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  “Have I what?”

  “Have you got a boyfriend, then?” he asked me really casually.

  “As if!” The very concept of me having a boyfriend was so freaky that I started giggling.

  “Oh, now I’m getting smiley Isabel,” Smith drawled, and his hand was back on my knee, and the warm weight of it was comforting,like it was anchoring me so I couldn’t float away. “And what do you do when you’re not being shy or mean? You on your gap year?”

  Lies get so complicated. You tell one lie. And it makes you tell another lie. And another one. And another one. Until you’ve got this big tangle of them that you can’t even begin to start unraveling.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe if I get a job, I’ll go traveling.”

  “S’weird.” He frowned. “August birthday, right?”

  “August 8, 1987,” I said emphatically, like there could not be even a smidgen of a doubt.

  “Well, shouldn’t you still be doing your A-levels, if you’ve only just turned eighteen?”

  I imagined loose pages of a calendar fluttering in the wind, like they do in old films when they want to show that a big-ass amount of time has gone by. Then all the pages disappear, until all that’s left is a big sheet of paper with huge red letters that say, “She lied about her age. She’s sixteen!”

  “No . . . no,” I stammered. “You got it wrong. See, I’m the youngest in my class. I was the youngest in my class. ’Cause the end of July is the cut-off point, right? If I’d been born nine days earlier, I’d have been in the year below.” As explanations went, it was far too garbled to be believable, but Smith was nodding in all the right places.

  “Do you think you’ll go to University?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m kinda over the whole academic thing already, with my dad and all,” I mused, pleased we were back on safer ground. “I’d like to do something artistic, but I really suck at it.”

  Smith propped himself up on his elbows. His hair had dried into this mess of curls and sticky-up bits, the ends tinged with bleach, and I wanted to touch them to see if they were as soft as they looked. “So, what do you want to do?”

  I’d told him so many lies already. I couldn’t even begin to remember just how many, so for once he deserved an honest answer.

  “What do I want to do?” I echoed. “I want to kiss you.”

  He didn’t say anything, just lay there with his eyes closed again and I knew I’d blown it. That he didn’t want me to kiss him after what had happened the last time. Or I’d short-circuited his brain with too many mixed messages. Then he opened one eye and smiled at me.

  “Go on, then,” he said with just a hint of challenge.

  I crawled up the bed, focusing on his slightly pursed lips like I was climbing up the freaking beanstalk and they were the pot of gold. He was smiling so it made it that much easier to rest a hand on either side of his head and kiss the upturned corners of his mouth.

  I kissed him so many times—just tiny little presses of my mouth against his. I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing but I didn’t care because those hundreds of kisses made my lips tingle. My fingers stroked the arch of his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose and even the plump, tender flesh of his earlobes. I mean, who ever really thinks about earlobes? But I couldn’t keep away from his, gently pinching them between thumb and forefinger, and all the time I was kissing him.

  Could have stayed like that forever; the sun beating down on us, warming his skin and turning it the color of toffee. But nothing is forever and my gentle assault made him groan right into my mouth and his hand cupped the back of my head as he rolled me over so he could show me how it was done.

  And suddenly I got what the big deal was about kissing. How someone could suck on your bottom lip and make you come completely undone. That someone stroking the hair back from your face could make you swoon and someone sliding his hands underneath your top could make you feel wanted for the first time in your life.

  “Is this all right?” he whispered in my ear as he traced figures of eight over my skin, and I nodded.

  He kept asking me that over and over again as we dragged the covers over us and our clothes fluttered away like feathers on the breeze. Except it wasn’t as poetic as that, it was more real. And I couldn’t explain what I was doing in fancy phrases and metaphors. Just that it felt good and the way he looked at me and touched me; like I was precious, like he cared about me, made the decision for me.

  Because he just wouldn’t stop asking me if all the delicious things he was doing were all right. And “yes” was the only word I could force out. It wasn’t until he stopped holding me so he could reach the nightstand and I heard the rip and crinkle of the foil wrapper that I really understood what I was committing to.

  But there wasn’t time to analyze the whys and wherefores of losing my virginity in the middle of a chalk-bright Sunday afternoon on bedclothes that smelled of fabric softener and cigarettes. I had to lose it sometime, right?

  “Is this okay?” he breathed against my neck.

  I tried to say yes, but I’d forgotten to form words because I was living in this new reality of the shocking feeling of skin against my skin. Of hands touching me in new places. Of legs pressing against and parting mine.

  “You’ve done this before?”

  I went crimson from my toes right up to my hairline. And I knew that for a fact as I was in the perfect position: naked in someone else’s bed, to be able to witness my swift and thorough reddening.

  “Yes! I’ve done it loads of times.” My voice had never sounded so squeaky and I’d never sounded more like a big, fat slut.

  We both frowned, and Smith gave me a very prim look considering he was lying on top of me. “Okay, um, good to know.”

  I thumped him on the arm. “I haven’t done it loads of times,” I whispered, ’cause it seemed like it should be a whispered conversation. “I’m not, like, the biggest ho in Skank Town. Just, y’know, I’m not a virgin.” My voice dipped down so quietly on the last word, that I wasn’t even sure if he’d heard me.

  “Virgins are overrated, anyway.” He smiled down at me, and I think he meant to reassure me that my supposed lack of virginity was meant to be a good thing, but that quirk of his lips was verging on predatory and now I was meant to act like some porn queen who knew what she was doing, so I pulled him down so he could kiss me.

  It didn’t really hurt that much. It was like the burn in your throat when you drink a really cold can of Diet Coke too quickly or your mouth gets sore from eating a big bag of salt and vinegar crisps.

  And a little bit of discomfort was easy to deal with. I was way too busy trying to coordinate the “my God, I’m having sex” freak-out fest with the part of my brain that was trying to instruct my body on how to behave during the having of the sex.

  I wasn’t really sure what to do with any of my stuff. In films, women seem to have their knees up around their ears, but I just couldn’t begin to figure out how to get my legs hoisted that high and nearly poked Smith’s eyes out with one of my toes.

  “Sorry!” I mumbled, and really, the whole thing was just so ridiculous. Sex was ridiculous. It made Smith’s face shift into new and unusual shapes. And his fingers danced across my skin so lightly that it was one touch away from being a tickle, and I had to bite my lip really hard to stop myself from giggling.

  I always thought that when I had sex it would unlock this great mystery, but really, not so much. It was just this strange tangling of limbs and body parts that were nothing like the pictures I’d seen. I much preferred what happened post-sex, which was snuggling into the crook of Smith’s arm and listening to Rilo Kiley while we shared a cigarette. It was intimate in a way that all that thrusting and grinding wasn’t.

  I guess we were having a companionable silence until he had to go and ruin it.

  “So . . . how was it?”

  I squinted up at him. “How was what?”

  He brushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear and let his
hand linger against my cheek. “Was it okay? Did you enjoy it? Do you think you’ll wanna hook up with me again?”

  “Well, that’s too many questions for one sitting,” I pointed out, and he went from holding me to not holding me with three feet of wrinkled sheet between us. I stretched out a hand so I was touching him again, his skin like warm plasticine as I stroked it. “C’mon, what do you want me to say? I just came around to get my iPod back and now you’re being all emotional and weird.”

  “We just had sex, Isabel,” he said, like I might need some reminding. “That tends to make things all emotional and weird.” He rolled over so he was facing me, and he looked all rumpled and little boy lost, which really didn’t help. “Are you having second thoughts?”

  I was having second thoughts. I was having third thoughts. Can you have millionth thoughts? If you could, I was having them, too. “I d-d-don’t do this. I don’t just jump into bed with people,” I stuttered. “So, like, if I’ve broken some post-shag code, I’m sorry but . . .”

  “What do you usually talk about after you’ve had sex then?” he asked, and his voice was as tart as a bag of acid drops.

  I sat up, pulling my knees to my chest and making sure the duvet was clutched tight to me. “I don’t know.” I closed my eyes because I could fake it so well when we were having sex and all I had to do was wrap my arms around him to make him cry out, but now he was looking at me like I kicked cute little puppies for fun. Again. I missed the feeling of my head resting on his chest already, listening to the thrum of his heart get steadier and steadier. But mostly I wanted him to stop glaring at me. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “Actually I’ve never talked about anything after I’ve had sex because I’ve never had sex before.”

  His face collapsed in on itself, which was interesting. All the features that usually sat in happy harmony together slipped offkilter so his eyes bugged out and his mouth hung open. I didn’t like seeing him like that and, God, I just couldn’t do this.

  “I have to go now, anyway,” I muttered, and the one way to tear my eyes off his stricken face was to crawl under the covers so I could retrieve my clothes. My jeans and top and, Jesus, my knickers and bra were scrunched at the bottom of the bed, and I had to contort myself into a pretzel to pull them on while I protected my not-so-maidenly modesty with the quilt.

  Smith was saying something, but my bra strap was giving me all kinds of grief. Finally all my clothes were on and I could scramble out of bed with my dignity in tattered shreds all over the floor, along with my flip-flops, which had disappeared into some other dimension.

  “You should have told me,” he said in this dull, flat voice as he lay dull and flat on his back, smoking a cigarette.

  “It was no biggie,” I said, and the effort to make my voice sound light and casual nearly killed me. “Had to get rid of it sometime and you were . . . well, y’know, it didn’t suck.”

  That came out so wrong, and Smith gave a little snicker before he remembered that I’d lied to him and had my way with him under false pretenses and he was the injured party.

  “It was your first time,” he said throatily, and I wondered when the violins were going to start playing. “It should have been special and you should have told me so I could have . . .”

  I clapped my hands over my ears. “So you could have what? Been gentle with me? Actually, I don’t want to know. Look, it was fine. And I shouldn’t have lied to you, I get that, but will you stop going on about it?”

  “Oh, God, you’re fucking impossible!”

  “Yeah, you’re not the first person who’s mentioned that,” I said, and then ducked from sight so I could grope under his bed for my flip-flops. I almost chinned him when I emerged because he was leaning over so he could grab hold of my shoulders before I could wriggle away. Didn’t stop me from trying, though.

  “Get off me,” I hissed, resisting the urge to melt under the strong grip of his hands, his thumbs kneading little circles into all those lumps and bumps of tension that were a permanent fixture. “I need to go.”

  “Come here,” he said gruffly, and he hauled me back onto the bed so he could do that thing where he held me tight and I felt like I was safe.

  Let'sGetLost

  Let's Get Lost

  11

  It was dark when I woke up from the best sleep I’d had in months. I lay there for a second, disorientated by the way the glow of the streetlamps seemed to be slanting through the window at the wrong angle, and the weight resting comfortably around my waist. Slowly the pieces fitted together. I was in Smith’s room, in his bed, with his arm wrapped around me.

  I lurched forward and he clung tighter to me.

  “What’s the time?” My hoarse whisper sounded deafening.

  “Shhh, it’s late, go back to sleep,” he rumbled into my ear, but I was wriggling in earnest now.

  “Shit! I’ve got to go, he’s gonna kill me.”

  Smith had mistaken me for his very own security blanket because as I was making a superhuman effort to hurl myself out of bed, he was intent on draping me over him.

  “Look, you might just as well stay till it gets light,” he murmured sleepily.

  “I really have to go. I mean is it ten P.M. late or, like, the wee small hours late?”

  Smith held his hand in front of his face and squinted at his watch. “It’s just past three.”

  The sound that came out of my mouth was inhuman. Somewhere between a wail and a shriek. “How could I . . . we . . . this is all your fault!” I dug him in the ribs with my elbow. “Let go!”

  He let go and I was off the bed and out the door like a streak of girl-shaped lightning. Not that it was much help. I could smash the record for the four-minute mile and I’d still be home hours after my curfew because I’d had sex. With Smith! And if it wasn’t for the fact that I had aches in places that I really didn’t want to think about it, I was almost prepared to pretend that it hadn’t happened.

  “Isabel, hold up!”

  If anything, I put on an extra spurt of speed, but all that smoking had obviously had a disastrous effect on my ability to sprint because as my hands fumbled with the door, Smith touched my shoulder.

  “It’s dark, I’ll walk with you.”

  “You don’t have to be nice to me because, y’know, you . . . You deflowered me. Took my maidenhood and all that shit.”

  He flicked the latch and pulled the door open. “I know I don’t, but I want to make sure you get home in one piece.”

  “Well, that’s a total moot point because when I do get home the only excuse that he’s going to accept is if I’m actually missing a limb.”

  Smith glanced back at the shadowy length of the hall. “I could go and get the bread knife. Might be able to hack off your pinkie finger.”

  “Ewwww! And stop being cute.”

  “I can’t help it, I am cute,” he pouted, and I couldn’t help but giggle because it was all so normal. Well, not the whole shagging and violating all curfew laws thing, but standing on a boy’s doorstep and flirting with him.

  And as soon as I thought that, my mouth stopped working. Because I wasn’t a normal girl. I was this stupid, fucked-up girl who was in a world of trouble.

  “So, come on if you’re coming,” I said gruffly, and I stepped out into this torrential downpour that was practically Noah and the Ark-esque.

  “Maybe I should go and get an umbrella.”

  I turned around so I could give him a soggy glare. “There isn’t time. And there’s no point in both of us getting waterlogged so . . .”

  I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence because Smith took hold of my hand and then I had no choice but to run because he was tugging me so hard that dislocating my shoulder was a definite possibility.

  I think he thought that it was really romantic—running along the seafront while the rain and the wind whipped in our faces. But it wasn’t. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, romantic or charming or cool about racing on rain-slicked pavements in flip-flops t
hat squelch on impact, then nearly falling flat on your face when one of them tries to break free.

  We got as far as the pier before we had to stop because I was about to go into cardiac arrest. Then we did the whole Scouts’ thing of ten paces walking and ten paces running, but it was all pretty academic. Because, as we slowed to a crawl to navigate the steep slope of Montpelier Villas and my house came into view, I could see all the lights blazing, which meant that I was going to get the all singing, all dancing welcoming committee. And the welcoming committee had probably sunk a couple of bottles of red wine while he was waiting for me.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” I moaned. “I’m going to get thrown to the freaking lions.”

  I didn’t think Smith had heard me over the Force Ten gale, but he squeezed my hand. And if we weren’t both cold and soaking wet, it might even have counted as a comforting gesture.