AllFreeNovel
Share Us
What was I thinking? Anyone could have seen us! I willnotbe the girl who had a fling with Lloyd Fletcher during her internship – especially when they might think that I’ve beenusing himto get ahead, like his ex from last summer.
We shouldn’t have snuck off together in the first place, even just to talk. I wonder if anybody has noticed yet that we’re both missing, if they’ve made the correct assumption that we’ve vanishedtogether. Tasha would have a field day, if she knew.
Someone tramples around nearby, on the other side of the trees, collecting a rogue boule. ‘Got it! Honestly,Craig, what the hell kind of throw do you call that? You’re meant to knock theotherteam’s balls out of the way, not your own!’
They retreat back to the party. My breath rushes out of me in a loud huff, and I hunch to wrap my arms around my knees, unable to believe what a lucky escape that was. I’m aware of Lloyd straightening up next to me, rearranging his arms and legs like he’s unsure what to do with himself now.
Suddenly, it’s so hard to make eye contact with him. Even just seeing his face out of the corner of my eye is difficult, a weird mix of guilt and want knotting in the pit of my stomach.
‘We shouldn’t have done that,’ I say, although I’m not sure if I say it more for my benefit or his. ‘We can’t do that again.’
Lloyd raises the back of his hand to scrub his nose, where a little of my makeup has rubbed off, a faint dusting of pale powder against his dark skin – a dead giveaway of what we’ve been doing, if ever there was one.
My lips are bruised with the impression of his kiss. My skin tingles where I can still feel the warmth of his body next to me. I press my fingers to my mouth, finally managing to peer up at Lloyd – who, for once, is impossible to read. The party on the other side of thetrees seems to get louder; the tang of panic is heavy on my tongue.
‘Did you hear me?’ I ask, worry sharpening my whispered voice. ‘That can’t happen again. It shouldn’t have happenedthistime. We both … We just got carried away. Right? Had a couple of drinks, forgot ourselves.’ Yes. Yes, that’s all it was. Swept up in the celebrations and the party atmosphere. ‘It didn’t mean anything.’
‘Ah,’ he murmurs – but this isn’t the intimate, husky tone from a few minutes ago. It’s unrecognizable, almost: it’sbitter. ‘There it is.’
‘There what is?’
‘You. Pushing me away.Again. Blowing hot and cold with me, constantly.’
‘I’m not –’
But, I am. He’s right. As determined as I am tonotget involved with him, I keep being drawn back to him, and it’s not made any easier by his constant presence at work, his happy-go-lucky attitude like nothing can ever get him down. Buthe’sthe one who invited me to hang out;he’sthe one always making so much effort to be friendly, to …
To pull down whatever walls I have, and find his way back in.
‘You are,’ he says, so definitively that I don’t eventry to argue. ‘I like you, Annalise, but that doesn’t mean you get to walk all over me like this. Last week, we said we were friends – but then you spent the whole week avoiding me. Treatingmelike I was a total stranger.’
‘Well, now you know how it feels!’ I exclaim, shame squirming through me at the realization of how callous I’ve been with Lloyd’s feelings.
‘So, you were doing it to spite me? To get back at me? You thought you’d …’ He trails off for a moment. ‘Were you, what, luring me back in, acting like my friend,flirtingwith me – just to get revenge? Itold you, I know I made a mistake. I panicked. I thought you understood.’
‘That’s not – Of course I wasn’t –’ Disbelief that he might actuallybelievethat rattles me so hard I have to take a moment, concentrate on forming a coherent, whole sentence. ‘MaybeIpanicked, too. But come on – we both know that if anybody found out about us,I’mthe one who’d take the flack for it. You said you wanted to protect your reputation, but that’s not true – you just don’t want to get your heart broken again. Nobody cares if you hook up with some random intern! But they’ll care if they think I used you to get ahead. Nobody’s going to tell Arrowmile’s golden boy that his work doesn’t hold any weight, that he didn’t earnanything. Everybodylovesyou – you can’t put a foot wrong.’
Now, Lloyd’s gaze cuts sharply to mine. It hardens when he realizes I mean every word I say, and seeinghimso serious in return makes me feel uneasy. His jaw clenches tight, eyes flashing in defiance and anger; there’s something he wants to say, snarling words in his defence to take the sting out of mine – but he swallows it all down, settling for a derisive scoff and a resentful curl of his lip.
This reaction is worlds apart from the boy who just held my hand and told me he’d been waiting to kiss me again. It’s worlds apart from the boy who asked me if we were friends last Friday night.
He opens his mouth to say something – but cuts himself off with an agitated sigh, turning sharply away. He snatches up the beer he set aside earlier and takes a deep drink.
I want to know what he was going to say, what kind of argument he would’ve made in his defence. The more I’ve gotten to know Lloyd in those quiet, lonely nights together and with the things I’ve learned about him from Will, I feel like I’m underestimating him – selling him short in ways I don’t understand.
I want him to prove me wrong, now. Prove that heisthe guy I thought he was that first night, after all.To say something, anything, that will keep me from shutting him out again.
But in the end, he doesn’t say anything at all.
So I leave, going back to the party. I fetch a new drink and rejoin my friends, who are tipsy and too excited by my return to ask where I went in the first place.
And when Lloyd appears a few minutes later, he’s the life and soul of the party once more.
I’m so wound up from everything that happened with Lloyd that I feel like a woman possessed for the rest of the party. I lose track of how many glasses of Pimm’s I drink – only knowing that it’s enough for me to stop tasting them. My filter, and my sense of worry that I’ll say the wrong thing to people, vanishes. I make dry remarks that cause the rest of the group to howl with laughter; I even tell Tasha at one point to get over herself and stop being such a snob, which makes the others shriek and giggle – but it’s not satisfying in the way it should be. It feels mean and twisted, and not like me at all.
‘Are you okay?’ Will asks me later. We’re back at the pop-up bar, and I lean against him a little for support.
‘Fine! Totally fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’
