Distracted By You: Book 1 in The Exeter Running Girls Series

by Eliza Bradley

  Seeing the perfect series of shots suddenly align themselves out of nowhere, I leaned over the table and took my first shot – it was perfectly angled to knock two balls in at once and they landed cleanly.

  “Shit,” Sam exclaimed.

  “We’re being hustled,” Luke appeared tempted to take the cue from my hands, but I held it away and lined up another take, sinking the striped ball perfectly.

  “We’re going to win!” Savannah was doing a little happy dance. The guys were laughing and blaming Savannah as I walked round the table. Tye stopped to watch me lean over the corner from where he now stood. He had jumped up from the stool in annoyance.

  “How did you learn to play like this?” He leaned next to me on the table.

  “My dad owned a pub,” I smiled before sinking another. “I could hold a cue before my baby bottle. Probably wise not to play darts with me either. Excuse me.” I stood straight and slid past him, enjoying the way his eyes followed me. I was lining up another when Sam shoved Tye forward.

  “Do something, Tye.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to lose my money and you brought her here.

  “I think it’s your girlfriend that set up the hustle.”

  I tried to focus on my play, but I suddenly felt Tye move closer to stand next to me. He was being urged on by Sam who was waving madly. Tye didn’t do anything so I felt safe to take my shot. As I pushed the cue forward, a hand tickled my waist and the cue went flying as I jumped up.

  “Tye! That’s cheating.” I leapt away from him.

  “My turn now,” he smiled with mischief as he picked up the cue I had dropped. It turned out he was also a good player. Most of his angles were accurate, but he sometimes put too much force into the shot. The problem was, he was sinking balls very fast.

  Savannah looked at me with a pleading gaze from over Sam’s shoulder, I nodded back, showing I had understood the cue. Two of us could play the game of distraction.

  I could never be like Leonora and Ellie, but I had watched them enough to know how to get a guy’s attention. It wasn’t as if I was completely inexperienced anyway. Perhaps it was time to try out a few of their moves. Besides, I had watched them do it. A lot.

  As Tye moved around the other side of the table from where the four of us stood by the stools, I followed him. He looked up at me briefly, recognising I was up to something, but I faked interest in his shot, watching as he leaned over the table with his dark eyes narrowed on the white ball.

  Just as he was about to take the shot, I moved closer and shifted my weight to run my boot-clad leg up the side of his knee to his thigh – it certainly grabbed his attention. He missed the white completely and stood straight.

  The other three fell about laughing as I walked away, looking elsewhere as though completely innocent.

  “I think they’re playing a different game to the rest of us,” Savannah giggled as she took her turn.

  I returned to the stools and Tye followed, leaning across me to pick up his own drink. He said nothing, just stared me down as I reached for my own glass.

  “Fancy a taste?” I offered him my cider. He took it hesitantly, sniffing the rim with suspicion and wrinkled his nose.

  “You shouldn’t tempt me, Ivy. I can be dangerous.” This statement only made me laugh when he coupled it with a wink.

  “You should try the cider before you dismiss it.”

  “It’s not cider I have an issue with. It’s the toffee part.” Nevertheless, he took a taste and the resulting scrunched face showed his disgust. “I’ll stick to lager.”

  “Ivy, girl! You’re up.”

  I followed Savannah back round the table to take my shots, but after another three balls, Sam and Luke were begging Tye to intervene again.

  He came to my side of the table. The smart half of my brain nagged I should move away to a safer place, but the part that was drowning in alcohol knew I had found a good shot and wanted to take it no matter what. So I stayed were I was and lined up my cue.

  I took my sweet time with the shot, hoping he would reveal his new distraction technique too early, but sadly he didn’t. He was patient. Too patient.

  Eventually, I took the shot, but it was met with a light touch on my neck – I recoiled away, still hitting the ball, but missing the angle I needed to sink anything.

  “You don’t play fair,” I whined, handing him the cue.

  “I think fairness went as far out the window as possible when you two decided to hustle us.”

  “It’s not a hustle,” Savannah called from her place on Sam’s lap by the stools. “It is just a different way to play the bet.”

  “You’re conning your boyfriend out of his money,” Sam shook his head. “Have you no remorse?”

  “None,” she smiled widely up at him. In her punk way, she was adorable.

  “Tye, you take my turn,” Luke was shaking his head. “You’re our best bet at us keeping our money.”

  Tye lined up a shot quickly and potted a ball before I could think of a distraction, he moved just too quickly.

  Savannah and I exchanged panicked glances as Tye walked round the table. I went to follow him, but he saw.

  “No more distractions – go stand on the other side,” he pointed at me, sending me back round to stand opposite him.

  I sighed with disappointment, just as a new perfect opportunity presented itself. I stepped close to the table by the pocket he was aiming for and into his eyeline. I had seen Leonora do this trick once, it was a good time to see if it worked. I hooked my thumbs through my belt loops and watched his eyes.

  The cocoa irises were mostly trained on the balls and the pocket, but they did occasionally glance up to me. This showed he wasn’t immune to this trick, even if he were just looking at me as he was wary of what I would do.

  As he pulled back to take the shot, I sighed loudly and readjusted my jeans on my hips, showing a flash of skin. His eyes flicked up to watch, sending the ball into the side of the table.

  “Can I be on her team every time we play?” Savannah asked the others gleefully.

  In the end, we won. Much to Savannah’s joy as she danced round Sam, shaking his money in his face. I didn’t mind the extra fifty pounds either, but I was a little more sporting in my defeat.

  Tye dropped us all back at our places, booting me first. I would have liked to have thanked him for the evening, for distracting me when I needed it, but the full car prevented any such truth passing my lips.

  Later that night, Leonora rang to apologise, saying she had got cornered on the phone by her brother and didn’t notice the time. She felt so guilty, but actually I was very happy she hadn’t come.

  Chapter 5

  “Track three of the playlist,” Cara called as the four of us prepared ourselves on the start line. The running society was holding a five-kilometre race and despite how cold it was outside we had all showed up to see the frosted morning. Grass was tapered into white spikes, and leaves were bordered in sparkly silver.

  We all jumped up and down to get the blood moving as we set our music to track three, our breath clouding the air in little puffs of mist. At the beginning of the first term we had discovered Cara’s amazing taste in music and her genius in creating great running playlists. She had quickly been named our running DJ.

  “First one across the line buys drinks for the rest of us,” Leonora was kicking her legs to warm up.

  “That’s no incentive,” I snapped back, my eagerness to win the race suddenly evaporated. Even with my newly earned fifty quid, I was hardly feeling flush with cash. Far from diving into a room of gold coins, I imagined my bank account was a room full of lint and tumbleweed blowing through in non-existent wind.

  “On your marks, get set…” The president of the society called from the front of the large group that had turned up that morning. We all pressed play on our music – ‘Eye of the Tiger’ started blazing into our earbuds. “Go!” We just had time to share thrilled glances at the song
choice before we left, milling amongst the others.

  We all had different running speeds so quickly split up. Neither Leonora nor Cara were the strongest runners, so Ellie and I pulled easily to the front.

  In the last kilometre, I slowed up to let Ellie pass – there wasn’t a chance I was going to put myself in the position of buying drinks for everyone. There was only one piece of tumbleweed left in my bank account.

  When the finish line came into sight up on the hill of the campus outside the forum, my heart plummeted into my stomach. It was the very core and centre of campus, so a few passers-by had stopped to watch us all finish, including Tye who was talking to Ellie.

  As I crossed the line, I noted my time and walked straight over to the two of them, desperately hoping to break anything up before it could begin.

  “Hey!” My voice sounded a lot chirpier than I currently felt. Those little people in my stomach I liked to think of as embodiments of my nerves were leaping into acrobatics now, each of them somersaulting and tumble turning.

  “Hi,” Tye turned to me with a surprise and a genuine smile lit up his dark features. “You in the running society?”

  “Yeah, it’s where I met Ellie and the others,” as I gestured to Ellie her dark glare burrowed into me. Evidently, she thought I was crashing her flirting. I had somehow temporarily forgotten my plan to see if he could resist her.

  “Ivy, would you be a dear and grab me some water?” Ellie asked with sweetness, giving me a clear-cut cue to get the hell out of there.

  “Sure,” I rolled my eyes for only Tye to see and walked off to the cooler box provided for us. I couldn’t help my gaze being drawn back to the two of them. Just as Ellie raised a hand and touched his arm, he didn’t remove it. I looked away again, feeling hope sink faster than a granite stone in a swimming pool. I trained my eyes on the runners coming up the hill across the steep paved slope, waiting for Cara and Leonora.

  Despite my best efforts, my eyes eventually slid back to them. How Ellie managed to look so good after a five-kilometre run was very frustrating in her Lycra-clad figure, barely a sweat showing. The smile Tye had worn for me was not there anymore at least. He rubbed his face as though exasperated and looked away, his eyes finding me. Ellie was not deterred, not noticing where he was looking and just stepping nearer to him.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, just for him to see. He was shaking his head, his short hair bouncing across his forehead with the movement, as if to ask me wordlessly, what is happening? I felt a small jolt of joy. No. He still wasn’t interested in Ellie. He looked back down at her and said something with a fake smile before walking away, towards me.

  He moved with exasperation in his every step as he reached my side.

  “Does she not get what ‘no’ means?” He held his hands out in front of him as if pleading for an explanation.

  “By saying no, you have just become a greater challenge for her. She likes the hunt.”

  He ran a hand across the back of his neck, causing some of his liquorice black hair to fall across his forehead.

  “I’ve had enough. If she does much more of this, then I’m going to end up just being rude and plain cruel. I don’t want to do that. Can you tell her to stop?”

  “Me?” I asked in amazement as I opened one of the bottles.

  “You’re her friend. I’ve told her to stop, but she won’t listen,” he was really frustrated. “Every time I tell her I’m not interested she just says, ‘I know.’ If she doesn’t stop, I’ll say something I regret.”

  “I’m sorry, but she wouldn’t listen to me even if I asked.” That was sort of a lie. If I told her I liked him, she would stop. If I just told her he had spoken to me about it, that probably wouldn’t have made a difference.

  “Please. She’s driving me crazy!” He ran his hands through his hair, tempting me to wonder what it felt like. “Everywhere I go she seems to be there. Pure accident she says.”

  “Creeped out yet?”

  “Not creeped out, just annoyed.”

  “Sorry, I can’t help,” I shrugged as if it was nothing to do with me.

  “What is this?” He took hold of my wrist and angled the back of my hand into the sunshine. Across my skin was another scattering of ladybugs. Some I had even coloured in with red pen this time.

  “It’s nothing,” I tried to retrieve my hand, but he held on.

  “Ladybugs? I swear you always have them on your hand.” He was not really concentrating, still far too distracted by Ellie, and, rather frustratingly for me, he kept looking back over his shoulder to where she was.

  “I just like them.” It wasn’t quite the truth. It was a habit. That was all. A necessary habit.

  “Why not just get a tattoo?”

  “I’m tempted, but a bit scared of the pain,” I pulled my wrist from his grasp and looked down at the doodles. There were nine bugs in total, quite a lot this time. One was telling off its friend with a shake of its spindly leg.

  “The pain’s not that bad,” he glanced over his shoulder one last time, his gaze lingering on Ellie. “It’s mostly horror stories.” Why did he keep looking at her if he wasn’t interested?

  “You have a tattoo?” I nearly choked on my water, looking at him with wide eyes. So I had been right when I thought I’d caught a glimpse of something on his arm.

  Tye’s attention now shifted to me, laughing slightly at my reaction.

  “I have a few,” he said with a low voice. Oh my. I had never realised how sexy tattoos were before, but I suddenly itched to remove his jacket and see just how many he had. “You look like you’re undressing me with your eyes here in a very public space.”

  “Was not!” I looked back up to find his smile and eyes twinkling with amusement.

  “Tye?” Ellie’s voice grew nearer.

  “Oh for Christ’s sake,” he muttered just before she appeared, the humour vanishing so fast it had to have very fast legs indeed.

  “We’re going out to Mandy’s tonight for a drink. Want to come?” She really was annoyingly beautiful, leaning on the cooler next to me with an inviting smile.

  “No thanks,” his response was instant, curt too. He turned to walk away, and Ellie pulled a face.

  “He is the hardest challenger I’ve had yet.”

  My phone pinged in my Lycra-trouser pocket as we watched Tye walk away down the campus hill with his head bent. I passed Ellie her bottle of water as I opened the message.

  YOU GOING OUT TO MANDY’S TONIGHT THEN? T

  I angled the phone away from Ellie, discretely hiding the screen in case she looked my way.

  ACTUALLY, I WAS GOING TO STAY IN HALLS. I

  COURSEWORK? T

  “Here comes Cara!” Ellie walked away to cheer on Cara as she crossed the line.

  TRYING TO SAVE MONEY. I

  I also didn’t fancy listening to Ellie complain about why Tye wouldn’t go for her, or her future plans to ensnare him. He had made it abundantly clear he was not going to say yes. Much to my delight!

  FANCY COMPANY? T

  I was picking up an extra couple of hours of work in the coffee shop that afternoon when Kyle walked in. I saw him first, much to my annoyance – his face lit up when he saw me. This was just weird.

  He leaned over the counter as I prepared some convoluted drink he had ordered, something soya with extra shots of god knows what. I think he had made it more complicated so that he could stand there for longer. I kept my eyes away from him, constantly trying to keep the conversation neutral.

  “Where did you and your family move away to, then?” I spilt the soya milk from the cup, frustratingly meaning I had to start again.

  “Spill all you like, darling. The more you mess it up, the more I have to stay here.” His leering smirk was wide as I shot him a dark look. “To London,” he explained eventually. “Had any more thoughts on my offer from the party?”

  “Nope!” Which was the truth. I hurried to make the drink, trying to get him away as quickly as possible. As I serve
d up a cinnamon twist for him to eat, he took hold of my wrist on the plate. It was gentle, not a pincer movement like his grab on my elbow at the party, but it was still very much uninvited. “Kyle, let go.”

  “I’m sure I could change your mind, you know.” He leaned on his elbows as I snatched my wrist away. He tipped the hair out of his eyes again – he must have thought it a come-hither kind of gesture.

  “You do know there’s a difference between persistence and creepy, right?”

  “This is persistence.”

  “It’s definitely creepy.” I hurried to swirl the cream on top of the coffee, not even sure I had got the order right. He used to be so sweet when he was a kid.

  “The difference between the two is usually whether the other party is interested or not.”

  “I think there’s a greater difference.”

  “Oh darling,” he smiled seductively, dropping his voice to a whisper so no one could overhear him. “Tell me when your break is, and I’ll lift up that skirt to show you there isn’t.”

  “Ew, again.” I plonked the coffee heavily in front of him, not caring the cream sloshed everywhere. “You do remember I’m not Rosie. I don’t think she would have liked how creepy you’re being anyway.” Why couldn’t he just be the same sweet boy he used to be? Maybe he still was, beneath the creepiness.

  “Sugar please?” He kept smiling as I turned away to get the sugar sachets. As I went to pass them to him, he took the opportunity to hold onto my hand with the sachets trapped between us. I tried to pull away, but it was no good. “I never said you were Rosie, but I can like what I see all the same, can’t I?” His eyes wandered over my extremely plain uniform and high-necked black t-shirt.

  I snatched my hand away and gestured to the door.

  “Go, now. Before I complain to my manager.” I turned away, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck stand up from discomfort as he reluctantly turned away.

  A part of me thought it was because I looked like Rosie at all that he was doing this. He and Rosie were sixteen when they were a thing, just starting to… explore. Yet I know that they never actually slept together. He had never quite had her.