Page 176 of Save You

I smile thankfully at her.“You’re welcome to keep on with the compliments.”

Mum pushes the butter over to me, followed by Dad’s apple jam.“Tell me about your evening, you two.”

“It all went to plan,” I say, starting to butter my toast.“Which is a relief.”

Mum’s used to my concise answers to anything to do with Maxton Hall, so she turns her attention to Ember.But my sister is busy texting someone, her phone under the table, so she doesn’t even notice Mum speaking to her.

“What are you grinning at, Ember?”Dad asks, about a second before I got to ask her the same thing.

Caught, she glances up.“I’m not grinning at anything.”

Dad raises an eyebrow and Mum repeats her request, more firmly this time.“Come on, tell me about yesterday evening.”

I shrug and take a bite of my toast, looking just as expectantly as Mum and Dad at Ember.

“It was lovely,” she says in the end, sounding genuinelyenthusiastic.“The school is so pretty—it doesn’t come across properly online.And the dresses the women were wearing!They were all so beautiful.”

She sighs and pours herself a cup of tea.

“Is that it?All I’m getting?”asks Mum.

I can’t help wondering why she’s being so persistent.Is it because she’s finally got a chance to get the details of a Maxton Hall party from someone?Or is she worried about Ember?It took us a bit of work last week to get Mum to agree that she could come with me.Or maybe there’s a completely different reason.

Ember doesn’t let it faze her.She leisurely butters her slice of toast, then looks up.“I met a boy.Is that what you want to hear, Mum?”

My head whirls around and I stare at her.“Was it Kieran?Please tell me that it was Kieran.”

“Who on earth is Kieran?”Dad asks, putting the Kindle down.He looks from Ember to me and back again.

“A nice boy on the events committee.”

Mum breathes a sigh of relief.“Thank God for that.There was me thinking I was about to have you curled up on the couch like a lovesick beetle too.”

“Hey!I wasn’t a lovesick beetle.”

Mum and Dad glance at each other, a long look that says more than a thousand words.

“If you say so, love,” Mum says after a while, but not with her usual smile.“Anyway, Ember, tell us about this boy.”

“Oi!”Ember exclaims, glaring furiously at Mum and then at me.“One, it’s none of your business.Two, I don’t owe anyone here an explanation of anything.And three, ‘met a boy’ doesn’t mean I’ve got a boyfriend now.I turned him down, as it happens,and now I’m waiting to see how he reacts.So don’t go making it into some massive deal.”

I stare at my sister.“Who is it, Ember?”

Ember stares back at me, eyebrows raised.“I’m not telling you.”

“Ember, I…”

“Forget it, Ruby.Now, can we please have breakfast in peace?”She bites demonstratively into her toast.

The rest of breakfast drags by at a snail’s pace.After a minute or two, Dad tries to lighten the mood, but without much success.My thoughts are whirling.I’m running through yesterday evening in my mind, wondering when Ember had the chance to spend longer than five minutes chatting with a boy who wasn’t Kieran.Itmusthave been him.But then she wouldn’t be being this mysterious about it, would she?

After breakfast, Ember and I load the dishwasher in silence, and then go upstairs together.Before she vanishes into her room, she gives me another thin smile, which I return wearily.We never normally snap at each other like that, but I can’t shake the feeling that something happened last night, something I should have done better at protecting Ember from.

I sigh and push open my bedroom door, and at that very second, my phone pings.I snatch it up from my desk and tap on the message with shaking fingers.

Can we talk?

I type my reply so fast that my phone can’t keep up and all the words come out wrong, and I have to start again at the beginning.