Free Popping the Cherry by Aurelia B. Rowl Page B

out of me, and, although Jake had driven really gently around the bends, I ached all over.
    ‘She didn’t. I just happened to be here when the phone rang.’ Jake got out of the van and walked around the front to my side. ‘I take it you’re OK to have a guest tonight?’
    ‘Well, duh. Always! She practically lives here half the time, anyway.’ Back under the spotlight, Gemma eyed me up as if hoping to find the answers written on my body. Maybe they were: the bruises might be showing by now. ‘Umm … Lena, do you realise you have blood in your hair?’
    ‘What? No. Eww!’ Like an moron, I reached up to pat my head without thinking and suffered for it. ‘Ow!’
    Gemma saw me wince, and watched me drop my arm limply back into my lap. ‘Can somebody please—’ she drew the word out so it sounded more like pleeeeeeaaaaaaaase ‘—tell me what the fuck is going on.’
    ‘Language, Gem—’
    ‘I will, I promise,’ I said, cutting off Jake’s reprimand while also trying to get my breathing back under control. ‘I really want to get the call to the police over with, too.’
    ‘The police?’ Gemma’s eyebrows shot up and disappeared behind her fringe. ‘C’mon, you’re killing me here.’
    ‘I know, I’m sorry. You’re sure you don’t mind me crashing with you tonight?’
    ‘Of course I don’t mind, but I hope you weren’t planning on going to sleep any time soon.’
    Jake jumped in before I could reply. ‘I’m banking on it,’ he said, earning questioning looks from both me and Gemma, but he ignored us and bent down, sliding one arm beneath my knees, and the other around my back. ‘Do you think you can you hook your arm round my neck for me again?’
    ‘Again?’ Gemma asked. ‘What do you mean “again”?’
    ‘Like this?’ I asked, blanking Gemma out for the moment and linking my left arm around Jake.
    ‘Yeah, that’s perfect.’ He hoisted me out of the van and cradled me in his arms once more, making me feel like a rag doll all over again. ‘Could you grab Lena’s shoes and then close the door for me please, Gem?’
    He set off towards the house without waiting for Gemma’s reply. Her face was a picture, though. She should think herself lucky my phone was dead, which meant no camera, or she’d have been a sure-fire hit on the Internet. It was only because I was still peeping at her over Jake’s shoulder that I saw it: that trace of something else, a certain tightness around her mouth and a barely-there narrowing of her eyes. She was not amused, looking as if she was ticked off at me, or maybe Jake.
    The sound of a car door slamming and running footsteps over the gravel meant she soon caught up with us, making me wonder if she didn’t want to let me and Jake out of her sight. I’d expected Jake to put me down once we got inside the hallway of the house I consider to be my second home, but instead he held onto me, not even slightly out of breath. He carried me through to the sitting room at the back of the house, formerly their playroom, then set me down on the sofa.
    Gemma immediately sat beside me and helped strip my coat off, dumping it on the floor next to her. She took hold of my hand, as Jake mumbled something about tea and blankets, then, the moment he was out of earshot, she pounced.
    ‘I’ve got just one question before he comes back.’
Uh-oh! Here it comes
. ‘I know for a fact you went to a gig with Hayden tonight, so how come you ended up in Jake’s van? With him carrying you around like some sort of damsel in distress? Did Hayden do something? Did he hurt you?’
    So much for ‘one question’
. I flicked a glance at her expression to try to gauge her mood, but she looked her normal ‘best friend’ self again, presumably having got over what whatever her problem with me or Jake was.
    ‘Not really—well, not like that, anyway.’ I stared down at our joined hands. ‘He spent the entire night stoned out of his mind and turned into a right creep.’
    ‘Sounds