Free The Kiss by Lucy Courtenay Page A

‘I’m trying to forget I said it out loud.’
    ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ I say, hoping I sound casual. ‘Did it really feel like the moon?’
    He looks puzzled.
    ‘Sorry, stupid question – who goes round swallowing the moon and then making comparisons,’ I say hurriedly.
‘I mean, did you read it somewhere? Like, a quote to try on a girl?’
    ‘I don’t do that.’
    ‘Have you said it or felt it before? About kissing?’
    ‘Can we stop this conversation?’ he inquires. ‘It’s a bit too weird for me.’
    I am blushing a fiery red all over now. ‘Ready for work if you are.’
    The rest of the evening goes smoothly enough, considering. I fetch and carry, get through three rolls of paper towels, develop a blister on my heel, unblock a sink, try not to admire Jem’s shoulders too often and generally earn my wages. At midnight, Val rings the till and I tuck my earnings into my purse with beer-scented fingers.
    This time Jem crosses the road with me and props himself up against the bus shelter, hands in his pockets
and ankles crossed like he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
    ‘You don’t have to wait,’ I say after a couple of minutes. I pull my parka more tightly around myself. ‘I told you yesterday, the bus’ll be along in five minutes.’
    ‘You did, didn’t you?’ he says, like he’s just remembered. ‘Oh well, five minutes can feel like a long time when you don’t have someone to talk to. It can feel like, oh, hours.’
    He smiles at me blandly.
    ‘Were you watching me last night?’ I say, rising from my plastic bench.
    ‘I have better things to do at midnight than watch bus stops,’ he assures me. ‘But I happened to see the timetable when I came in today. Buses on this route stop at eleven-thirty.’
    I sink down on the bench again.
    ‘Why did you lie about there being a bus?’ He sounds curious rather than annoyed.
    ‘I . . . didn’t know.’
    ‘You know now. And yet here you are again.’ He gazes at the litter blown into one corner of the bus shelter and the spatter of something orange and nameless on the kerb. ‘Can’t see the appeal myself. I can ask Val to give you a lift home if you want.’ He looks down the road. ‘I’m guessing you live in the same direction as us, unless your actual bus stop is somewhere completely different and this is just another scheme to get rid of me.’
    I know about the buses. Of course I do.
    ‘You make me uncomfortable,’ I say, blushing furiously as I wish him a hundred miles away.
    ‘Aha!’ He clicks his fingers. ‘She speaks the truth. You make me uncomfortable too.’
    ‘Please go away.’
    ‘Going,’ he says obligingly. He heads back across the road towards the theatre. ‘Watch out for the wolf,’ he calls over his shoulder as Val comes out through the theatre’s double doors and clicks open a small green car parked close by.
    ‘What?’ I shout after him. He’s talking in code now?
    ‘It’s a shame if no one listens the one time you scream for real.’
    My embarrassment keeps me warm for almost an hour. Just as well, as it takes about that long to walk home through the cold and dark. Up in the night sky the moon is on the wane.
    What business is it of his, if I choose to fib about the small stuff? I think as I pound along, my blood surging self-righteously through me.
    So blinking what?

T abby calls me on Sunday.
    ‘Auditions on Tuesday only gives me two days to prepare,’ she says, sounding panicky. ‘I don’t know any songs from What an Ado! If I download the film, will you come over and watch it this afternoon with me?’
    I loathed Much Ado About Nothing most of the way through GCSE. Beatrice and Benedick were OK, snapping and snarling while trying not to fancy each other, but Hero? What was with the shame spiral? She drew the short straw with the whole better-off-dead thing. Oh, and don’t get me started on all the lurking behind trees and comic turns by uncomic night’s watchmen. It wasn’t a