered to mine and she tried to kiss me.

"Whoa, what the hell are you doing?" I yanked away from her, swiping at my lips in disgust. "That's not what this is. Jesus!"

"What did you think I was going to do? All I wanted was a kiss. You won't regret it." Her face moved closer again, her eyes closed and her lips puckered.

I backed off, glowering at her in anger. "I have one rule. One. No fucking kissing. This isn't a fairytale, princess. I'm not Prince Charming. This is about one thing and one thing only."

Summer's eyes filled with sadness and she shuffled away from me. "I… I thought you liked me. You've been flirting with me for years."

I snorted bitterly, my plans for the night going up in smoke right in front of my eyes. "In your dreams perhaps," I spat at her angrily. "All the girls know exactly what they're getting with me. I never make any secrets about what I like and what I am. You knew exactly what you were getting into. What… did you think you could change me? Turn me into sodding Ryan Gosling or something? Sorry, honey. This isn't a movie."

Summer got up off the bed and used her hand to wipe away tears that had started to puddle underneath her eyes. "Who even are you? You're pathetic." She approached my bedroom door, but as she was about to leave, she turned angrily, facing me. "Do you want to know why I don't have a boyfriend? It's because of petty, small men like you. I'm not a toy that can be played with then tossed aside when you're done. I have feelings, Alfie. I hate myself for feeling the way I do right now, but god am I glad that I'm nothing like you––a cold-hearted prick!"

Her words echoed as the door slammed shut.

No way. She wasn't speaking to me like that. I never promised her anything.

Raking my hand through my hair, I didn't even bother to fix my belt before pursuing her down the stairs in full view of the entire party, who, predictably, all assembled round to watch the show.

"Don't act like you didn't go into that room knowing exactly what would happen in there," I yelled, my blood rushing through my veins and drowning out the sounds of the party beyond my own fury that the night had been ruined.

"You're trash, Alfie," she screamed in my face, her eyes bulging and spoiling her beauty. "You just float from one girl to the next and never consider anybody's feelings but your own. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

She moved to prod my chest with her perfectly manicured fingers, but I batted her hand away, smirking in spite of my fury. "Whatever. You knew what you were getting into when you went upstairs with me. Don't come at me because you thought you could change me or some shit."

I could see a plethora of emotions scanning across her face, and just for a moment, I felt an irritating prickle of guilt. Pushing it down, I listened to my dad's voice in my head telling me to treat ‘em mean and keep ‘em keen as I swaggered into the kitchen much more confidently than I felt, in search of a drink that would wash this shit show of a night away.

The word, "Pig!" rang in my ears as I poured a drink and downed it in one go.

Maybe I was a pig, but at least I wasn't tied down to some princess of a girl who would pussy whip me and keep me on some sort of leash. That kind of life wasn't for me, and never would be. No matter how much Summer Geary's devastated face might randomly reappear in my mind over and over through the next few days.