Falling Fast by Sophie McKenzie Page B

me. I learned to stop speaking as
soon as his face got that thundery, closed-down look that meant he was on the verge of losing his temper.
    I told myself it didn’t really matter.
    We still had plenty to talk about. I told him loads about my mum and dad and how it had been when they split up. I talked about Stone – how he called me Swampy and how annoying he was. I
talked about the books I’d read and the films I’d seen and the things I’d done with my friends.
    Flynn told me about his jobs. Goldbar’s where he worked on Sundays was a gym. Well, a boxing club, really. He got free classes and some money in exchange for cleaning the place.
    ‘I like boxing,’ he said, when I asked him why he did it. ‘It’s important. So I can look after myself.’
    ‘You mean fight?’ I said. ‘Why d’you need to be able to do that?’
    He muttered something vague about rough neighbourhoods.
    But I knew there was something else too.
    Something he wouldn’t say.
    What we talked about most, of course, was Romeo and Juliet how good or bad various people were in their parts. How much Mr Nichols irritated him. How boring we both found bits of the play
– and how brilliant some of it was.
    One day I questioned him carefully about Emmi and what it was like acting with her.
    ‘It’s okay.’ He shrugged. ‘I mean, she’s all right as Juliet, but she’s a bit . . .’ He paused, flicking an imaginary strand of hair off his shoulder
and pouting at me in a wickedly accurate imitation of Emmi. ‘I dunno, sometimes I think she’s more concerned about looking good than anything else.’
    I grinned, then felt disloyal.
    ‘Emmi’s okay,’ I protested. ‘I know she comes across as a bit superficial, but she’s a good friend.’
    Flynn nodded.
    ‘And she does look good,’ I said. ‘She’s really pretty.’
    ‘Well, that’s true,’ Flynn acknowledged.
    There was a short pause. A thin thread of jealousy twisted into a knot in my heart. Flynn thought Emmi was really pretty.
    Well, of course he did. Who wouldn’t?
    It didn’t mean he liked her more than me.
    Flynn put his arms round me. ‘Never mind Emmi. Doing Romeo and Juliet ’s not real. It’s not like with you.’
    And he drew me into this long kiss. Our kisses were – unbelievably – getting better and better. He didn’t try to touch me that much, not inside my jeans, anyway, not the whole
time we were meeting in the park. But he still ran his hands all over me as we kissed. I shivered wherever he touched me.
    He laughed at that, told me how sexy I was.
    But it wasn’t me who was sexy.
    It was him.
    It was us. Together.

 
15
    Half-term slid slowly by. By the last weekend the weather had changed completely. After the mild, still days of earlier in the week, the temperature dropped and it started
raining – not hard, but off and on, all the time.
    It was too cold and wet to sit outdoors in the park. Especially for Flynn – who either didn’t have a coat or only possessed one he was ashamed to be seen in. I hadn’t plucked
up the courage to ask which yet.
    On Friday I forced him to let me buy him a coffee at the café we’d gone to that very first time. He agreed – after all it was only fair, even he could see that, as he’d
bought the last one. But just talking about money seemed to put him in a bad mood. I knew he was embarrassed that I had more than him. I suppose I still didn’t really understand why it was
such a big deal – after all, it wasn’t like I was rich or anything.
    I kept waiting for him to ask me round to his house. But he didn’t. So in the end we agreed to meet on Sunday afternoon at mine. I would rather we’d gone to a cheap café, but
I was too scared of us having an argument over who was going to pay.
    I hadn’t told Mum very much about Flynn – just that we’d met up a couple of times and that he was coming round so we could test each other on our lines. This, of course,
wasn’t even remotely true – Flynn had