Playing the Game

by Cathy Cole

  Lila put her hand on his arm. “I’m really sorry.” There wasn’t much else to say.

  “I had hoped she’d changed. For a while this time, I really thought she was interested in getting to know me.”

  “Maybe she still is.”

  Josh snorted. “My mother is one of the most selfish people you’ll ever meet. I’m not going to hold my breath.”

  In a flash, Lila realized why Josh withdrew into his shell whenever she played games, or did stupid things for the sake of attention. It reminded him of his mother.

  “I never meant to take you for granted,” he said, glancing at her. “I’m sorry. I got too comfortable in our relationship, I think.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she said, feeling a flutter in her stomach. “I’ve behaved so badly. I’ve been blaming you because you know what you want to do with your life, and I don’t. I’m so scared that I’ll never work it out.”

  He took her hand, stroking her fingers and listening. It felt nice.

  “I have to have something for myself,” Lila said. “I can’t just be someone’s girlfriend.” Even someone as lovely as you.

  “You’ll work it out,” he said. “I know you will.”

  “Can we…” Lila began. She stopped, not sure how to continue.

  “…Try again?” he enquired.

  The thought was like a warm bath. Lila smiled at him hopefully.

  “You once made a deal with me,” he said, smiling back. “I’d help you focus on your future, and you’d help me loosen up.”

  Lila nodded. She remembered everything she and Josh had ever said to each other.

  “Lila Murray,” he said, taking both her hands this time. “Will you go on a date with me next Saturday?”

  Play it cool. Tease him. Make him ask again…

  “Yes,” she said, deliberately ignoring the whispers of her mind. “I’d love to.”

  TWENTY

  Lila paced up and down her room, alternately checking her watch and her reflection. Josh had said he’d pick her up at six. Ten minutes to go.

  She’d persuaded her mother to take her out for a cut and blow-dry that morning. Her mother had been surprised at first, remembering the fights she and Lila used to have in London about her out-of-control hair. Her mum had always wanted her to keep it under control, but Lila had refused to even try to tame it. “Are you sure, love?” her mum asked probingly. “This doesn’t sound like you.”

  Lila had grabbed her mother’s hand and squeezed, hard. “Please? I really want to make a good impression tonight.”

  Her mother’s face had softened. “Josh loves you just the way you are,” she said, cupping Lila’s cheeks in her hands.

  Lila wanted to believe that so badly. She was stupidly nervous. This is Josh, she had told herself over and over again. He’s seen you with sand in your hair and seawater streaking your mascara. Why does this matter so much? But it did, and that was that.

  “Please?” she’d repeated.

  So here she was, her hair shining like a shampoo ad, brushed and swept away from her face in a thick brunette curtain. The last time she’d got a blow-dry had been with Eve in London. That felt like a hundred years ago.

  She’d taken extra care with her make-up too, thinking about Lorna Lustre’s thick foundation and red lips as she dabbed on a little tinted moisturiser and applied some soft peach eyeshadow to her lids. She was determined not to remind Josh of his mother for even one second tonight.

  It was lovely to be wearing the dress Eve had bought her in London again. It was the prettiest thing she owned, short and shimmery and a perfect sky-blue that brought out the colour of her eyes. With strappy beige sandals on her feet and pretty gold drops in her ears, Lila planned to knock Josh off his feet.

  She giggled at herself suddenly in the mirror as she paced. You dope, she thought. All this and it’s not even a first date.

  They’d gone out a lot in the weeks that they’d been together, but tonight felt different. Somehow.

  Her heart sped up as she heard the doorbell.

  “I’ll get it!” she shouted hastily, smoothing down her dress and giving herself one last assessing gaze in her bedroom mirror.

  Lila slowed halfway down her headlong descent of the stairs with a sudden anxious vision of Josh opening the door to find her sprawled in a fallen heap on the carpet. Definitely not the impression she wanted to give. Smoothing her dress down with trembling hands and pressing her lips together one last time to fix her gloss in place, she opened the door.

  “Hi,” she said, feeling ridiculously shy.

  Josh visibly shook his head, like a dog with water in its ears. “Um, hi,” he said. He sounded a little dazed. “Wow, Lila, you look … amazing.”

  Lila’s tummy squirmed with pleasure. “Thanks. You look pretty good too,” she said. “No sketchbook?”

  “Not tonight,” he said.

  Lila stroked the lapels of his jacket. “I like the suit.”

  Josh looked down at his suit with an air of surprise. “What, this old thing?”

  Reaching up around his neck, Lila yanked off a price tag poking up from the inside of the jacket.

  “Dang, I’m smooth,” he said a little ruefully.

  Lila laughed. You’re perfect, she thought.

  He was holding a bunch of white roses in his hand. Lila felt warm as she looked at the flowers’ dark green foliage and tightly furled petals. Flowers were predictable, maybe, but that didn’t make it a bad thing. Right now, it was the loveliest thing in the world.

  “Are those for me?” she said.

  Josh peered behind her into the hall. “I was thinking of giving them to your cat, actually.”

  Lila giggled. “We don’t have a cat.”

  Josh stared at the number on the door. “Do I have the wrong house?”

  Reaching over the threshold, she drew him into the hallway. “You don’t have the wrong house and the flowers are gorgeous. I’ll put them in some water. The cat will love them, just as soon as I can persuade Mum to get one.”

  Josh smiled at her and Lila’s heart took wings. She wanted to kiss him right now, but something stopped her. Maybe it was the fact that her mother was lurking on the landing up the stairs, doing her best to look unobtrusive. She dragged Josh into the kitchen instead.

  “I have some news,” Josh said, leaning against the side as she filled a vase with water and arranged the roses. “You remember Dorothy Watkins?”

  Lila had to think for a minute. “As in Dorothy Watkins, Andrew the cat and the atlas?” she said curiously.

  “I sent the story you wrote to a magazine.” He grinned at her. “They loved it.”

  Lila could only stare. What had he just said?

  “You sent it to a magazine?” she managed. “The story I scribbled down in about ten minutes at the station for your illustrations?”

  “It was good. I typed it up. Emailed it across to them last week. They’re going to publish it.”

  He didn’t seem to realize that there were volcanoes suddenly exploding in Lila’s head. She laughed out loud in pure shock. “Josh, are you serious?”

  He looked a little worried. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  She sat down very suddenly on a kitchen chair. Falling down in a dead faint in front of your date was not good. “Mind?” she said. “Josh, you… I…”

  Launching herself from the chair, she hit her target square-on, wrapping her arms and legs tightly around Josh’s entire body so that he almost fell backwards into the sink.

  “Thank you,” she squealed against his neck. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “Do I take it that you’re pleased?” he said into her ear.

  Lila was having difficulty keeping her tears in check. “I’m absolutely furious,” she said, holding him even tighter. “And I’m never going to talk to
you again.”

  “I knew I should have given those flowers to the cat.”

  They stayed like that for a few minutes, before he set her gently down on the floor again. “We have a date,” he said. “Things to do and places to go. Remember?”

  Lila was having trouble remembering even her name. She gripped Josh’s hand and nodded while her heart sang like a bird. At long, long last, she had a glimmer of what her future might hold. She’d have to work at it, but maybe her idle daydream of being a writer one day wasn’t so crazy. She finally felt like she had something to look forward to. It was the most precious thing Josh could have given her.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “So where are we going?” Lila asked, letting Josh lead her out into the evening and down the road. “A restaurant, the cinema, where?”

  “I thought we could go to the pier.”

  Lila felt the tiniest hint of disappointment. She’d hoped for something a bit more original than the pier. They always went to the pier.

  Josh is doing his best, she reminded herself. And he did send your story to a magazine, and bring you flowers. “Perfect,” she said bravely.

  He was walking a little faster now, pulling her along by the hand. Lila did her best to keep up. She was glad now that she had decided to wear sandals. She could kick them off if Josh wanted to go to their usual place on the sand. It didn’t matter where they went really, because she was with Josh and that was all that mattered.

  The beach was busy, still warm and full of people enjoying themselves. To Lila’s surprise, instead of leading her down to the right of the pier and on to the sand, Josh pulled her on past the pier entrance and down to the marina.

  “Where are we going?” said Lila, glancing back at the pier in confusion.

  Josh strode down one of the jetties, stopping beside a beautiful speedboat made of polished wood, with cream-coloured leather seats and a large chrome-plated wheel. A jaunty blue-and-white flag fluttered at the stern as he jumped aboard.

  Lila looked around, suddenly worried that the boat owner would come striding down the jetty shouting at them. “Josh, I don’t think you’re allowed on there,” she said.

  Josh looked amused. “Then I’ll call the harbour master and complain. It’s ours. For tonight, anyway.”

  Lila wondered how many fresh surprises she could take this evening. She stared at the polished wood and chrome, the expensive-looking dashboard and the little fluttering flag. It must have cost a fortune.

  “I sold all the gear Mum bought for me and hired it,” he said, noticing her expression as he helped her aboard. The boat rocked gently under her feet. “I’d much rather cruise around Heartside Bay with you. And don’t worry, I know how to drive a boat. Grandpa’s taken me out fishing lots of times.”

  Lila sank down on an expensive cream leather sofa. Heartside Bay looked completely different from the water. “I can’t believe you’ve done this,” she said. “You don’t do surprises like this.”

  Josh cast off and started up the engine. “Looks like I’ll have to convince you,” he said as he steered out into the bay. “Where do you want to go?”

  This really is happening, she thought. She stretched out luxuriously on the leather seat, wiggling her toes in the warm air. “Just drive,” she said in the lordliest tone she could manage.

  Josh laughed. “As you wish, my lady.”

  They cruised along the coast, watching the seals basking on the rocks and the surfers at play, counting the sails that they saw and trying to come up with ways of describing shapes the gulls were making as they wheeled through the sky. Gull shapes were harder to define than clouds because they moved so quickly. They admired the way the sun gilded the cliffs as it sank closer to the sea. It wasn’t hard to imagine sailing right into the sun, Lila thought. There was a story in there somewhere.

  “Sail me to the Caribbean,” Lila instructed lazily as the sun finally began to dip beyond the horizon, lying back on the leather seats and shading her eyes from the buttery sunlight.

  “I have a better idea.”

  Feeling the ground bump beneath the boat, Lila sat up in surprise and stared at the stretch of rocks and sand before her. Then she felt a delicious stab of recognition.

  “Kissing Island!” she gasped. Jumping out of the boat, she spun around, taking in the familiar shape of the little outcropping with the curve of the main town beach a short distance to the north.

  “I couldn’t arrange the tides in our favour tonight,” Josh said, catching her around the waist.

  Lila put her arms laughingly around his neck. “I should fire you for that. Your résumé clearly stated that you could control the wind and the water.”

  “Do you remember when I first brought you here?” he asked, stroking her face with the back of his hand.

  As if she could forget! Crossing the causeway hand in hand with Josh had been the most romantic experience of Lila’s life. The moonlight, the clock tower chiming midnight way off across the water… If you kiss your love on Kissing Island at midnight of a full moon, you will be together for ever…

  “I remember,” she said.

  His eyes were bright with affection. “It all started here, didn’t it?”

  “It started when I trod on your toe outside history,” Lila corrected. “It’s just that you didn’t get around to kissing me for a while after that.”

  “I’ve wasted so much time,” he said. “I don’t want to waste any more.”

  As he kissed her, Lila tasted the sea spray on his lips. The tide could have come in and washed the whole of Kissing Island away and she wouldn’t have noticed. When the kiss finally ended, she rested her head on his jacket, content just to be.

  “We’re going to be late,” he said into her hair.

  “Oh!” Lila gasped as Josh suddenly lifted her off the sand and carried her back to the boat.

  Within moments, the engine was running and their boat was carving a wide arc away from the island and back towards the shore. Lila had wanted Josh to mix things up a little, but she’d been enjoying their interlude on Kissing Island. How many surprises did he want to fit into the evening? Where were they going now?

  Josh brought the boat along the shore, rounding the cliff point by the secret cove. Lila registered people on the silver cove sands, running beside the water and waving.

  “It’s Rhi!” she said in astonishment, sitting up in the stern. “And Brody. And Eve, and Becca, and… Josh, what’s going on?”

  “Your last party was a wash-out,” Josh replied as he brought the boat bumping gently into shore. “I thought we should have another one.”

  Lila found herself surrounded by her friends, all reaching into the boat to help her out, laughing and joking, admiring her dress and making envious noises about the boat.

  “Your face,” Polly giggled as she pulled Lila up on to the sand. “Didn’t Josh say anything?”

  Josh was laughing with Brody and Ollie, who had both climbed into the boat. He glanced Lila’s way, winked and blew her a kiss.

  “He didn’t say a word!” Lila declared, marvelling.

  “He’s not an international man of mystery for nothing,” said Eve. “I helped organize it, of course. We thought we’d surprise you.”

  “You’ve certainly done that.”

  “It’s a party for Polly and Ollie too,” Rhi put in. “Our last chance to be together before they jet off to San Francisco next week.”

  “I take it that you and Josh are back together?” Eve asked. “Just so I’m clear?”

  Lila nodded. “And it’s even better than before,” she said shyly.

  “Of course it is,” announced Polly with a heartfelt sigh. “It’s true love. Kissing Island never lies.”

  Lila gazed around at the beach, the people and the noise and the atmosphere. The rugs on the warm sand, the campfire and the barbecue and the rock poo
ls filled with chilling bottles of soda. This was a party. Iris, Leo, Flynn – they didn’t have a clue.

  “What do you think?” said Josh, pushing through the crowd towards her.

  She shook her head wordlessly.

  “Nothing to say?” he teased, putting his arms around her. “That’s a first.”

  Lila found her voice.

  “Kiss me, Josh,” she said.

  “Whatever you say, my lady.”

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  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2014

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