‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ I lied, shoving my tray on the rack. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’
I got outside, wrapped my coat tighter around me and sat down on a bench, looking out across the schoolyard – thanks to the cold weather, I had the place to myself. I turned my phone off and on again, to check that my messages weren’t playing up and Ethan hadn’t been texting me all this time begging me to let him know when we could schedule in a date for filming. I stared at it as the home screen refreshed. No new messages.
After a few minutes of pretending not to be cold, I admitted to myself that my hands were about to fall off and I should head back inside. I heard footsteps behind me and thought that maybe Ella had come to apologise for saying that I wasn’t famous enough to be on the vlog. I got ready with my superior ‘I-may-or-may-not-forgive-you’ face. But it wasn’t her.
‘You all right?’
I spun round to see Olly, hunched over in the cold with his hands shoved in his pockets. He came to sit down next to me.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I held up my phone. ‘Just finished my call so was about to come inside.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Oh . . . Ethan Duke. Yeah. We were brainstorming some ideas.’
‘I just wanted to come out here and check . . .’ He paused and met my eyes with his. ‘I wanted to make sure you weren’t upset about what Ella said. About the famous thing.’
I laughed, a little more high-pitched than normal. ‘Pah! I’m not upset.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘You went a bit pale when she said it.’
‘No I didn’t. I don’t care. She’s just jealous, as usual.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re OK,’ he said, cupping his hands together and breathing into them.
We sat in silence until I felt a bit uncomfortable. It felt as though he had something more to say and, considering it was really cold and I’d already spent ages out here pretending to be on the phone, I thought I’d help him out and cut to the chase.
‘Did you come out here to ask me if I’ll ask Ethan to have your band on his vlog or something? Because I don’t think that he –’
‘What?’ Olly looked taken aback. ‘No. I came out to check you were all right.’
‘Oh. Right, it just seemed like –’
‘Whatever, I’ll leave you to it.’ He stood up abruptly and stomped back towards school.
If anyone else had been so touchy and stormed off over a tiny comment like that, I would have left them to get over themselves, but Olly had defended me at lunch when his girlfriend had taken a swipe at me, so I thought I should probably catch up with him and make amends. Boys are so high maintenance.
‘Sorry.’ I tried to catch his eye as I fell into step with him but he was staring straight ahead.
‘It’s OK,’ he said sharply.
‘I thought –’
‘I know what you thought,’ he interrupted, stopping at the door and turning to look me straight in the eye. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit sad that when someone is trying to be nice, you think that they want something from you?’
I opened my mouth to reply but the door swung open and a load of sixth-form girls huddled out, breaking us apart, and when they spotted me they launched into a bunch of questions about Lewis Blume’s fashion show, blocking Olly from view. When I was finally able to grapple my way through them back into the warmth, he had gone inside and was standing with Ella, Grace and Liam, staring at his feet, while the others laughed politely at something Ella was droning on about.
As I got close to them, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Cal standing in front of me, his headphones round his neck and a pile of books in his arms. It was literally like he wentout of his wayto look like a stereotypical nerd.
‘What?’ I asked, maybe a little harsher than I should have. Ella fell silent and, even though I had my back turned to the group, I knew they were watching.
‘I just wanted to check we were still on for Saturday.’
I glanced over my shoulder. Ella looked repulsed. Yep, they had heard.
‘Yes, fine. See you then,’ I whispered, trying to tell him to go away with my eyes.
His eyes drifted over my shoulder to our judging audience, and a mischievous grin formed on his face. I’d seen that look before many times. Right before he played a big joke on someone.
