Pictures of You

Chapter Four

Saturday night, and me and my squad were out. Todd Simmons' parents were off in the Bahamas. He had decided to stay at home because he didn't want to disturb his studies. That's what he had told them anyway. But the reality was that he wanted the house to himself so he could get some people over. He lived in one of the big houses on the outskirts of town. They came with a bit of land, so was able to have people round, and play music loud without having the neighbours too close to object. It was meant to just be close friends, but as these things often did, it grew and half the school were now going.

I was with James, who you already know. Siobhan, who brought Connor, who she'd been dating for the last month. I didn't know him too well, but the two kind of came as a package these days, even after dating just a few weeks. Then there was Charlotte and Jade. The two were best friends and where you saw one you always saw the other. Whenever we went to parties, they always made out with each other. I'm not sure if they had a relationship like James and I, or if they just got drunk and thought it was fun.

We had all put together to get a taxi.
We stood out the front of the house, as Charlotte and Siobhan finished smoking. We were told to get there for seven, but we waited till nine, as we didn't want to be first there. It looked like we had achieved that. Even from outside we could hear loud music and a lot of voices coming from inside.

The girls threw their finished cigarettes on the floor and we walked towards the door. We knocked, but the music was too loud for anyone inside to hear, so we pushed the door open and went in. The music blasted out. The hallway was already full of other teenagers: talking, drinking and having fun. I walked through the hall to the front room, crew in tow, looking for the host.

'Ash!' I heard a voice call. I turned to see Todd, clearly already wasted, waving at me from across the room. I held up my hand to wave back and walked towards him, meeting him halfway. 'Glad you could make it man,' he said, slapping me on the back.

'Great place you've got,' I said, looking around.

'Thanks,' he said. 'Let me get you a drink.'

I held up the four pack of lagers I'd brought with me to show that I was okay. 'Get a cold one,' he said, fishing one out of a large bucket hidden away down the side of the sofa. 'Thanks,' I said, taking the cold wet bottle from him. I turned around to pass them on to my squad, but most of them had disappeared and left me already. Just James stood there, loyally in my shadow. I passed him the bottle and took another one for myself.

Todd cracked himself open another beer. It was clear he'd had quite a few already, as his eyes looked vacant and his voice was slurred. He talked at me, telling me who was there and who was going to be there. I nodded as I drank my beer. Suddenly his attention was elsewhere. 'Danny,' he said, waving his beer-free hand in the air. A guy, who I assumed was Danny waved back and walked towards us, with a friend tagging along behind. As Danny got closer I could see he was quite cute, maybe a couple of years older than me, with mousey brown hair and a cute smile. 'Todd my man,' Danny said, as the two of them did some kind of elaborate handshake. 'Ash, James, this is my cousin Danny and his friend Tom.'

'Good to meet you,' Danny said, his eyes focussing solely on me. 'You look familiar. You go to my uni?'

'I don't think so,' I said. I didn't expand on it. I didn't want to tell him I was still at school, in case it put him off me. If he was even into me in the first place. 'You want to go hang?' he asked me. I turned around to see Todd was off talking to some other kids from my school who had just shown up. Tom was talking to James. Tom said something and James laughed.

'Sure,' I said.

'Cool. Grab me another beer, would you?'

We took another beer each from the bucket and lodged ourselves down on the couch. Things started well. He seemed nice, friendly and most of all, really hot. He talked about his life at university, whilst I dodged questions when he asked about my education status.