Once at halls, I trudged up the stairs and opened the door. I ran into a few people who were just hovering around in the corridor. I felt marginally confused and had started up the stairs to my room when a pushy brunette I remembered from as far back as Fresher’s Week, because she’d been boasting in a braying tone about her jaunts to Monaco, asked me, “So what’s he like then?”
“What?”
“Pierce Casanova Callun!” she said in an excited tremble, her eyes wide with gossipy expectation. “What’s it like to sleep with the Devil?”
“Ask your mum, since you can only have come from Satan’s ball sac,” I responded brutally. Her jaw dropped open at such a response. Her friend interrupted as she tottered from the shock of being insulted.
“Come on, Cari, Donna said you left Kate’s party with Pierce.”
“What the fuck? Is Gossip Girl tweeting about me?” I had to laugh. It was ridiculous. “Look, there were about thirty or forty-odd people at Kate’s party and ten of us, Pierce included, went to a club.”
“Yeah, Donna was there. She said you left with Kate, Sam, and Pierce. To Kate’s flat.”
“Oh, sweet Lord.” I laughed. I had to.
“True then,” another girl gossiped in the background. “Knew it.”
“That I’ve slept with him?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You lot have already made your mind up, so it doesn’t matter if I say yes or no. Does it?” I gave another disbelieving laugh that these fuckers didn’t have anything else to do with their time in higher education but discover who I’d slept with. “You lot need to get out more.”
I headed to my room and met Toni, who was crossing the hall from West’s room to mine. She was wearing a shirt that blatantly belonged to her boyfriend. I had never been so glad to see anyone.
“Hey hey hey!” she said brightly. “I was just coming to see you. The Boy Child is in a complete state. He’s sleeping it off. How are you?”
“Beyond hung over,” I muttered. She took the keys from my hand and let us into my room.
“Let’s chat. Tea?”
“Oh, fuck, yes!”
She ushered me in and went straight to our kitchenette as I threw my coat on one of the beanbags Phoebe and I had used to decorate our room. I had a thought, then popped my head through the door. “I’m just going to my bedroom with my platonic female friend. Not to shag. To talk! Talk!”
Toni burst out laughing. “All right there, love, what’s going on?”
I shook my head and winced at the stale smell of smoke that clung to the strands. I had the briefest flashes of Pierce’s fingers dragging through my braids as he ran his mouth over my neck. I had a minor attack of paranoia thinking that my hair mist would have left a sheen of oil on his skin.
“Cari,” Toni pressed, handing me a cup of tea. “What is it?”
“Last night, or rather three something stupid this morning, I didn’t really have the money to get back here, so Sam told me to crash with him and Kate. Pierce was there. He’d locked himself out of his flat, so Kate offered him the same room. So we had to bunk together.”
Toni blushed, like she always did whenever I started talking about sex. “So…you and Pierce?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He was a perfect gentleman.”
Well, not that much of a gentleman. Given half the chance, he’d have been in there with a blood-soaked Durex. I shuddered. Wow, I disgust myself sometimes.
“So, why are you so mad?” Toni asked, taking a sip of her own tea.
“Because everyone’s jumping to conclusions about me and him!”
“And,” Toni added patiently.
“I’m a total bitch to him.” I sighed, looking upwards.
“Uh oh. I know what that means.” Of course she would. “You like him, don’t you?”
I gulped my tea. “I really don’t want to. He’s depraved and Satan’s right hand man and physically the most beautiful man I’ve ever been in touching distance of that doesn’t involve a laptop or a top shelf magazine and he knows how fit he is. No, I’m not touching him again with a forty-foot barge pole.”
“Again?” Toni echoed weakly.
“There was a small issue of a kiss that got completely out of hand, but other than that I told you he was a perfect gentleman.”
Until he called me a Paxman bitch. Bastard called me a bitch…
Admittedly, at that moment, he spoke the truth. But still…
Toni looked down at her tea. “Maybe he’s different with you?” A hopeful look brightened her face. “Maybe you can change him!”
“Oh, please,” I said sharply. “Lame dogs make me want to get out a syringe filled with lethal chemicals.”
“I bet he fancies the Myla off you!” She continued slyly, “I mean, if everyone’s already made up their mind, you may as well. West’d be pleased.”
“It’ll make West happy because he’ll think I won’t have the time or energy to lead you astray,” I snapped, venting my resentment at Toni’s rather solid boyfriend. He didn’t deserve it. Neither did Toni. I got to my feet and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry. I know you think that from the enemy camp I may be able to do something about his attitude to you, but seriously, it’d be like pimping me out to the old guy from
Poltergeist
.”
“Eww!” Toni laughed.
“Promise, it’s just a chemical thing. It’ll pass.”
She shrugged. “If you say so.” She glanced at my clock. “Don’t you have a lecture in half an hour?”
“Yup.”
“Aren’t you going?”
“Nope. I’m on, I’m crabby, I need to finish this tea, have a long shower, wash my hair, put on pyjamas, and feel freaking normal. A lecture on Land Law will not help me.”
“Slacker,” she said with a beautiful grin. “You won’t do the whole world-domination thing if you carry on like that.”
She gave me a kiss on the cheek and left me to it. I took my time washing away the night’s grime from head to toe, wishing I could do the same with my mind, and hating myself for wanting to call Pierce and apologise for judging him.
I gave it several hours before claiming to Kate that Cari had left her gloves behind and I needed her number to return them. Without even batting an eyelid, Kate scrolled through her vast phone book and sent the number to my phone. Just as I left, I ran into a group of Sam’s friends and another bloke who looked suspiciously familiar. Toni’s hippy. How very fortuitous.
Sam introduced us all and hippy held out a hand to me. “How are you, mate? Ben.”
“Wrecked,” I admitted. “You missed Kate’s birthday.”
He squinted. “Well, midweek and I’ve got a shit load of work to catch up on.”
“How come?”
“I just started this term. Managed to swing a bursary to get me in. Some generous benefactor. So I have to work hard to make him proud.”
“Who else do you know?”
Sam intervened. “You went to the same school as Cari, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, you know Cari?” Ben asked.
My lips tightened briefly. “Not well. But I know of her.”
“Have you met her mate, Toni?”
I noted the hopefulness in his voice. “I have. She’s dating my friend, West.”
“Oh.”
With an artless shrug, I predicted, “Probably won’t last very long. He’s not giving her enough space.”
Ben blinked. “Really? Doesn’t sound like the Toni I know to put up with it.”
“Next time we go out, you should come along. See for yourself. She could do with the support from someone who knows her.”
Hastily, Ben handed over his number. “Sure, I’d love to catch up with Toni again. And Cari, of course. We call her Smurfette.”
Again the over familiarity, which wove annoyance through my alcohol infused veins. “Because she’s short. Yes, very droll. Listen, I’ve got to sort out my flat, so I’ll give you a ring.”
“All right, cheers.”
With the pawn of Ben in my veritable back pocket, I decided to call Cari from the privacy of my newly locked flat. I heard scrambling around when it was picked up and after a deep sigh I heard a cautious hello.
“Hello, Carina.”
She paused at the sound of my voice. “Pierce. Which soon-to-be-dead foolish female gave you my number?”
I curbed my irritation to say lightly, “I’ll tell West exactly what you think of him. Walking dead effeminate idiot should cover it.” Minor lie, but more acceptable than getting her number from Kate. Cari wouldn’t dare ask West for fear the question would come across as interest in me. She’d rather die than admit that.
Cari suddenly started laughing, the sound a gloriously dirty one. “Tell him he’ll live if I don’t see him today.”
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Like a burst dam.”
“Way too much information,” I grimaced.
“You did ask,” she said nonchalantly. “You?”
“Getting grief from guys who keep telling me they’d have shagged you given half the chance.” Honest-to-God truth.
“Well, they didn’t get half the chance. You got a whole one and I…I respect you for the way you handled it. Mostly.”
I nearly dropped the phone. “What?”
“That was a compliment,” she explained wryly. “Take a deep breath, here comes something else. I’m sorry. You looked after me so well last night, it was like an episode of
Holby City
. Then you had me bitching at you first thing in the morning and it was out of order.”
“How many drugs have you taken?” I asked slowly, still not taking in the fact that Cari was being civil to me.
“Look, yeah, accept my apology or you will be sorry.”
“Apology accepted, Hulk!” I teased. “I’m sorry too. I should have realised you’d be cranky.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice gentle with sincerity.
“Good! Now, come and have hair of the dog.”
She stalled. “Umm…”
“A Bloody Mary will sort you out. Excuse the pun.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” I asked, surprised by the geniality in my voice when I should have been punching something into dust.
“I can’t cope with any more nonsense from people today. I’d like a day off from the gossip mongers.”
“Coward,” I challenged. “Who gives a fuck?”
“You should,” she reminded me. “Half our fight came from the fact that people don’t shut up about you.”
“People make up all sorts of shit. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have a drink with someone I like.”
Her breath hitched. “You like me? You don’t want to fling me into space?”
“Bloody tempted to this morning,” I warned her.
“Look, I need to catch up on the lectures I missed today. Can we rain check? I promise I won’t judge you. I won’t be a cow. I won’t bring up anything about gossip and reputations and why you sleep half naked.”
Admittedly I was pissed off, but it wasn’t a straightforward no. Something like this I was totally unused to, but if she heard annoyance in my voice, she’d completely rule out going out with me. “All right then, deal.”
“Can I ask why you sleep half naked?”
“You should know,” I reminded her with a frown. “I get really hot.”
She laughed. “That you do.”
“Was that another compliment?”
“No!”
I grinned. “All right then, call me. You’ve got my number now.”
“I do. I won’t put it on a sex website.”
“Too late for that. It’s right next to yours.”
She giggled again.
“See you later, Cari.”
“If you’re really unlucky, yeah!” she said warmly before ending the call.
She’d been nice to me. Actually, she’d flirted with me. The joy was on par with the searing sensation that had flooded me when she had kissed me first thing this morning. Her lips seemed to melt into mine. Maybe I could just…with Cari…just for a little while…