“I would expect nothing less from such a queen,” I tell him. “Not sure I’ve got anything that fits the bill. There will be something fancy that Rani brought for me to wear, but I don’t think I can really pull it off. I’m just a naturally scruffy person, know what I mean?”
“I like that about you,” Forrest says, looking at my hands. “I like the fact you have oil paint stains on your palms and grass stains on your shorts. And”—he reaches and picks out a tiny daisy from my hair—“flowers.”
Forrest’s proximity makes my heart pick up several beats per minute as if it were suddenly on a techno dance floor. I find that I don’t want to meet his eyes, even though I know they are travelling across my face. I can’t help feeling the trajectory of his gaze like a tingling laser beam. Heck. Forrest doesn’t fancy me. Forrest looks like one of those guys that appears on the front of romance novels. I look like the chaotic quirky sidekick in a rom-com which Rani is the lead in and who builds herself a boyfriend. That’s very much more my character arc.
An award silence forms between us.
“Well,” I say, eventually, “if Artie and I have to dress up tonight, I demand that you do too. No smart jeans, casual top tonight. You must have something more formal.”
“I guess I can make the effort, just for you,” Forrest says. “And Artie.”
Megan sticks her head round the door, and when she sees Forrest, she races up to us.
“I don’t have anything to wear to a ball!” she tells me anxiously.
“Well, luckily for you,” I tell her, “Rani has about fifty percent of all the dresses in the world. I’m confident we’ll find you something.”
“I wish I had a mate coming,” Megan says. “And some fit lads. Then it’d be like prom or something.”
“Megan, you may invite four friends,” LadyB tells her as she re-enters the room without Rani or Alex. “I’ll send a car to pick them up. As to whether or not they are ‘fit lads,’ I’ll leave that up to you.”
“Thanks, Miss!” Megan says, already texting her friends as she leaves the room.
“Well.” I look at Forrest. He looks at me. “Well, I’m off to shower.”
“Excellent,” Forrest says. “Not that I think you smell or...”
“Anyway, bye,” I say and make a beeline for the door.
Alex catches me in the hallway.
“Ava, could I have a word?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“It’s just Rani is suddenly really cool with me and I don’t know why. I gave her the box of masks and she just took them without even a smile.”
“Look, Alex, I am not good at being a go-between for other people’s romantic interests. If you want to know why you think Rani is being off with you, then it’s exactly because your mum tried to get me involved.”
“Ma? Why?” Alex frowns.
“LadyB told me that you are a bounder or something, and I accidentally blurted that out to Rani and now she thinks she’s just a bit of fun for you, someone to pass the time. So, if you really care about Rani, and you are serious about getting to know her, then you need to let her know that it’s not a holiday romance. And whatever you do, don’t ask me to get involved.”
Alex stands there for a moment, frowning, as I ascend the stairs.
“Ava?” he calls after me. I turn around.
“Thank you. You told me exactly what I needed to hear.”
Well. That’s a first.
Chapter Thirty-Five
One of the things I didn’t get to do when I was Megan’s age was get ready for a party with friends. I knew that such an event happened, I heard other girls talking about it at school, and I watched countless movies where exactly this occurred. Today, about fifteen years too late, I finally have my turn.
Megan and her friends Poppy and Lucy are in my bedroom displaying fever-pitch levels of excitement as Rani shows them a selection of dresses that she has matched with a mask.
“This is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Poppy says when Rani puts her in a pink beaded fringe dress and little ankle boots that are definitely giving Taylor Swift.
