Irresistible (8 page)

I should do it, I think. Keep saving and then just go. I could even go with Dan.

No, that’s probably a stupid idea. I hardly know him.

But by the end of the summer I would.

Dan’s a few yards ahead and calls out, “Here we are!”

There’s a break in the trees, and as I walk out I’m dazzled for a moment by the sunlight bursting through. We’re at the top of a hill, looking out over a lake and, in the distance, more hills and fields. It’s beautiful.

Dan lays down a blanket. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” I kneel down and he opens the hamper. “Now, I psychically worked out your favorite food. That’s right—I know what you love most is leftovers from work!”

I laugh. “So you saw me lurking around the garbage cans, picking up scraps, then?”

“Oh, yes.” He’s unwrapping little packets of foil now. There are honey-glazed sausages, salmon mousse canapés, and slices of olive bread. “And,” he says with a flourish, “fizzy grape juice, because I think there’s a good chance you don’t want wine right now.”

There’s a lump rising in my throat, and for a moment I feel like crying. This is all so nice. I blink a few times to try to stop tears from coming into my eyes.

Dan looks a bit taken aback, understandably. Most people
don’t cry when offered a sausage. “You look like you could use a hug.”

His expression is kind and smiley, with no hidden meanings. I feel my heart melt with gratitude.

“Well, my mom gives the best hugs, but I suppose you’ll do.”

“I can pretend. I’m told I look good in an apron.”

He wraps his arms around me and I press my head against his chest. It’s warm and comforting and exactly what I want. I blow out a long breath, and it feels like the first time I’ve breathed this morning. I move my head back to look at him.

“Thanks for that.”

His face is serious. “Well, it was pretty horrible for me …”

We both laugh, and then suddenly I lean forward and kiss him lightly on the lips.

“Thanks for that,” he says, half smiling.

I sit back down on the grass, surprised at myself. I’m never the first to go for the kiss. Usually my head’s full of paranoid thoughts like,
What if he’s so repulsed by my kissing him he throws up?
or
What if I kiss wrong and no one ever told me?
or
What if he wants to go further and I’m not sure?
But right here, in this place with Dan, it doesn’t feel like part of normal life.

“So, last night. Did you kiss all the boys?” Dan holds out a bowl full of strawberries.

“Ha. Yep, every last one.”

My stomach lurches as a memory comes back to me. Oh my God. I kissed Cleo. I kissed Jamie’s girlfriend. I remember Jamie’s “attention-seeking” comment. Maybe I was just being used. Or I wanted a bit of attention. I think I do have a slight crush on her, though. Mostly because she’s so much cooler and more confident than me. She initiated it. I just sort of
responded. Plus, there was the alcohol. I’d have kissed my weird cousin Hugh after that much champagne.

Okay, maybe I wouldn’t go that far.

“Are you okay?” Dan says. “You look a bit … disgusted.”

“Sorry, I was … thinking about something.” I look up at him. I’ve got to make an effort. He can’t do all this just for me to sit here in silence. I’ve got to put effort into people who matter. Not people who aren’t even nice to me.

My phone buzzes.

“Sorry, it’s my friend Gabi. Do you mind if I reply?”

“No, go ahead.”

I’ve got about ten missed calls from home, so I also text Mom to say I’ll be back in a few hours. Gabi immediately replies, inviting me to watch a DVD at Han’s later. I’ve got a happy, buzzing feeling running through me, and when I put my phone away, Dan asks about Gabi and I just start talking, telling him about all our stupid private jokes and even the top-secret dances we made up to One Direction. He tells me about his friends, like Josh who drew a huge penis in weed killer on the school soccer field on senior prank day, and I start telling him about the girls at my school who brought a pig into class.

He’s leaning back on his elbows and I’m lying on my front playing with blades of grass.

The sun beats down on us and the lake sparkles.

I feel like I could stay here forever.

As we walk back down the hill again, Dan offers me his arm. We walk along like an old-fashioned couple. There’s a warmness between us, and I want to squeeze his arm and tell him I’d like to spend as much time with him as possible. But a few worries surface as the lovely scenery of the picnic melts away and we get back into town. Are we a “thing” now? Have I implied I want to be a “thing”? Does that mean I have to tell him stuff, like I’ve started kissing random women?

It would be nice if I could just enjoy things without getting a flood of worry afterward. I look over at Dan. The sun is bouncing off his face and he looks completely relaxed as he swings the now much emptier basket in his other hand.

We get to my house and, with the worst timing in the world, Mom, Jeff, and Matthew are just getting out of the car after doing the weekly shopping. I drop Dan’s arm and see Mom’s eyes widen and her hands tense around a box of
Rice Krispies as she clearly decides in her head exactly why I stayed out last night.

“This is, um, Dan,” I say, gesturing awkwardly in his direction. “This is Mom, Jeff, and Matthew.”

Matthew blinks through his glasses. “Hello.” Then he looks at me. “You look green.”

“Thanks,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him. I would usually kick him, but I figure Dan would think I was a bit immature. I’ll kick him later.

“Hi, man,” says Dan and holds out his hand. Matthew shakes it absentmindedly and then says, “I’m going to read my encyclopedia,” and disappears into the house. I forgot to warn Dan my brother isn’t normal.

Mom steps forward and shakes his hand. “Emma,” she says. “That’s probably better than ‘Mom.’”

Dan laughs politely. “Can I give you a hand?”

Jeff says, in his stuttery, awkward way, that it’s terribly kind of him to offer, but when I catch Jeff’s eye, his face clouds over and it’s obvious he’s still annoyed about my late-night text. Dan and Mom go into the house laden with bags, and I sidle up to Jeff.

“Sorry. About, you know … last night and stuff.”

He sighs. “It’s fine, love. Just … I felt a bit taken for granted. You know I want you to enjoy this job, but give me a little more notice next time, eh?”

“Yep,” I say, not looking at him and concentrating on picking up bags of oranges. Why does he have to be so frigging nice? I feel tears well up for the second time today. This hangover is making me weirdly emotional.

Dan stays for a long time, chatting away to my family, and Matthew even shows him his collection of flags from all
the countries in the world. He comments pointedly that it’s nice I’m not going out with a moron for a change. I think he overheard Kieran calling him a weirdo the one time I ever brought him over to the house.

We get forced into a family game of Taboo, instigated by Matthew, who by then has his friend over, Karen with the big eyes. I get stuck with Mom, who always overcomplicates everything. For instance, when I’m trying to describe the word “house,” I say, “Thing you live in,” and she starts going, “Studio? Maisonette? Igloo?” Then I say, “NO, just the normal one!” and she says, “Semi-detached?” and the timer runs out. She’s no better when she has to describe the words, because she says stuff like, “You know, the little thing.”

Jeff and Matthew are together and storm ahead, because their rounds sound like this:

Jeff: “He was the—”

Matthew: “HITLER.”

Jeff: “The place w—”

Matthew: “LEBANON.”

Dan does well with Karen with the big eyes, in spite of her unsettling habit of linking lots of her descriptions to death. Even though I’d usually rather spoon-feed myself vomit than play a family game with a boy I like, I have a really good time.

In the evening, when I’m going over to Han’s, Dan is still there, so he comes with me. He doesn’t seem fazed by being the only boy, and definitely makes a good impression by offering up the rest of the leftover food.

“Never turn down a free sausage,” says Han wisely, and everyone nods in agreement. I try to ignore Gabi, who has started winking and pointing at Dan.

Later, when I get up to go to the bathroom, everyone
except Dan “needs it too” and they all file out of the room after me. Then everyone is whispering to me in the corridor about how much they like him. I’m enjoying all the attention, but at the same time it feels a bit pressured. I’ve only just met him, and people are already labeling us as “together.” When the excitement dies down a bit, they go back into Han’s room, but Gabi hangs back.

“It’s good to see you, you punk.”

“Sorry I’ve been crappy.”

She grins. “Whatev. Come on. Danny’s waiting.”

While we’re watching the movie, I sit between Dan’s legs with his arms around me. My eyes start closing as the night before catches up with me, and I’m faintly aware of him moving his finger along my arm as if he’s writing something.

It makes me think of bare legs touching.

Walking along the river in the morning has a way of clearing your head. I breathe in and feel the cool, fresh air bombard every part of me. There are no clouds in the bright sky; it’s gearing up to be another hot day.

I had the day after the picnic off, and Gabi came over. We sat outside in the yard talking and then in the evening watched DVDs in my room and ate our weight in cookies. Gabi’s mom told her the other day that she should have a “life plan,” so most of our conversation was taken up with trying, and failing, to think of one. Gabi’s main ambition when she grows up is to be able to “stalk celebrities easily,” but she hasn’t worked out how that could be a job yet. She’s gotten as far as trying to go on a reality show and “do stuff.” I didn’t ask what “stuff” was.

For my “life plan,” we decided I’d use my new waitress skills to open a café somewhere cool, like Paris. It’d be nice
if I could skip straight to that instead of having to go back to school first. But I suppose I can at least keep learning French.

She was hugely excited to hear about the party in the pool house and the weird games and the random kissing. But even as I was talking about it, I noticed I wasn’t really mentioning Jamie.

Throughout the day Gabi tried to wrestle my phone from me to text Dan. I’m not sure what she was intending to say, but she is not to be trusted to do these things on her own. Matthew was in a good mood and brought us snacks, but that’s also because he’s a bit in love with Gabi. We let him sit on the floor and watch DVDs too. When Gabi made another attempt to text Dan, Matthew said, “Can you tell him I’ve got a list of questions for him?” and got a piece of paper out of his back pocket. I couldn’t read most of it, but I could see that the first question was,
Did you take Latin?
Then Gabi and my brother collaborated, and when I got up to change the DVD, Dan was sent a message that said,
Hi sexy, can you name all the kings and queens of England?

Dan brought it up a lot on our late shift together last night. Sometimes work is slow. It wasn’t very busy, and the shift degenerated into a game of dares, which mostly involved eating things. I learned a valuable lesson: eating a teabag is not easy. It was all right for Dan, who just had to eat a flower.

I realize I’m walking along smiling now, remembering how ridiculous he looked. I don’t care. Anyone who’s around in the park to see me must be equally crazy to be up at this time. I feel like running. All the silly stuff about whether this is a “thing” or not doesn’t matter. I like him,
and he’s making my summer job fun. I start to break into a run, not caring if I look like a grinning, sprinting lunatic.

My foot collides with something that feels like a soft branch. My main thoughts as I fly through the air and land flat on my face are:

1) This is why it is never a good idea to run.

2) What on earth is a “soft branch”?

3) OW.

I move up onto my knees and look behind me to see what I’ve tripped over.

Jamie is sitting up and staring at me. He’s looking disheveled, and his eyes are only half-open. He’s wearing suit pants and a crumpled shirt with the collar sticking up on one side.

“Do you mind?” he says, his voice sounding deeper than normal. “I was sleeping.”

“On the ground, outside?”

He widens his eyes to wake himself up. “Yes.”

I’m pleased to find him in a similar state to me when I woke up on his sofa.

“How did you end up out here?”

“I had a thing.” He staggers to his feet and looks with surprise at a wine bottle clutched in his hand. “A thing with nice wine. I wish I remembered it.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, really enjoying his pain. He shoots me a frown, but there’s a hint of a smile there.

Jamie strolls beside me as I head to the castle. He doesn’t seem to feel the need to say anything.

“You’re not a fan of small talk, then,” I say as the castle looms into view.

“I’m not.” He smiles at me and we walk on in silence.

I feel the urge to annoy him for some reason. I look over expectantly until he reacts.

“What?” He frowns.

“Try some small talk,” I say, like it’s something really daring.

He sighs. “Fine. Mia, how’s your “—he waves his hand as if he cannot possibly think of anything that my life would involve—“father?”

“Fine, I think. He lives in California. How’s yours?”

“Deeply unhappy and extremely wealthy.”

We continue through the grounds and start along the main driveway. He managed to wander quite a ways from the pool house. I wonder if he was on his own.

“Don’t they mind you having all those parties? Julia told Andreas off for blowing his nose the other day because it would disturb the guests.”

“I’m entertaining the offspring of the guests a lot of the time,” he says dryly. “And I can usually smooth things over the next morning. But it is causing an amusing rift between my parents. Father periodically threatens to throw me out.”