Popping the Cherry (25 page)

‘Right.’ Jake’s blue-green eyes clouded over, taking on the colour of the sea before a storm, before he blocked me out altogether by lowering his gaze.

A little piece of me died inside with each word but I was on too much of a roll to stop.

‘You’re going to be in my life for a long time to come, especially if you’re serious about letting me help with your house.’ A house I’d probably never see the inside of, judging from the barricade being thrown up around Jake. ‘We just don’t need to complication of sex hanging over us, making things awkward, do we?’

Jake’s only reply was to stare
into
me, not
at
me, as though he was trying to read my soul through my eyes. I couldn’t let him, he’d have seen too much, so I broke eye contact and looked away. ‘You’d have only laughed at me and said no anyway.’

‘You think?’

‘Well, wouldn’t you?’

Jake pushed up to standing. ‘I guess we’ll never know,’ he said, looking back down at me. He was as withdrawn as I’d ever seen him. ‘Didn’t you say Flick was expecting you?’

In other words, you’re dismissed
.

‘Er … yeah, I did.’ Was it too late to throw myself at his feet and confess everything? ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

‘I’m sure you can see yourself out.’ Jake didn’t even say goodbye, he just left the room. His footsteps thundered up the stairs, then thumped overhead, before he closed his bedroom door closed with a little more force than necessary.

Omigod, what if I’d got it—got him—all wrong?

My head swam, awash with a maelstrom of addled thoughts as I tried to pick through the threads of conversation. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Jake had just offered himself to me—and I’d turned him down.

Any joy I’d known at passing my driving test and scoring a date with Zac was gone. One minute I was sitting in my car outside Jake’s house, the next I was pulling up on my own driveway. I couldn’t even remember the drive home. The first one to arrive back, I ran to the kitchen to grab the pieces of my phone, then dashed upstairs to put it back together. It took forever for the missed calls and texts to finish coming through, and then I sent out my emergency text out to Gemma and Flick.

‘Passed my test but my life is in ruins.’

They dropped their plans and rushed straight over. We spent the next two hours bitching about Malice and how it was all her doing: the showdown in school, the public humiliation, the never-ending texts and calls to my phone. She’d better watch her back from now on because Gemma and Flick were gunning for her. If only that were the crux of my problem. I almost told them about the confrontation with Jake, but talked myself out of it just in time. It was my secret to keep.

Not surprisingly, my dreams were particularly screwy that night. Twice I woke up in a cold sweat. The electrical storms didn’t help, lighting my room up and creating unfamiliar shadows. Since I hadn’t bothered going back to sleep after the last nightmare, I was already awake when my phone alarm went off. I didn’t need a mirror to know I looked a wreck. Even my skin ached. Zac was due in an hour and, with no way to get in touch with him, I couldn’t ask for a rain check. I reached for my phone and found another gazillion texts to greet me, mostly notifications from when somebody posted on my social-network page.

Lena, you’re an idiot
.

Opening up the app on my phone, I ignored the red boxes telling me I had seven hundred and sixty-four notifications and eighty-six private messages and went straight to settings. Shame I hadn’t thought of deactivating my account yesterday. One more touch and Valentina Bell ceased to exist.

Pity I couldn’t do the same thing in real life, too.

Somehow, during the course of the drive to the beach, I had to find a way to warn Zac that there could be a lot snide comments thrown his way. All without telling him the exact reason why. Unless he’d seen it with his own two eyes, of course, but at least he’d been at work until late. Speaking of which, if I didn’t get a shift on, I’d still be in bed when he arrived looking a total mess.

If he arrives …

Being stood up would have been a fitting end to the past twenty-four hours. I hauled my arse out of bed and crossed the room to open my curtains. The grey skies had cleared and the sun was already blazing overhead. Ideal beach weather. Looking out now, you’d never believe storms had battered the house for most of the night. Too nervous to eat anything, I used the extra time to try to get rid of the purple shadows and the puffiness beneath my eyes. Time up, I hovered by the window, trying not to wear a patch into the carpet with my constant shuffling. Bang on nine o’clock, Zac’s Land Rover rolled up outside the house.

Suddenly ravenous, I ran up to my room to grab some more cash. Thank goodness Donovan’s was kind of on the way: my usual would go down very nicely indeed. Zac turned out to be a great driving companion, and he took the news that I’d been the subject of a practical joke really well. He stayed by my side all day, his protective streak shining through, looking out for me and fending off snide remarks. But then a hellish cry rang out. One of the dickweeds who’d been taunting me all day had got caught in a rip and he wasn’t going to make it out on his own. In the blink of an eye Zac the all-around nice guy disappeared, and Zac the Lifeguard leaped into action.

Whoa …

Watching him run full speed, launch himself into the water, then save the guy was seriously H-O-T. All the girls on the beach had their beady eyes on him, even the ones who were there with their boyfriends. Zac could have had his pick of any one of the girls, but, after the rescue was over, he walked back to me, reached for my hand and asked me to join him for a walk. I didn’t hesitate for a second. Nor did I hesitate when he led me away from the group, then pulled me into his arms.

Slowly, Zac dipped his head, never taking his gaze off me and giving me time to pull away. As if. The moment Zac’s lips brushed ever so gently over mine, the memory of Jake’s kiss flared and roared inside my head, calling me out as a traitor and a cheat. No way. I pushed it aside, refusing to go there. It hadn’t even been a real kiss, anyway. That chapter of my life was over. To prove it to myself, I linked my arms around Zac’s neck and glanced up at him from beneath my lowered lashes, revelling in the smile playing over his lips. Zac let go of me with one hand to reach up and tilt my face towards his. His pupils darkened and he hesitated only for the length of a heartbeat before claiming my mouth again.

Running, and swimming, and lifeguarding weren’t the only things Zac excelled at. He teased the plump fleshy part of my lower lip with his lips and teeth, gradually easing my lips apart. Tingles shot from my fingers to my toes and my pulse thundered ferociously. My eyes fluttered closed as Zac deepened the kiss, and then he dipped his tongue inside my mouth. Fireworks flashed as brightly as the lightning I’d watched through the night. My heart thumped as loud as the thunderclaps.

I’d never been so thoroughly kissed in my entire life, yet not once did his hands stray. It was as if there was an unspoken understanding between us that it would have been too much, too soon. It was the surest sign I could hope for that he believed me when I said I wasn’t
that
kind of girl, despite the comments and innuendo he’d been indirectly subjected to all day. The sly comments soon dried up and, by the time the sun set on what had been a fabulous day, everybody loved Zac. He was the new hero. I nearly whooped out loud when Zac asked to see me again. Although the two further kisses, equally as good as the first if not better, should have been a clue.

Perhaps best of all, each time we kissed, the voices inside my head quietened. Much like the weather, my mood and my spirit were greatly improved compared with the day before, and, with Zac’s smouldering goodbye kiss, my crush on Jake fell silent altogether. Still wearing a smile on my face, I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow for the first time in months.

To think I’d been dreading the summer holidays. This year was proving to be the best summer ever. The only blip had been early in the holidays, when I’d gone for a sleepover at Gemma’s. Jake stayed in his room the whole time I was there, not even popping his head in to say hello. Gemma must have picked up on the standoff, because she came and stayed at mine instead without question throughout the rest of the summer.

Hooking up with Zac opened up another world to me, a world of double dates with both Gemma and Ben, and Flick and Sean. I still got looks and double-takes everywhere I went, but nobody came out and said anything. Maybe they all assumed they could stop thinking of me as Virginia now. They’d be wrong, of course, but it was an easy mistake to make when I spent most of my free time hanging out with two of the hottest guys on the planet, either on a date with Zac or chilling out with Nathan.

Only Gemma came out and actually asked if Operation: Popping the Cherry could be marked up as Mission Accomplished, but it was obvious they were all wondering it. I very nearly lied to her to say, ‘Yes, job done,’ but I just knew it would get back to Jake, so I told her the truth, or as much of it as I could, anyway. Gemma wasn’t satisfied with my ‘not yet’ answer, though. She didn’t understand what my problem was, and I could see her point. Zac was a great guy and he treated me really well; he was gorgeous and kind and patient—the ideal ‘candidate’ in fact—but I just couldn’t make the mental leap to take that final, irreversible step with him.

Truth be told, I missed Jake. Little things would trigger it: a song, or driving along a particular road, or the sight of one of his company vans, or catching myself running my hand through my hair, which I did more and more these days. I’d thought—hoped—that summer and being with Zac would help, but the pain and confusion of my last conversation with Jake would still creep up on me. Every time I thought of him, my heart physically ached. How could I give my body to Zac when my heart was still stuck with another guy?

Jake didn’t get in touch with me at all; no texts, no calls, nothing. Maybe he was doing it to hurt me, or punish me, or maybe he just didn’t give a damn any more now that he knew I had a boyfriend, courtesy of the Gemma grapevine. Too many times, I would start writing a text to him, only to discard it again. They ranged from the simple ‘hi’ to the more cryptic ‘cherry still intact’ to the full-on ‘missing you’. Hard as it was, I convinced myself it was for the best, for Jake if not for me, and I was doing a pretty good job of it until Nathan let slip that Jake didn’t seem himself either.

According to Nathan, Jake had made some silly errors at work that were completely out of character, and he rarely socialised with the guys any more. Jake had even asked Nathan to keep an eye on me, and would apparently ask after me, but trying to do it in such a subtle way as not to draw attention. It got me wondering whether I could be the cause, but then I’d feel stupid for even considering it. Jake was probably just stressed out with work, or too distracted with his plans for the house, but still the nagging doubts plagued me, refusing to go away.

On the last day of the holidays, I reactivated my network profile to try to do some cyber-stalking, just to reassure myself that Jake was fine, but it seemed he hadn’t been posting for a while, either. I tapped the private-messages box, and scanned the hundreds upon hundreds of unopened messages, deleting them as I went, until just a handful of familiar faces remained. And one of those faces was Jake’s. My stomach churned and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Omigod
.

Jake
had
been in touch and I just hadn’t known.

It was dated 24 July, the day after I’d last seen him, and I couldn’t hold back my groan. For six damn weeks, his message had gone unanswered. Instead of his ignoring me, it was suddenly the other way around. I tapped the screen to open it, needing to know what he’d written.

‘Did I evn make teh reverse lst? :-( xxxxxx.’

Huh?

His message didn’t make any sense. Some reference to driving that went right over my head, maybe? I hovered my finger over the delete button, but then I noticed the time he’d written it: 2.24 in the morning. Jake hadn’t sent it the day after our confrontation: he’d sent it the very same day. And, judging from the state of his spelling, he’d been pretty drunk at the time. Automatically, my brain began deciphering it, inserting the missing letters and rearranging the transposed ones until it became abundantly, and painfully, clear.

‘Did I even make the reserve list? :-( xxxxxx.’

Tears stung my eyes and my chest tightened. Ice ran through my veins until I couldn’t hold back a shiver. Now what was I supposed to do?

Nothing
.

I’d moved on. I was with Zac now and, as boyfriends went, he was pretty awesome. I needed to look forward, and also cherish what I had right now, not dwell on the past and mourn for something I never had—what I
couldn’t
have.

But what if …

The last few days of the holidays went by in a flash and then it was back to the books. It was as if I’d never been away. There was still a fair bit of pointing as I walked the corridors between classes, mostly from the Upper Sixths. Snarky comments followed me wherever I went but I tried not to pay any attention to them. Without Malice to stir things up, I was old news before the second week, especially once she had been seen stacking shelves at the supermarket.

My favourite theory was that she’d done a number on somebody else and they’d finally sorted her out. No sympathy from me if it was true. The malicious cow deserved whatever she got. I had bigger issues to contend with, anyway. The inside of my head was a mess. College gave me the perfect excuse to cry off on spending quite so much time with Zac at least, so I could try to pull myself together. I desperately wanted to be able to fall for him but the whole Jake and the ‘what-ifs’ thing was driving me crazy, bordering on obsessive, and nothing I’d tried so far had made any difference.