“My name is actually Toby.”
“Whatever,” I say, letting go of Roxy and swallowing down a belch. “Kit’s new so I’m looking after him, but also, guess where he’s going?”
“I have no idea,” Roxy says, shrugging.
“To theVampire Fallsconvention! Where we’re going, Roxy! Can you believe it? Another Faller at the party.Thisparty.”
“Cool,” says Roxy, looking him up and down.
“But first, he wants to take me home with him. On his motorbike. A big one.”
“No, I don’t want to take you home. I was just . . .”
“Andhe’s a DJ. Look! I have his card.”
Roxy plucks the card from my fingers and frowns at it.
“Graham Flanagan. Mobile Dicos,” she reads out, and pulls a face. “Major typo, Toby.”
“It’s not my card; it’s my dad’s business. I sometimes help on weekends. I’m not actually a . . .”
While Kit rabbits on, I look down the hallway and Charlie Chamberlain is still there, pointing his cheekbones at anyone stupid enough to look his way.Vivian Erikksen(yes, I said that in italics) sways up to him and flips her red hair over her shoulder then giggles at a joke he tells her. A jokeIprobably toldhim.
Do you knowVivian,Queen of the Awfulswas genetically engineered in a space test tube and sent here to make the rest of girlkind feel terrible about themselves? It’s true. Shefiddles with her phone, changing the song that’s blaring through the speakers, and everyone whoops (not me; this music couldn’t suck more).Vivianhas control of what we listen to in the common room also. Sixth form is a dictatorship.
I grab Kit Connor’s helmet (the bike kind, cheeky) and throw my arm around his neck.
“Eliza, really?” says Roxy, sticking Kit’s card in my top pocket.
“Eliza, reallywhat, Roxy?”
I frown at her, so she knows I’m listening really, really hard. Which I am.
“I literally went out to call my mum and I come back, and you’re smashed. Remember we’re driving to the conventiontomorrow.”
“Like I could possibly forget the best day of the year, Roxy?” I beam at her, then throw my head back. “One sleep till convention time!”
Roxy raises an eyebrow at me. She’s so cool.
“You’re so cool, Roxy.”
“Hmmm,” she says, offering me a glass of water, which I refuse, for I am not thirsty, thank you. “You better not be an unbearable mess in the morning, babe.”
“Moi?” I say, shocked at the accusation.
“Arguing about who’s writing the sex scene in your fanfic, are we?” says one of the Awfuls as he grabs a beer from the sink.
He walks off, laughing to himself. I roll my eyes; Roxy and I have argued about that very thing before, so it’s a terrible insult. Plus, although a chapter of myVampire Fallsfan fiction,Never Leave,could be found on Wattpad every Sunday night at eight o’clock for a while, I haven’t actually written any in ages. Joke’s on you, random Awful.
“You need to learn to hold your drink before we start at Bristol, babe,” Roxy says. She looks down the hall where Charlie Chamberlain is still leaning, then looks back at me, her beautiful, pretty face sad, sad, sad. “Did the drunk happen because Charlie’s here, babe?”
“PAH!!”
OK, that may have come out a little louder than I intended because the entire kitchen looks at me, plus Charlie Chamberlain and the Awfuls in the hallway.
“Pah,” I whisper, hiding behind the helmet. “I didn’t even know he was here. Is Charlie Chamberlain here? I didn’t know that was him, Roxy, I didn’t. We thought it was Archie Andrews. A brunette Archie Andrews. Didn’t we, Kit?”
“Seriously, it’s been nearly two years,” says Roxy, sighing.
