One Perfect Summer

return?’
    ‘Not for another month and a half,’ I tell him. ‘But Emily gets back tomorrow.’
    ‘Shame,’ he muses, staring up at the ceiling. ‘It would be nice to have our own house.’
    ‘Steady on,’ I joke.
    He doesn’t smile. ‘I really did miss you.’
    I don’t reply. I stroke his jaw with my thumb – it’s smooth to the touch. I gaze into his blue, blue eyes, and then he’s kissing me again.
    ‘How was your Christmas?’ I ask him the next morning over breakfast. Cereal, no pancakes, sadly.
    ‘Good,’ he replies with an abrupt nod.
    ‘How were your parents?’
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘Brother? Sister?’
    ‘Good.’
    ‘Baby Max?’
    ‘Great.’
    ‘Come on, tell me all about it,’ I urge.
    ‘It was fine. Everything was fine.’
    This is a bit weird. A thought occurs to me. ‘Did you tell your parents about me?’
    ‘Um . . .’
    ‘You didn’t!’
    ‘No, it’s not like that . . .’ He puts his spoon back into his bowl. For the first time ever, Lukas looks awkward.
    ‘What is it, then?’ I put my spoon down too.
    ‘I . . . They . . . They want me to concentrate on my studies.’
    ‘ Right . . .’ I say sarcastically.
    He regards me coolly. ‘Did you tell your parents about me?’
    ‘Yes, I did, actually.’
    ‘Why aren’t you wearing your necklace?’ he asks, not taking his eyes from mine.
    ‘I . . . I don’t sleep in it, do I?’
    ‘You weren’t wearing it yesterday when I got here.’
    ‘I took it off to keep it safe,’ I lie, averting my gaze. I can tell that he doesn’t believe me. But for some reason he doesn’t push it. I’m relieved enough to not press him further about his parents. It’s only later that I wonder whether he knew that his own course of questioning would have this desired effect, but I hope he’s not that manipulative.

 
    ‘Have you heard from Jessie?’ is one of the first questions Emily asks when she arrives later that day.
    ‘No,’ I reply. ‘Have you?’
    ‘Nope.’ A bit blunt. ‘But he’s hardly likely to contact me instead of you, is he?’
    I wasn’t planning on saying anything, but this comment gets to me. I don’t want our friendship to be soured by secrets – and it will be, because I’ll know they’re both lying to me and I won’t be able to not take offence.
    ‘I know,’ I say.
    ‘You know what?’ she asks.
    ‘I know about you and Jessie.’
    If I thought her face was pale before, it’s practically reflective now.
    ‘What? Did he tell you?’ Her voice is barely more than a whisper.
    ‘No. I saw you coming out of his room.’
    ‘Oh.’
    I think back to the time she came home after seeing her friend – she seemed a bit down when Jessie went upstairs instead of joining us for a cuppa. Perhaps he is what Emily wanted to speak to her friend about, but she couldn’t get a word in edgeways.
    ‘You can talk to me about this, you know,’ I say gently.
    She sighs.
    ‘I won’t take sides,’ I add, in case that’s what she’s worried about.
    She doesn’t say anything for a while, just stares at the kitchen cupboards in silence. I really don’t know if she’s going to open up to me and I’m trying not to feel too hurt.
    ‘Has it been going on for long?’ I ask tentatively.
    ‘We’d only snogged a couple of times before that night,’ she reveals.
    I nod encouragingly, almost holding my breath so as not to scare her away.
    ‘Drunken snogs,’ she adds with a roll of her eyes. She still won’t look at me.
    ‘You’ve liked him for a while, though, right?’ I remember spotting a few early blushes when Jessie was around. Speaking of which, she’s now turned as pink as a prawn.
    ‘Was it very obvious?’ She looks mortified.
    ‘Not really,’ I fib.
    ‘ You don’t fancy him, do you?’ she asks.
    ‘God, no!’ I exclaim. How can this not be blindingly obvious to everyone? Whoops. She looks offended. ‘I don’t mean . . .’ I quickly try to make up for my blunder. ‘I don’t mean I think he’s unfanciable ,’ I say. ‘It’s just that he and I . . . God, no. Sorry.’
    She grins. ‘Okay.’
    ‘So you’d had a couple of drunken snogs . . .’ I will her to go on.
    ‘Yeah. And it was always awkward the next morning,’ she explains. ‘Neither of us knew how to act around the other. And then . . .’ She breathes in deeply and exhales loudly. ‘That night before he went away . . .’
    The night they slept together. ‘Yes?’ I prompt.
    ‘We carried on drinking after you went to bed