Free Tessa in Love by Kate Le Vann Page A

a lot more than me. Still, I just knew I was right about this, because there was no way Matty should have been with someone who made her feel insecure. And there was no way I’d feel the same way about Wolfie if he didn’t seem to love and respect me the way he did.
    We ended up compromising with a ham pizza and watched a spoofy movie that neither of us found very funny.
    ‘Do you think we should do something together?’ I said.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Matty said.
    ‘You and me and Lee and Wolfie.’
    Matty sighed. ‘They’re not really the same kind of guy,’ Matty said.
    ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said.
    ‘To be honest, I don’t think they get on all that well,’ Matty said. ‘And they’ve known each other, or sort of known each other, for quite a while now.’
    I wondered if Lee had said something nasty about Wolfie, because Matty seemed more certain that it would be a bad idea than me. I’d been around when Lee was making fun of him in the coffee shop, but maybe he hadn’t stopped there.
    ‘But if we were all together, you and me having a laugh, they might end up having a good time,’ I said.
    ‘Well . . .’ Matty didn’t sound convinced. ‘Oh, you know what? Instead of making it some big deal, how about we all just hang out at Becca’s party? Lee’s coming, you’re coming, so bring Wolfie.’
    I thought this sounded like a brilliant idea. Matty and I really needed to feel closer again, and the thing, I thought, that might have been pushing us further apart was the fact that we were both spending more time with our boyfriends and less with each other. And there was no reason we couldn’t combine the two things.
    ‘Fantastic,’ I said. ‘It’s going to be so cool’
    But I couldn’t really interest Matty in making any all-new Lee-and-Wolfie plans. She said she and I would still have to go to the party together, because Becca’s house was a car ride away, and Matty’s parents were pretty strict about her going to parties: they thought they were drink and drug and sex and ritual sacrifice extravaganzas, and that they would lead to Matty being featured on Crimewatch. So it would probably be the tried and tested formula of her mum dropping us off and mine picking us up – the other way around, Matty’s mum always came early and rang the doorbell, which Matty thought was social death – so we’d have to meet the boys there. Matty decided we’d have to get there first, too, because neither of the boys knew Becca all that well. I was much more excited than Matty: I could see a time in the near future where we got to hang out as two couples. I knew Wolfie wasn’t that keen on Lee and, if I was being honest, I had a problem with him, too, but I trusted Matty, and Matty loved him.
    ‘Listen, though,’ Matty said, out of the blue, near the end of the film, ‘let’s not make this a concrete plan. Lee’s been a bit funny about stuff, recently. Just ask Wolfie if he’ll come with you. Don’t make it about the four of us.’
    ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Is everything OK, though?’
    ‘Yeah–yeah, everything’s fine,’ Matty said.
    I paused the DVD and went to get the ice cream. I knew there was probably something up, but, if Matty wasn’t ready to talk about it, I knew from experience that I couldn’t force her, and I didn’t want to go back into our weird argument from earlier about whether I was changing too much to be like Wolfie. If I could influence the direction of the evening, my best bet was to make it all about ice cream.
    It was Cookie Dough. It was good. The evening was saved.

T hen things got better. I was writing some course-work at home on the dining table straight after school. My mum wasn’t home yet, my brother was on the other side of the room watching the telly, and my dad was tootling around in the kitchen making himself a sandwich before dinner. We heard a commotion outside the house, and my dad asked my brother to turn down the telly. Before he had, the doorbell