Friendship on Fire (28 page)

‘What happened to her?' Mum asked, looking worried.

‘What'd you do? Were you driving too fast? What have I said about you driving too fast with my daughter in your car?' That was Dad.

‘Nice work. Gotta get her drunk to spend time with you?' Josh teased, thoroughly uninterested.

‘I'm really tired,' I croaked.

‘You should have seen her at the match. She was such a pothead. It was hilarious,' said Treston. To Mum, he said, ‘She got hit in the head with the soccer ball and we reckon she's got mild concussion. Silly girl stood there and watched the ball come at her.' He shook his head.

Well you would too if you couldn't actually see it,
I grumbled inside my pounding head.

‘I'm putting her to bed now,' Nate informed everyone and Dad opened my door for him, scowling as he passed his shoulder.

‘Don't worry about them,' I said, still sleepy. ‘You are my hero, Nathaniel Frederick …'

His warm chuckle tickled my ear before I was sound asleep.

‘Daisy, wake up,' Mum's voice said urgently. ‘Your alarm has been going off for ages. You'll be late if you don't get up right now.'

My head still thumped dully, though not as much as yesterday. I was definitely feeling better. I had a new hurdle though; my throat hurt and my body ached, not only the place on my head where the ball embarrassingly hit me.

‘Yep, I'm up. Thanks.'

‘You have a visitor,' she informed me.

I nearly jumped out of my doona. ‘Who?'

‘Roman,' she said casually.

‘What? Why?'

‘Says he's here to walk with you to school. Do you want me to tell him to go?' Her frown surprised me.

‘No, um, tell him I'll be a minute.'

‘Dad's already telling him what happened yesterday. He'll be entertained for a good while so you have time to get ready.' She grinned at me, and I rolled my eyes.

‘Yay. So he can laugh at me as well, you mean.'

‘We weren't laughing at you,' Mum smiled. ‘You were unlucky.'

‘Doesn't matter how you dress it up, Mum …' I started, and grabbed my towel. I looked down at myself. I was in my pyjamas. Now, I remembered going to bed still in my soccer uniform. Who had undressed me?

I heard Dad's animated voice and Roman's polite laugh as I headed into the bathroom to shower for school.

Mum had some breakfast ready for me after I was dressed in my uniform. Wrapping a light scarf around my neck, I grabbed the toast and moved to the living room. Roman was standing near the window and his eyes lit up when he saw me.

‘Hello little soccer pro,' he said cheerfully.

‘Shut up. Let's go,' I snapped, but he knew I wasn't mad.

‘So what really happened?' I bet he couldn't wait to hear this headline story:
Retarded girl can't pin her wild hair
down after beach date and gets concussion from a soft soccer ball.

‘It's embarrassing, Roman,' I complained.

‘No it's not. It's only me.' His coaxing blue eyes were hard to ignore.

‘I know. That's half the problem.' Quietly, more to myself than him.

‘So you got hit by the ball. Were you not watching?' His cheek twitched with a growing smile.

‘I was trying to see. My stupid salty hair was in the way,' I said sookily. ‘I didn't get a chance to shower after the beach, so my hair was wild. I couldn't move in time.'

Roman smirked but couldn't hold it in. His laughter boomed into the street and I punched him in the arm.

‘That's classic. I wish I'd been there. Maybe I should be using my time on Sundays more wisely.'

I folded my arms. ‘I'm not saying anymore about it then.'

He kept laughing. ‘Fine. So what were you doing at the beach?'

‘Looking at shipwrecks and swimming. What do normal people do at the beach?'

My throat was aching so badly.

‘All right. Who with?'

‘Who do you think?'

‘Oh. Him.' His eyes met the pavement and his feet started dragging.

‘Yeah.'

‘Guess I should have assumed that one,' he said quietly.

I gave him a sidelong glance.

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Well who else would you be with? You two are joined at the hip.'

Defensiveness rose up in my chest. ‘So what if we are? I get time to see my friends still. Look at Saturday night.'

‘Of course. Forget I brought it up.'

He looked in the other direction, so all I could see was the back of his head as he shuffled next to me.

‘I will. Why did you want to walk with me this morning? Just to have a go at me?' I demanded.

‘No. I thought it would be a nice surprise.' His hands moved to slip into his pockets.

‘It was, until all your questions started.'

‘Daisy, chill. Ignore me. You take things so seriously.'

‘Yeah, because I don't like to be out of your favour. So when you criticise me it makes me think I'm not good enough for you.'

‘That's silly.' He frowned, confusion in his eyes.

‘It's how I feel,' I retorted.

‘Fair enough,' he shrugged. ‘But I don't mean to. Here. Have a redskin. That toast looked nasty.'

I made an effort to lighten up. Just because I was feeling sick and sensitive it didn't mean I had to take it out on him. ‘Yeah it was a bit. Thanks. Great breakfast food right here,' I said, holding up the redskin and taking a deep breath.

Skye and Bree almost clothes-lined me on the way into maths. They hogged the path so much that I had to go between them, where they could both shove me easily.

‘How's the head, loser?' Skye asked and Bree laughed. How did they know about yesterday? I ignored them, so they continued. ‘Maybe you need some glasses, ranga? It might improve your already pathetic look.'

I shrugged and glared at Skye defiantly. ‘Whatever. I get to play with hot boys who carry me off the field when I'm hurt. What do you get?'

They stopped and looked at each other, confused.

In class, the announcement on the board unhappily said: 
‘Trig Maths Test. Pencils and Calculators only. 45 minutes.'
I'd clean forgotten about the maths test today.

I relaxed. In all honesty, I was going to fail anyway, whether I studied or not. Ultimately, I'd rather have fun with my short life and get kicked in the head with a ball, than spend it stressing over another maths test.

At lunchtime, Nate sent me an unexpected text: 

Please tell me you haven't made plans tonight already. I want you from six onwards.

Smiling to myself, I responded:

I'm busy with my other ten boyfriends, sorry.

Ouch. So I'll come past at five-thirty? ?

Definitely.

He had clearly taken this whole ‘dating properly' thing very seriously. It must be costing him a fortune to keep up with paying for all our dinners and fuel driving us to the beach. It wasn't like I didn't know where the money came from, but he wouldn't let me pay for anything.

I resisted the sudden thought that popped into my head, challenging me with the idea that he was buying me through his fancy courtship.
There's nothing wrong with dating a girl
properly,
I said back to that thought.
I deserve it, don't I?

Even I couldn't have guessed what Nate had planned for us. After my driving lesson, which went extremely well — Terry only rolled his eyes at me once, when I squealed at a seagull committing suicide on the road before my very eyes — I had a quick dinner before getting dressed to go out with Nate. What kind of occasion was it? Was it jeans-worthy? Or pretty-dress-worthy? Shorts? He needed to give me more information than simply a time.

So for us to be sitting in a movie theatre in the dark and me still not knowing what we were watching or essentially doing
,
was very frustrating. Nate grinned. The previews rolled, which wasn't particularly strange in itself, but they were from a different culture. It was in English, though. They showed ‘normal' Hollywood storylines. What was so different about these previews and why didn't I recognise them?

Then I realised. The film started with distinct, high pitched music. Nate laughed at the look on my face when it clicked what he'd done.

Squeezing my knee, he whispered in my ear, ‘Don't worry, it'll be over in about four hours. Get comfortable. Maybe you should have brought your cute little pyjamas with you.'

I gasped. ‘That was you.'

‘Of course not. Your dad wouldn't let me anywhere near you. I tried to watch, though.' He grinned wickedly.

‘Oh shush,' I said, smiling back.

Bollywood. Like he'd threatened. It was romantic. It was creative. It was going to kill me.

Even the men in these movies danced. The whiny notes grated up my spine, but the mixture of storylines was hilarious. I punched Nate's leg.

‘Hey, you know what to do if you get bored,' he whispered. In the unpredictability of the cinema lights, Nate's lips and eyes were to die for. I leant in to kiss him and he turned his head away deliberately.

‘None of that. I'm trying to watch a movie here.'

I ripped the M&M's out of his hand and sighed.

My throat hated me. It growled like an angry lion on steroids. Each swallow made my back cringe in grim anticipation, and my head pounded worse than the concussion ever had. I wasn't going anywhere. I called Mum on her mobile from my bed.

‘I'm dying.'

‘Where are you?' she asked, confused.

‘In bed. I'm not going to school. I'm dying,' I repeated.

‘Can't we talk about this face to face?'

‘Aren't you listening? I'm dying. And contagious. So if you don't want to die, I suggest you stay well away from me, mother dear.'

Mum laughed. ‘Right. I'll tell the others not to disturb you.'

‘Thanks.'

That was Tuesday.

My nose joined the party on Wednesday and I honked half the Southern Ocean out of it within a day. The edges of it were red, swollen and nearly cracking with constant rubbing.