Free Eternally North by Tillie Cole Page A

precise
moment that everyone’s favourite fairy flew in. “Here you are! I
wondered where you’d disappeared to. You ready to go par-tay ,
pork chops?”
    I could see the
confusion on the faces of the North clan at the ‘pork chops’
comment, but thankfully they let it slide.
    Getting up and standing
next to Tink, I started the introductions. “John this is-”
    “John? Psht ,
it's Tink and you know it. What’s come over you?” he hissed
glaring at me as though I had lost my mind.
    Through gritted teeth I
started again. “Fine! Tink this is Pamela, Boleyn, Samantha, Henry,
Tate and Tudor. Everybody this is Tink, my best friend, roommate and
fellow Geordie,” I gestured in his direction.
    Henry began laughing,
and Samantha hit his shoulder to shut him up.
    I raised a questioning
eyebrow. “What?”
    Henry pointed along the
table. “Tash, Tink, Tate and Tudor. All T’s – thank God you
don’t all hang out, it’d be a total nightmare remembering all
your names.”
    I giggled. “Good job
your hulk of a brother can’t stand me then, eh?” I lightly
flicked Tudor on his arm, but he instantly grabbed my hand and stared
at me, squeezing my hand gently in his.
    “I don’t hate you,”
he mumbled, all seductively.
    I couldn’t look away,
and felt frisky little shivers creeping up my arm from where his hand
touched mine and that familiar warm sensation heading south.
    Henry cleared his
throat and broke the tension, “Tink? That’s a strange name.
Where’s that from?” he asked with a curious side-look at me and
his brother.
    “Well, it’s a funny
story. Wil and I–”
    “Wil?” interrupted
Tudor, looking mightily confused and breaking our weird little
exchange.
    “Yeah, Wilbur,”
replied Tink, naturally assuming people would make the connection
with me and the famous literary pig.
    “You mean, Tash?”
he clarified.
    “Well, yeah but she’s
been Wil to me since we were twelve. You know, she was named after
the pig –”
    “Well, I think we’ll
leave it there, hey, Tink? Are you ready to go?” I interrupted,
practically shouting while nipping his back and Chinese-burning his
arm.
    “Ow, Wil!”
    I glared at him with
daggers in my eyes, daring him to continue his delightful
storytelling.
    With a defeated huff,
he spat out in a prissy tone. “Fine, yes.”
    I noticed Tudor
silently laughing, and I rolled my eyes at him in reference to Tink.
I also noticed Tate. He was staring at the self-named
‘Friggin’fantastic fairy’ and was practically salivating.
    Tudor, having seen me
studying Tate, covertly glimpsed his way too and raised an eyebrow
knowingly. Tink, on the other hand, was oblivious to Tate’s
attention. He was too busy trying to embarrass me to notice anything
else going on around him. I decided it was time to make an exit.
    “Thank you for
inviting me to meet you all properly, and for not holding my earlier
performance against me. It was really nice to meet you. Tudor, good
luck with the acting. Not that you need it but– ah , you know
what I mean,” I flustered. “Boleyn, have a nice break, and I’ll
see you next week. Samantha, Henry, Tate, Pamela, I hope you have a
good night.”
    With that, Tink and I
headed towards the door, arms linked and giggling when I heard. “Nice
to meet you too... Wil .”
    I whipped my head
around, stopping dead in my tracks.
    Tudor had twisted in
his seat, an amused expression on his face, obviously tickled at my
swine-themed nickname.
    Tink started laughing
his head off at his dig, and I proceeded to stick my tongue out at
Tudor, earning a loud, bellowing laugh from the Blade Reaper himself
as I dragged a giddy fairy through the exit.
    One-nil to him.
    Tudor Bloody North!

Chapter 8
Smack-Bam into fate
    The morning after…
    I had been lying in my
bed for about an hour trying to gain some form of energy to try and
move so I could calm my spinning head. However, I instead found
myself staring at the ceiling and thinking about recent events.
    I had