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Bythetimewearrive outside the sixth form girls’ building, my tears have dried and I have a brand new plan.
We stop at the foot of the steps, and I turn to face my silent companion. His hand drops away from my back where it had been lightly resting, leaving behind the cold vacuum of his touch.
Before he can dismiss himself with a blunt goodbye, I ask him, “What’s your name?”
He doesn’t point out that I’d already asked him his name when I first saw him in the greenhouse; he doesn’t seem to care that I’ve forgotten. With a little shrug, he says, “Noah. Noah Watson.”
I wave him off. “Well, thank you again, Noah. I’m sorry I don’t have change to tip you.”
Instead of giving me the satisfaction of looking offended, he nods and turns away with a gruff, “Don’t worry about it.”
So he would have taken money if I’d offered it to him.
I suppose if there’s one thing poor people would never turn down, it’s money. Good to know.
“Wait!” I command before he can walk away. I stick my hand out, palm up. “Give me your phone, Noah.”
He turns, pulls his phone from his pocket and hands it to me without question. It’s an old iPhone with a crack spider-webbing one edge. I swipe my finger across the screen—his phone isn’t even locked. His wallpaper is a picture of a pair of white boxing gloves.
How cliché.
I type my number into his phone and call it. After a couple of rings, I hang up and save my number. Without thinking, I put my name into his phone as “Seraphina” even though nobody’s called me that in years, and even though I hate it when people call me that.
But I write Seraphina, and the red rose emoji, and press save.
“Text me,” I tell him, handing him his phone back.
He takes it with a slight frown. His serious expression reminds me, annoyingly, of Sophie Sutton’s. Is this a poor people thing, always looking like there’s a problem they need to solve?
“Text you what?” he asks bluntly.
If he wants to be blunt, I can be blunt too. “Text me to ask me out.”
“What—on a date?”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “As opposed to what?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. A hook up?”
For a second, I’m too speechless to say anything. It’s not what I originally had in mind, and although hook-ups are a common aspect of dating here at Spearcrest, nobody is ever this direct about it. We go out; sneak out; make love—we even fuck. But we never outright ask each other to hook up. It’s crass, vulgar, a little trashy…
It’s perfect.
“Yes,” I say boldly, stepping closer to him. “Fine, a hook up. Why not?”
He’s quiet for a second, staring down at me. He has nice eyes. Grey, almost blue, with a darker outer ring. I realise, standing quite close to him now, that he’s also bigger than I thought. Not as tall as Evan, for example, butbig. Thick arms, thick neck, thick chest. There’s faint bruising near his jaw, and the bump in his nose is definitely from being broken.
He doesn’t seem to mind my searching gaze. He lets me look at him for a bit, and then he finally speaks.
“Look,” he says, sounding reasonable even though this entire conversation is essentially little more than a fever dream. “You go here, right? You’re a Spearcrest kid?”
A Spearcrest kid? I could slap him if I wasn’t certain slapping him would have about as much impact as slapping a marble statue.
“I’m in Year 13,” I clarify, throwing my hair over one shoulder.
“Right,” he says, “yeah. So I’m guessing you’re, what? A trust fund baby—rich mummy and daddy?”
My daddy is a bit more than rich. He’s the kind of rich that makes rich people stand up when he enters a room. But if I say that, I have a feeling that it will only confirm whatever point he’s winding up to.
