by Louise Hall
“I’d like to say yes,” Kian said. “But it hasn’t. I love playing football. I love the challenge of it. It’s the bullshit that comes with it that I could do without. You know in the 1950s, the players used to get the bus to the ground with the fans. There wasn’t such a big gap between them.”
“So it’s the money?”
“It is and it isn’t. You’re not just being paid to play football anymore. It’s like because you’re paid so much money that they own you in some way. You’re on all the time. You have to play nice with the sponsors, do your interviews and appearances on the club’s TV channel… If I’ve had a bad game and I go to the supermarket, there’s always somebody who wants to tell me what I’m doing wrong. Erin asked me to pick up some doughnuts the other day and as I was walking around, this guy came up to me and said no wonder you’re playing like shit if you’re eating them. They weren’t even for me. Or I go to a club and I happen to leave at the same time as some girl and next Sunday, she’s posing in her bra and pants saying we had sex. It’s why I live out here, in the middle of nowhere. Even Mum struggles to find it sometimes. If I want to sit on the back step in just my boxers and drink my coffee, I don’t have to worry that there’s some asshole somewhere with a camera.”
“Why don’t you just quit?” Cate asked. “Find something else.”
“It would break my Dad’s heart,” Kian said. “What if this is the only thing I’m good at?”
“I get that,” Cate said. “In our family, I’m the good girl, Liv’s the bad girl and Remy’s, well Remy’s the bitch.” Kian laughed.
“I’m the good girl, that’s how I fit into my family. I’m the one my Mum has pinned all of her hopes on. I’m the one who’s not going to make the same mistakes that she did. I’m so pathetically good that they leave me home alone all weekend and they know I’m not going to throw a party and trash the place. I don’t drink, smoke or take drugs. Until last Christmas, I’d never even been kissed. I just hide upstairs in my bedroom studying like the pathetic, boring, good girl that I am.”
Kian kissed the back of her neck. “I don’t think that you’re pathetic or boring. I think it’s great that you’ve got all these dreams.”
“But are they my dreams?” Cate said. “Or are they my Mum’s?”
“Is that what these are about?” Kian asked, touching the row of studs in her ear. “And your toenails?”
“It’s silly,” Cate replied. “I’m not brave enough to rebel properly. I can hide the studs with my hair, my toenails with socks and the books my Mum doesn’t approve of in my wardrobe. I don’t need the world to see them but I need to know they’re there.”
The following morning was just awkward. When Cate woke up, Kian wasn’t there. She rubbed her eyes sleepily and realised that she’d left her make-up on. There were dark smudges on the pillow underneath her head. She flipped it over and got up, trying to remember where the bathroom was from last night.
On the way, she quickly grabbed her clothes from the table.
As she scurried through the foyer, she bumped into something tall and hard. “Yikes,” she said softly, bouncing backwards. Kian’s hands gripped her waist, stopping her from falling.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.
Cate couldn’t look at him. “It’s fine. I’m just going to go and… get changed.”
“Yeah, I’ll give you a lift home.”
When she got to the bathroom, Cate locked the door, hugged her clothes tight to her chest and slid down to the floor. It was just awkward, awkward, awkward.
After a minute or two, she realised the longer she stayed in the bathroom, the more awkward it would be.
She stood in front of the mirror and opened one eye. Yep, it was just as bad as she thought it would be. The smoky eye make-up that Sinead had insisted she wear, was now smudged all around her eyes. She looked like she’d taken a heck of a beating. Grabbing some toilet paper, she tried to remove it as best she could. It was stubbornly clinging to her skin; she needed eye make-up remover. By the time she got most of it off, her skin underneath was raw.
She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to get rid of the tangles and found some toothpaste to get rid of her morning breath.
The only clothes she had with her were the ones she’d worn last night. The black leather skirt and off the shoulder jumper looked too dressy for a Saturday morning; it was a walk of shame-lite. Ugh, she couldn’t worry about that now; she just needed to get home.
When she came out of the bathroom, Kian was stood in the foyer twirling his keys around his finger. “Ready to go?”
He really wants rid of me, huh? “I just need to get my boots.”
She quickly pulled them on and joined him in the foyer. “Ben and Erin went out about half an hour ago so we should be good,” Kian explained as he unlocked the car.
“Cool,” Cate nodded. She still climbed into the backseat, ready to hide.
They drove to Cate’s house in silence. Cate nervously picked at a loose cotton on the hem of her jumper.
When they got there, Kian left the engine running. “Uh, thanks,” Cate said, quickly jumping out of the car.
“Cate,” Kian wound the window down. “See you Thursday.”
“Okay,” Cate said, chewing the inside of her mouth to stop her grinning. “See you Thursday.”
CHAPTER 11
“Do you think this would suit me?” Cate asked, picking up a plum lip-gloss. “Or do you think it’s too Goth?”
She and Sinead were browsing the MAC counter at Selfridges in the Trafford Centre. It was Sinead and Jake’s 3-month anniversary tonight.
Sinead raised an eyebrow. Cate had never been that interested in make-up before. “Are you seeing someone?”
“No, of course not.” Cate quickly slotted the lip-gloss back into its stand. Her face felt really hot.
“You are, aren’t you?” Sinead persisted. “Is it that guy from Christmas Eve?”
“I’m not seeing anyone.” She told herself that she wasn’t technically lying to Sinead. Although she and Kian were still meeting up on Thursday afternoons; he’d made it perfectly clear on Valentine’s Day that he didn’t want to be her boyfriend.
Sinead narrowed her eyes at Cate, as if she could somehow read her mind. “You’re lying, I can tell. That’s OK, I can wait. You’ll tell me eventually; you’ve never been able to keep a secret.”
Cate moved further along the counter to look at the eye shadows. She didn’t like keeping secrets from Sinead.
“Come on,” Sinead said a couple of minutes later, hooking her arm through Cate’s. “Let’s go get some lunch.”
When they got to the Food Court, Sinead went to find a table while Cate joined the queue to pay for their food. When she found Sinead again, she was busy texting.
“Jake?” Cate asked.
“Yeah,” Sinead smiled. “He still won’t tell me where we’re going tonight.”
As Cate pulled out her chair, she noticed there was a small, yellow bag on it. “What’s this?”
“It’s for you, silly,” Sinead grinned, clapping her hands together.
Cate opened the bag and pulled out a black, rectangular box. It was the plum lip-gloss she’d just been looking at in MAC.
“Wow, thank you so much,” Cate reached over and gave Sinead a hug.
“I’m sorry for being such a jerk,” Sinead said. “I think it’ll really suit you.”
“So are you going to tell me who it’s for?” Sinead asked, popping a chip in her mouth.
“It’s nobody,” Cate shrugged.
“You’ll tell me eventually.” Sinead looked up at the big screen above their heads and her eyes lit up. “Ooh, I love The Frocks.”
“See that one on the far left, in the leather cat-suit? Yeah, her, I think she might be going out with my brother.”
Cate gulped, almost choking on her lemonade. “What?”
“Yeah, they’ve been friends for a while,” Sinead explained, still looking
up at the screen. “I haven’t met her yet. I’ve heard she’s the nicest of The Frocks. Wouldn’t that be cool though – if she was dating Kian? They could be the new Posh and Becks. She’s got such amazing style. I wonder if she’d take me shopping? Ooh, imagine if they got married, I bet it would be on the front cover of OK magazine.”
Cate quickly stuffed the lip-gloss back in the yellow bag. “I thought he was seeing Nicole?”
“Nah, that was over ages ago. God, she was such a bitch.”
“Mm,” Cate pushed her food to one side, she wasn’t hungry anymore.
When Cate got home that night, she Googled Kian and the girl from The Frocks; her name was Alice Devereux. Sinead was right; there were lots of photos of them coming out of a club together. They were laughing and Kian had his arm slung across Alice’s shoulders like they were completely relaxed with each other. They looked happy and Cate felt like she’d been repeatedly stabbed in the chest.
At the bottom of the story, there were links to stories of Kian with other girls. Cate knew it would make her feel worse but she couldn’t help it; methodically she clicked on each one. With every story she read, the chasm between his experience and her lack of it seemed to grow wider and wider. Just how many women have you been with? There were so many stories. In some of them, there was a just a photo of them leaving a club at the same time, with no body contact. They didn’t hurt as much; Cate could almost pretend that nothing had actually happened.
Then she found the kiss-and-tells. Cate clicked on a link and a photo appeared on her laptop screen of a gorgeous, auburn-haired woman posing in just a red, lacy bra and panties. Cate couldn’t stop staring; her body was perfection, curvy but toned, her skin gently sun-kissed. Her breasts, barely contained by her bra, were like perfect orbs. She was arching her back, pushing them proudly towards the camera. Cate looked down at her own breasts inside her t-shirt. They seemed small and humble in comparison. Everything about Anya oozed sex appeal, even the way she was looking at the camera, pouting her plump, glossy lips. I can’t compete with that, Cate thought sadly.
Even after she’d switched off her laptop, she couldn’t stop thinking about Anya. Kian called but she couldn’t talk to him. He would know something was wrong. She got up and walked into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. With her back to the mirror, she stripped down to her underwear. Her simple black bra and boy-shorts were nothing like the sexy lingerie Anya had worn. She let down her hair and mussed it up with her fingers. She smeared the plum lip-gloss Sinead had bought for her across her lips. Then she turned around and looked at herself in the mirror. Cate arched her back and pushed her breasts towards the mirror. She pouted her lips and tried to look at the mirror as if she wanted it to make love to her. But she didn’t look anything like Anya. No matter how much she arched her back, her breasts were still small and humble. She didn’t feel sexy, she felt ridiculous and desperate.
Cate gave up and sat down on the closed toilet seat. If you don’t do something, you’re going to lose him. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
“I tried calling you last night,” Kian asked as Cate climbed into the backseat next to him. It was Thursday afternoon and they were at Mill Lake again. It was raining so heavily that even the fishermen had gone home and Cate’s was the only car in the car park. The rain was thundering down on the roof just above their heads.
“Is everything OK?” Kian tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear.
Cate didn’t want to talk. She needed to kiss him. She grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt and pulled him towards her, opening her mouth for him. Kian slid his tongue inside and Cate sucked on it greedily. It felt good but at the back of her mind, all she could hear was that little voice saying “you’re going to lose him” over and over. She knew what she had to do.
Her stomach was churning as she dropped her hand down to his groin. She stroked him, feeling his cock stiffen against her palm.
“Ah, Cate, what are you doing?” Kian said, quickly pulling back.
“I don’t know,” Cate said, embarrassed. “I was…”
She’d never expected him to reject her.
Her cheeks burned and she thought she might cry. Everything was too much; like she’d stripped off a layer of skin. The back seat of the car was suddenly far too small for them both and the rain hammering down on the car roof above their heads was too loud. Cate threw herself out of the car door and after stumbling to her feet, she ran across the car park towards the lake. She didn’t know where she was going; she just needed to get away. Mud splashed up the sides of her jeans and inside her trainers and the rain soaked through her hair and clothes.
Eventually she felt a hand on her arm, forcing her to stop running.
“Under there,” Kian pointed out a sprawling tree that would offer them some shelter from the relentless, pounding rain.
When they got there, Cate turned her back on him and looked out at the lake.
“What happened back there?” Kian asked softly. The kindness in his voice made her feel even worse.
“You lied to me,” Cate said quietly.
“Lied to you?” Kian put his hands on her shoulders and tried to turn her around to face him but she resisted.
“For God’s sake, Cate, will you look at me?”
Cate reluctantly turned around so that she was facing him but her eyes remained rooted to the ground. “I know about you and Anya.”
For a moment, Kian looked confused, “Anya?”
Cate smacked him on the arm, “I can’t believe you had sex with her and you don’t even remember her name.”
“Is that what you’re so upset about?” Kian relaxed a little. “That was ages ago, long before you and I got together.”
“You don’t get it,” Cate said angrily.
She went to run away again but he grabbed her arm. “Stop running away from me,” Kian growled. “Tell me why you’re so fucking upset.”
“You had sex with that woman within like five minutes of meeting her,” Cate snapped.
“It was a little longer than five minutes,” Kian joked, trying to lighten the mood but Cate didn’t smile.
“That’s not the point,” Cate said.
“I know it’s not the point but I don’t understand,” Kian ran his hands through his damp hair, which stuck up in little tufts. “Why are you so upset about this? It meant nothing, less than nothing.”
“You don’t get it,” Cate said, “because you’re you and I’m me. You had sex with that woman less than an hour after you first met, you were that… See, I’m so inexperienced, I don’t even know the word. You were so crazy about her. We’ve been doing whatever it is we’ve been doing for weeks now and when we get to that moment where I think we might take things further, you pull away. On Christmas Day, you said I was sexy but you lied. If you really felt that way about me, you wouldn’t be able to keep pulling back.”
“Is that what you really think?” Kian said angrily, he grabbed her wrist hard. “Answer me.”
“Yes,” Cate nodded.
Kian leaned back against the tree and began to unzip his jeans.
“Kian, stop,” Cate said, looking around nervously. “What are you doing?”
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” He zipped his jeans back up. “Forgive me for holding myself back all these weeks because I thought you deserved something a little bit more special for your first time than the backseat of your car at Mill Lake.”
CHAPTER 12
“Please, please, please come to the wedding with me,” Cate said to Zeke as they walked into their Government and Politics class.
Ben and Erin were getting married in a few weeks and she’d found out from Sinead that Kian was taking Alice Devereux as his date. She hadn’t seen him since that day at Mill Lake.
“Cate, I’m really flattered. Don’t take this the wrong way, I mean, I like you but I don’t want to be your boyfriend.”
“Nooo,” Cate quickly backtracked, “I don’t want you to be my date
, I just want you to be my plus one. I really can’t be alone at this wedding.”
“Phew,” Zeke ran a hand across his forehead, “what’s so special about this wedding anyway?”
“It’s complicated,” Cate said. “Please say you’ll come.”
“I don’t know. I don’t really do weddings.”
“Alice Devereux will be there,” Cate said.
“I’ll go with you,” Noah, who was sat at the table adjoining theirs, said quickly. “She’s so fit.”
Cate scowled at him, “She’s not that hot.”
“Yeah, right,” Noah said, nudging Barney, who was sat next to him. “Alice Devereux is like smokin’ hot.”
Even Zeke had to concede that, “sorry Cate but as much as it pains me to say this, I have to agree with Noah on this one. Alice is gorgeous.”
Cate’s scowl deepened. “Well, if you think she’s so hot then you’ll have no excuse for not coming to the wedding with me then?”
Mr Knowles walked in to the classroom before Zeke could reply but after class, he walked Cate back to her car. “Okay, okay, I’ll come with you, when is it?”
Cate gave him the details and he typed them in his phone. “What will you be wearing?” Zeke asked.
“I’ve got a fitting this afternoon.”
“Can I come?” Zeke’s eyes lit up.
“To my fitting? Why would you want to do that?”
“If you’re going to be my date, I want to make sure you look hot enough that you don’t embarrass me in front of Alice Devereux.”
Zeke caught Cate frowning again. “Now, why do you frown when anyone says Alice Devereux? Look, you’re doing it again.”
“I just don’t like her, that’s all. I think she’s tacky.”
“I see,” Zeke said. “You never told me why she’s going to your brother’s wedding? Are they friends?”
Cate could hardly say the words, “she’s dating his best man, Kian.”
Cate agreed to let Zeke come to the dress fitting with her. When they got to the boutique, she was really glad he was there.
“Cate?” Erin said, rushing over to her, “I’m so glad you’re here, I can’t wait to see what you think of your dress.”
