L.A. I would have been there like a shot.
“I don’t remember being invited,” I say, making sure I sound light and jokey.
“I should never have let you go.” He shakes his head. “That was my big mistake. You and me, we’re good.” His hands are running over me tenderly. “We’re just good, you know what I mean?”
I want to cry out, “Yes! I do know what you mean! Of course I do!”
But thankfully I’m not quite that uncool. Not quite.
“Well, we’re together now,” I say, my voice husky. “Let’s just enjoy…the moment.”
I pull him playfully backward onto the bed. And he’s leaning in to kiss me, when he stops.
“What’s that?” he says curiously, peering over my shoulder. I follow his gaze and freeze dead in horror. Shit. How can I have been so stupid?
The thing with bedrooms is, you get used to them. You get used to your faded lampshade and your creaky wardrobe door and the stack of books in the corner. You stop noticing them. And you also stop noticing your pile of school memorabilia on the window seat, topped with a framed photo of…guess who?
“Is that me?” Now Ryan is leaning over and grabbing the photo, in fascination.
“Oh, right!” I try to laugh casually. “Yes, maybe! I’ve still got all this old school stuff….”
I’m expecting him to comment on me having a framed photo of him, but he doesn’t; he silently peers at the image. It’s a picture I took once of him and Jake, leaning against the school fence. (I cropped Jake out.) Ryan’s smiling, his school tie askew and his sleeves rolled up. His hair is gleaming. He looks golden. Perfect.
“I had no definition in those days,” he says at last with a frown. “I was a skinny bastard.”
“You were gorgeous,” I contradict him, and run a hand over his back, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s reaching for an old DVD labeled Jake’s Park Picnic.
Oh God.
“Is that our Park Picnic?” he says incredulously, taking the DVD out of its box. “Is this a video of it?”
“Er…yes,” I admit. “I filmed the football match and stuff.”
The Park Picnic is a tradition at our school—all the leavers head there after their final classes and there’s a football game and they all drink beer and make a mess and residents write to the local paper and say it’s a disgrace. I wasn’t even supposed to be there, but I snuck along with Hannah and filmed it. Well, I filmed Ryan, mostly. I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.
“The football match.” His eyes light up. “I remember that. Let’s put it on.”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s looking at my TV. He means right now? Is he joking?
No. He doesn’t seem to be.
Well, I guess we can put sex on hold for a bit. It’s not like I’m desperate. (I am. I am desperate.)
I load the DVD and we wait for a few silent moments—then suddenly we’re looking at a sunny day, fourteen years ago. The park is crowded with kids lolling on the grass, swigging beer, and playing football. Some of the guys are bare-chested, like Ryan, who’s playing football, beer in hand, laughing and joking and looking like what he is: the golden boy of the school.
I remember filming him, creeping forward to the sidelines of the football game with my video camera, borrowed from Mum. And watching it later, over and over.
“Oh, Fixie,” says Ryan, with a massive sigh. “How did we end up here?”
I glance at him and my heart sinks slightly. His brow is knotted in a morose expression which I recognize from drunken evenings out with Jake. It’s the why-am-I-so-bloody-old look, which swiftly leads to the what-happened-to-my-life speech.
I mean, fair enough, I think those things too; everyone does. But we didn’t come up here to think about how crap life is. We came up to have sex.
“I’m glad we’re here,” I say encouragingly. “We’re together…you’re going to have a great job…it’s all going to work out.”
“You think?” His eyes don’t move from the screen, from his young, lithe, carefree self.
“Of course! You’re Ryan Chalker!” I say, trying to impress this on him. “You know, just the name Ryan Chalker used to give me goosebumps. I used to see you coming down the corridor and nearly faint. And not only me. Every girl in the school felt the same. Every person in the school. You must know everyone had a crush on you, even the