Free The Best Thing I Never Had by Erin Lawless Page B

and the swell of chatter from downstairs grew too loud to ignore.
    She slipped into the pair of jeans she had earlier discarded; a purple and white silk camisole top was the first thing out of her drawer that resembled party-wear. Her coral orange toes peeped up at her from the hem of the denim and she glared back. How had eight o’ clock come so quickly? She needed more time to think, to deconstruct and compartmentalise, to work out how she felt about this massive and outrageous thing.
    But all she could think about – in those precious few minutes before someone would come up and force her downstairs – was last week’s Shakespeare: Stage and Screen seminar. David Tennant was suitably becrowned, fretting and strutting his stuff upon the stage, projected on the wallscreen in front of the class and drawing everyone’s attention but hers. Instead, Harriet was noticing Adam’s hand resting on the desk between them. Each fingertip was perfectly squared off – so unlike her own – odd and manly and perfect. And she didn’t really know what that was supposed to mean.
    Adam was – quite literally – cornered by a girl he’d known in his first year, apparently also friends with Nicky; incestuously small campus strikes again. He sipped from his drink and made feedback noises in all the right places as she prattled on, all the while glaring at the back of Sukie’s dark head across the room.
    She’d opened the door to him and Johnny half an hour ago and had studiously avoided meeting his eyes, guilt emblazoned across her face with all the subtlety of a neon sign. And Harriet – where the fucking fuck was Harriet? – his bloody heart was in his feet.
    Leigha practically danced across the room – barefoot and lovely in a black shift dress that shimmered with sequins and beads – proffering an open bag of Doritos to guests, Johnny a smiling shadow wherever she stepped. It was maddening; he could hear Harriet’s voice now, from somewhere out of sight, in the mass of people through to the hallway, perhaps? Someone shifted and he caught sight of the back of her, one elbow resting on her hip with her hand up by her ear, a stance that told him nothing. If he could just see her face, he would know if Sukie had told her, he would know how to play this. And he had to play this. He couldn’t let one moment of stoned confusion ruin one of his most important friendships.
    He couldn’t bear it any longer, giving a rigid but polite excuse to the girl from his first year and pushing away from her through the crowded room, holding up a palm to decline the bag of Doritos that Leigha whirled into his face as he came near. He gripped Sukie’s upper arm, a little more tightly than he’d planned to, and she turned from her conversation to glare at him.
    ‘Sorry guys, just need to borrow her for one sec,’ Adam grinned out at the group assembled on the couch, affable as ever, before steering Sukie through the kitchen and unceremoniously out of the back door.
    Sukie shivered dramatically, wrapping her arms around herself and pressing backwards towards the shelter of the wall, white chips of snow disappearing as they melted into her hair. ‘I haven’t told her,’ she said immediately, ‘stop freaking out.’
    ‘Who haven’t you told? Leigha? Or Harriet?’ Adam demanded.
    ‘Neither!’ Sukie shot back, but there had been the slightest flicker of hesitation there that Adam couldn’t ignore. He raked both hands through his damp hair.
    ‘Jesus Christ, Su, you’re the one that said not to make it into a big thing!’
    ‘I haven’t! Harry won’t tell anyone—’
    ‘For crying out loud, it’s Harriet who I didn’t want to know!’
    ‘Oh come on,’ Sukie said, trying to make her voice sound as even and reasonable as possible. ‘We’re all grown-ups here. And besides,’ she smirked, ‘it’s always nice to know that somebody likes you!’
    ‘But I don’t! Like her!’ Adam moaned. ‘Not like that. It’s just I was