It Takes Two To Tango

Chapter Five

‘So it went well then?’ Molly asks me, looking at my reflection in the mirror as she straightens her hair.

I shrug. ‘Well, the dancing was amazing. It was just Jude that was the problem.’

With a deft flick, Molly smoothly finishes one side of her hair and moves onto the next. ‘You’ll get used to him,’ she tells me. ‘He’s so lazy and annoying, isn’t he? I can’t believe how different Dan is.’

It’s like someone’s twisting my heart. I’d almost forgotten that Molly would now be in Dan’s arms, rather than mine.

‘Uh, so how was Dan to dance with?’ I ask, quickly.

Molly smiles. ‘He was lovely,’ she replies. ‘The dancing was fine: he actually seemed to know what he was doing. And he was so sweet and kind to me.’

‘He is sweet,’ I murmur.

‘So yeah, it was all fine. I much prefer him to Jude.’

Me too, I add silently. Despite Jude’s better dancing abilities, I just cannot stand that boy. But it looks like I’ll have to.

‘What do you mean you can’t do that day?!’ Molly and I glance at each other as our mum’s voice carries up the stairs. ‘You need to be there! This is Molly’s parents evening!’

Molly rolls her eyes. ‘What’s up with them?’ she asks, quietly. I shrug, as I hear my dad retort.

‘I can’t do it- why can’t you go?’

‘Because it’s your turn to go!’

I shut the door, and turn on some music, so we won’t have to hear whatever’s going on down there. But I can still hear voices, just over the top of the music. I just have to pretend that I can’t.

*
History. I almost don’t want to go to the lesson- I’m seeing enough of Jude as it is without consistently having to sit there listening to him being an asshole and getting away with it.

It doesn’t help when the teacher is in a terrible mood. The atmosphere as Jude and his little huddle of friends come in is icy cold and strained, which doesn’t seem to faze them in the slightest. He swaggers to his seat, sitting down casually.

‘Homework out!’ the teacher barks, marching around the classroom like an army general. ‘No excuses this time! Homework!’

I hand mine in, feeling glad that I did it. When the teachers reaches Jude, she receives homework from every one of his friends except him. Her face reddens.

‘What’s your excuse this time?’ she demands, gritting her teeth. She looks as if she might explode.

‘There isn’t one,’ Jude replies, flippantly. This seems to infuriate her even more.

‘Jude, get up, and go and sit with…’ she turns, scanning the room. Oh no, please no.

I look fixedly at my book, as if I’m trying to burn the pages with the heat of my gaze. If we don’t make eye contact, there’s very little chance that I’ll be chosen.

‘… Kyra. Maybe she can knock some sense into you.’

I slump in my chair. As I’m the only person sat alone, I suppose it was inevitable. But fate must hate me.

‘All you do is muck around on that table,’ the teacher continues, as Jude packs up his stuff, ready to move over. ‘You will give me that homework tomorrow, and sit with Kyra for the rest of the year.’

It’s kind of insulting that she’s using me as a punishment. Not that Jude looks annoyed. He’s got that familiar smug expression plastered on his good looking face.

He plonks himself down, immediately twining one of his legs around mine. It kind of feels nice. Before I can think any more about the niceness of it, I extract my leg, shifting as far away from him in my chair as I can.

‘Awww, Foxy!’ he whispers, as the teacher starts to talk. ‘No welcome?’

I glare at him, cursing fate for this happening. Now I’m stuck with this little rat for the rest of the year? History couldn’t have got any worse, but somehow it has.

Lucy, the girl Jude flirted with before to get her to give him the answers, looks over at my evident distaste of my new table-mate. ‘Cheer up, Kyra,’ she tells me, in a kind of unfriendly way. ‘I’d do anything for such a good-looking boy to be sat next to me,’ she adds, with a saucy look at Jude. He grins at me, raising an eyebrow as if to say ‘I told you so.’

‘Good looking?’ I reply, in disbelief. ‘He looks like he was dropped flat on his face at birth.’

Who am I trying to fool? That’s a flat out lie. He could easily be a Hollister model or something, and have all the girls in the shop swooning. Jude seems to be able to tell I‘m lying, because he smirks knowingly, raising both eyebrows again. 

‘Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Foxy,’ he murmurs, reaching out and rubbing up and down my arm. Okay, that’s definitely nice. Too nice. I brush his arm off of me, realising that I’ve completely missed whatever the teacher was talking about.

Thankfully, she was just doing a re-cap of the previous lesson, but I concentrate for the rest of it. This is made much harder by Jude, who seems to enjoy whispering things into my ear and trying to initiate games of footsie under the table.

I resort to pelting him with rubbers and other stationary to get him off me, as pulling his arms off of me doesn’t seem to make a difference- his arms seem to be magnetically drawn to my body or something.

It’s only when I accidentally get a pencil in his eye that he lets go for five seconds. But as soon as he’s realised that he’s not blind in one eye, he slings his arm around my shoulder again. This is hell.

Finally the bell rings, and I pack away as quickly as I can, desperate to get away from Jude. I am not looking forward to practicing tonight if this is a preview of what he’s going to be like.

As soon as everything is in my bag, I push my chair in… to find Jude casually walking away with my bag hanging on the crook of his arm, looking as if nothing is out of place. That idiot!

I chase after him, winding through the tables, out of the door, down the corridor. People are giving him funny looks as he passes, though he doesn’t seem to care that they’re wondering why he’s walking along with a feminine bag hanging off his arm.

Finally I catch up with him. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I ask him, grabbing the bag and trying to tug it off of his arm. Yeah, really not going to work. His strong arms are no match for my tugging skills. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop though, I continue to pull at the bag as if my life depends on it.

‘Just carrying your bag, Kyra darling,’ he tells me, his lips twitching with a smile, brown eyes twinkling at me.

‘Why?!’ I ask, tugging some more. I am seriously not impressed. It’s like dealing with a young child, not an eighteen year old.

‘I’m helping you out,’ he replies, carrying on walking. As I’m still carrying on my campaign to rescue my bag, I’m forced to walk along with him, and I suddenly realise his motives behind this.

‘You just want me to walk next to you, don’t you?’ I say, scathingly. ‘You rat.’

Jude flashes a smile at me. ‘Oh Foxy, you’ve got me sussed. I’ll give you back your bag if you go on a date with me.’

This surprises me enough to make me let go of the bag. Go on a date with him?

Jude carries on walking, rather jauntily, as if he hasn’t a care in the world. I scamper after him, feeling sure that it never used to take this long to get to the common room from my history classroom.

‘I’d rather burn the bag, thank you very much,’ I tell him, fiercely.

‘Fair enough,’ he answers, and increases his walking speed, so I have to half run to keep up with him.

‘Just give it back, Callahan,’ I plead, as we near the common room. I have no idea what that evil brain of his has planned for what he’ll do when he gets there, but I’m sure it won’t be fun for me. More like humiliation.

I’m struck by an idea, so I dash in front of him, putting my arms rather sneakily around his waist. ‘Maybe we could reconsider the options?’ I say, blinking innocently up at him.

A smile slips onto his face, and his body moulds to fit mine, one arm slipping around my waist and pulling me closer. It all feels rather natural. But I hate it, of course. Of course.

‘Of course we can, Foxy,’ he tells me, brushing a lock of hair out of my face for me. The feeling that this gives me forces me to shut my eyes for a second at the sensation of his skin brushing mine. What’s wrong with me?

I open my eyes, to find myself looking right into his own, which seem to have darkened. Or maybe it’s just the light. He has the most intoxicating eyes I’ve ever seen. Then I snap out of it, and quickly dart out of his arms, swiping the bag from his now relaxed grasp as I go.

‘Hey!’ he says. ‘What about your reconsideration?!’

‘Reconsideration, my ass,’ I tell him, over my shoulder, as I finally get to the common room.

I don’t know why that made him smile, but I don’t even want to find out.