Free So Now You're Back by Heidi Rice

unlike Liam’s scent of eau de stale cigarette butts.
    What would it be like to spend time with Trey? To talk to him without resorting to her habitual snark?
    Lizzie took her iPhone out of her back pocket and texted Carly. She needed a distraction. The latest argument with her mum must have messed with her sanity if she was actually feeling disappointed she hadn’t been able to walk the devil child to school with the moist au pair.
    Wozzup? she texted.
    Nada. Watching
Friends
reruns … Carly’s reply popped up two seconds later, because her best friend was surgically attached to her phone and her texting skills were autistic. U know, The One Where Rach Sucks Joey’s dick!!!
    Lizzie choked out a laugh, glad her friend couldn’t see the insta-blush firing up her neck. You wish.
    FYI
Friends
would have been amaze-balls as a porno. Bet Joey’s beef is at least 10 inches, Carly replied.
    Fancy a trip to Primani 2morrow? Lizzie texted back,before Carly mortified her even more by teasing her about the size of Trey’s beef again.
    Thought you were doing something with Superstar-Mum?
    She’s going on a book tour in the US. No biggie. Means more quality time with my BFF. Lizzie typed the fake reply not wanting to let on to Carly how disappointed she was her mum had bailed on her again.
    Carly was not a good ear. Not only did Lizzie have the sneaking suspicion her BFF was more interested in her mum’s celebrity than she was in her—ever since
Heat
magazine had published a blurred photo of Lizzie and her mum shopping in Knightsbridge at Christmas, Carly had convinced herself Lizzie’s life out-glammed that of the Brangelina clan—Carly had accused her of being a baby if she moaned about her mum’s work schedule. So now Lizzie kept her resentment a secret, because she didn’t want Carly to know her life was actually about as glamorous as Lisa Simpson’s or that Super Nanny, as Carly had nicknamed Trey, thought she was a bigger brat than Bart.
    Bullcrap, I’m off to that thing in Clapham 2morrow w/ Kip & the guys. Want 2 cum?
    Lizzie stared at Carly’s answering text and wanted to hurl her iPhone against the kitchen wall. She stifled the burst of temper, and the hurt beneath, mainly because she knew her mum would refuse to pay for yet another cracked phone screen. But seriously? How could Carly ask that, when she knew Kip and the ‘guys’ would include Liam? But then, of course she would, because her so-called BFF had told her she was being a baby about Liam, too.
    â€˜Why are you getting so worked up. It was only a BJ, it was only once and it was Amber’s eighteenth. And she’s fancied Liam for ages.’
    When Lizzie had argued that perhaps Liam should have stumped up some cash for a present for Amber rather than gift-wrapping his cock, she’d got Carly’s trademark eye-roll and the one word Lizzie had begun to hate with a passion. Because Liam had used it all the time, too. When he said she was getting too pushy, or too clingy, or doing what he called her ‘stalker vibe’.
    Whatever.
    A word that basically said,
Don’t bug me, don’t bother me, don’t make such a fuss about bugger all. Your opinion, your feelings, your pride don’t matter in the big fat scheme of things that do matter.
    You’ve got a boyfriend who gets caught getting a BJ from one of your friends at her birthday party?
    Whatever.
    You’ve got a mum who takes time out from her busy
HELLO!
-style life only because she’s having some weird freak-out about you being anorexic?
    Whatever.
    You’ve got a dad who still thinks you’re his smart, witty, wonderful baby girl. When you know you’re not?
    Whatever.
    You’ve got a little brother who used to look at you as if you were Hermione Granger and a Powerpuff Girl all rolled into one, but now looks at you as if you’re an unexploded bomb?
    Whatever.
    You’re going to be