Page 21 of Oleander

“Soooo, thought I might have heard from you over the summer,” she said, looking ahead and unbothered. “But I didn’t. Not a single text. Rude.”

“Shit, sorry.” I smiled, knowing that it was the sort of thing my smile would make sound less pathetic.

She stopped walking and turned to me. I did the same.

“Properly,” she said.

“What?”

“Apologise properly.” Her dark eyes glittered not with hurt but humour, and I suddenly remembered why I kissed her that night. She was gorgeous, yes, but mainly, it was because she wasn’t like the other girls in our year. She didn’t get upset over silly things.

“Sorry, Ellie. Summer was crazy...I was helping Luke out and moving house. Oh, and I found out I’m gonna be an uncle. It was a lot. I barely even saw Josh or Alfie, either.”

She watched me, dark eyes and dark hair shining in the sunlight.

“And what about the night at the beach?” Her voice was soft and quiet, fragile. “Are you sorry about that, too? Cause when you never texted, I thought maybe...you regretted it.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling like a terrible person. “That was shitty of me. No. I didn’t. I don’t regret it.”

She let out a soft breath of laughter and hit me lightly on the chest. “God, I’m kidding. You look like I just told you your dog died.”

I laughed, relieved.

“Look, I was in Italy basically the entire summer; I hardly even thought about you. And I think, actually, it was me who kissed you. So maybe I was the one who should have texted.” She was smiling wide now, and it was contagious. Yes, this was why I liked her.

I grinned. “Equal rights for women and all that.”

“You know I’m all about it.”

“I do.”

She smiled and said nothing, silence swelling between us. I knew what I was supposed to say now. I was fifteen, and Ellie Walsh was one of the most beautiful girls at school, and she liked me. She had kissed me on the beach and called me out about not getting in touch afterwards. She’d put herself out there. I admired it.

What did it mean then that my thoughts were not about Ellie but about a half-naked Caspien Deveraux, pink and cold from the snow?

Truly, I didn’t want to explore what it meant. Or why I had memorised his Instagram username, or why I was wondering why I hadn’t seen him once since I moved into the groundsman’s cottage. So, I pushed all those thoughts aside and forced out what I was supposed to say.

“So, do you wanna come over at some point this week and see my new mansion?” I asked Ellie with a playful grin. “We could study for that Biology exam?”

Ellie’s face broke out into a wide, pretty smile.

“Yeah. I would.”

Ellie came over on Friday that week. Her dad drove her to mine, Beth going outside to introduce herself, while I waited at the door. Ellie came bounding out of his range rover with her hair down and her lips glossed as her dad shouted he’d be back to pick her up at 9:30p.m.

Beth hadn’t been against it when I’d asked if Ellie could come over to study. As long as we kept the door open and she was gone by ten then it was fine. Luke had given me an encouraging kind of smile.

Had I wanted Beth to put up more of a fight? To say no outright?

Maybe.

But it gave me the start of a headache when I tried to understand why.

“Oh, it’s cute,” Ellie said as she dumped her backpack down on my bed and peered out the little window. “There’s a boat in your pond.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I go out on it and think sometimes.”

“Dangerous.” She laughed, flopping down on the bed and giving me a mischievous look. “Thinking, I mean. Not boating.”