How to Seduce a Punk

Step 1. Have Her Question Your Sexuality

I lay back on my bed, flipping through the pictures on my phone. Half of me was listening to my best friend raving about her latest boyfriend (who, I knew from experience, would be the most horrific human being on the planet within a fortnight and would need punching in the eye with a stiletto heel) and half of me was focused on the fact that the sharp black nail varnish on my index finger was chipped.

I huffed when a text from my mother flashed up, and rolled over onto my stomach, legs up behind me against the wall. Did I want to come to my dad's birthday party? No, not particularly. I wasn't a university student with a severe chip on my shoulder for nothing. Besides, I had standards. I didn't want to get hit on by smarmy men who were way too close to sixty for my liking.

"Cat." Becca's voice snapped me out of my thoughts. "Are you paying any attention to what I'm saying?"

"Your boyfriend's called Jay, is super cute and his eyes are dreamy and he plays guitar," I replied. I hadn't been listening to what Becca had been saying, but we'd gone through this routine so many times over the years that I took it in without processing the words.

"My brother plays guitar," Becca corrected me, giving me the same look she'd give me in school when I'd been too busy doodling to pay any attention to what was being said by the teacher.

I threw my phone down and shot my friend a confused look. "Your brother? How did we get onto your brother?"

"He's transferring."

This made me bolt upright, dark hair flopping over my face. "Wait, what?"

Becca smirked. "See, this is why you should listen to what I'm saying."

"I was listening," I retorted.

Becca raised both eyebrows. "What, to Avril Lavigne?"

I scowled. "Do I look like I've got headphones in?"

She ignored the jibe. "Whatever. Anyway, back to my brother."

"Your brother." I crossed my legs, leant my elbow on my knee and stuck my chin in my hand, fixing my friend with twin green eyes. "I remember two things about your brother."

Becca looked mortified. "Oh my god, if you're going to say that time we walked in on—"

"No!" I shuddered at the memory. "That never happened. We didn't see that. No, I remember his name, and I remember that he's gay."

Becca stared at me for a long, hard moment. "Okay, look, Cat, I know last weekend sucked, but if you're drunk at–" she checked her phone "–eleven am, then we've got problems. Jace is as straight as you can possibly be. He's, like, Dean Winchester straight."

"So, really not very straight at all," I said. "And don't say that on Tumblr. Those fangirls will destroy you." I smiled sweetly at Becca's look of total incomprehension. Oh, to be blissfully unaware of fandoms... "And Jace is totally gay."

Becca looked like she was debating whether to throw me out of the window or down the stairs. I wondered why she'd bother to try. I had to be ten times stronger than Becca, after the tough regime I'd put my body through in the last six years and all the sport I did.

"Jace," Becca said, very clearly, "is a man-whore. For girls."

"Jace," I said, adopting the same tone, "is gay. Because he is in love. With himself."

Becca didn't speak for a moment. "I'm pretty sure that would make him ace, but—"

"Now you're just being rude," I said. "One, go and Google 'asexual', and two, don't insult the ace community by making your brother a part of it. In fact, don't insult the straight community by putting your brother in it. He can have his own community, titled 'cocky and arrogant bastards with no conception of—'"