Free Moderate Violence by Veronica Bennett

his pocket and
put them on. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got the night off.”
    “Ed works at Burgerblitz,” Jo explained to Toby.
    Toby looked at Ed, who was leaning on the rail at the
top of the stairs, kicking the floor idly and looking bored. He was wearing
deliberately creased clothes, she thought. But he couldn’t let the light of a
Saturday afternoon shine on greasy hair or undeodorised armpits. Despite the
studied scruffiness of his outfit, he was still supercool Ed Samuels.
    “I had a mate who flipped burgers,” Toby told him. “Said
he could never get the smell out of his hair.”
    Jo couldn’t see Ed’s eyes. The dark glasses made his
sharp features sharper. His appearance was quite different from Toby’s neat
face and easy, strolling gait. Jo could suddenly see the two years between
them. Ed looked like he was posing, but Toby didn’t need to. An arrow of guilty
pleasure darted through her.
    “Well, if I do stink of hamburger, Pascale’s never complained,” said Ed frostily.
    “Oh, I’m sure you don’t, Ed,” Holly hurried to say. “Now
come on, where shall we go?”
    “I can’t,” said Toby unexpectedly. They all looked at
him. “Tonight, I mean. I’m not free.”
    Pascale put her hand on his arm. “You mean you want to
take Jo out on her own. That’s OK, we get it.”
    “No,” said Toby. In his eyes Jo saw a lie. But she
didn’t know what the lie was – that he didn’t want to go out with her friends,
or he didn’t want to go out with her .
“I mean, I’d come if I could. But I’ve got to go up to London. I promised
someone.” His gaze fell on Jo. “Sorry, I forgot to tell you.”
    It wasn’t so much a lie, Jo decided, as an excuse. He
didn’t want to spend Saturday night with four sixteen-year-olds, or even one. He
had his own friends, to whose company Jo’s Saturday night would be sacrificed. She
minded, but she couldn’t let him think she was immature enough to mind. “That’s
all right,” she told him warmly. “I should be revising anyway.” She looked
round at the others. “We all should!”
    “On Saturday night? Even you can’t be that geeky, Jo,” said Pascale. Her dark eyes
widened in Toby’s direction. “Maybe see you soon, then, Tobe.”
    No one argued. Holly gave Jo a he’s-lying-isn’t-he
look, but that was all. The three of them said goodbye to Toby, less
enthusiastically than they had said hello, and disappeared down the stairs. Trying
not to imagine what Ed, Pascale and Holly would be saying once they got outside
the shop, Jo smiled at Toby encouragingly. “Are you going to see something in London?
A show?”
    Gordon appeared at the top of the stairs. “Any customers
up here?” he said softly out of the side of his mouth.
    The young guy and the middle-aged couple had gone. “Nope,”
said Toby.
    “Thank God for that. My feet are balls of fire,” said
Gordon in his usual voice, bustling about behind the cash desk. “Did I hear you
say you’re going to a show?”
    “Nope,” said Toby again. “I’m just meeting a couple of
friends.” Then he added, more quietly, to Jo, “We might go to a club, but we
might just have a drink. I haven’t seen them for ages.”
    Jo stopped herself asking if one or both of them were
female. “Have you got lots of friends in London?” she said conversationally as
they went down the stairs. Jo hardly ever went ‘up to town’ as Tess called it,
even though Waterloo Station was only 30 minutes away on a commuter train. Kingsgrove
was part of London really, but to Jo it always felt like it was on a different
planet from the dirty, noisy, traffic- jammed London so few miles away. She
didn’t much like London. She thought she would rather live in New York, or Los
Angeles. But then most people probably thought that.
    “No, not lots,” said Toby. He took her hand and they
walked through the shop, which was empty except for Tasha, who was tidying the
changing-rooms. Toby leant on the cash desk. “But the