More Flirting Games (The Flirting Series - Young Adult) (7 page)

After the
first art class of the year, Leo stayed back, chatting with the Art Master, and
Rose stayed at her bench after telling her friends that she was going to spend
lunch finishing the painting she was working on.

Shortly
after everyone else had gone, Mr Grimes, or Grimey as he was obviously called
by the students, wrapped up his conversation with Leo. He looked around the
room and saw that only Rose remained. Both Rose and Leo were favorite pupils of
his.

“Ok you
two, I’m going to lunch, but can I trust you to lock up the art studio when you
leave?”

“Of course,
Sir.” Leo assured him exchanging a quick grin with Rose. She nodded in
agreement.

“Great,
just make sure the door shuts properly behind you, then no-one can get in until
I get back.”

As soon as
Grimey left the room, Leo closed the door firmly behind him. It locked shut
with a click that could be opened easily from the inside but required a key
from the outside.

Rose jumped
up to put her arms around Leo but instead he took her hand and led her to the
stairs to the second floor.

“I’ve got
something to show you.”

The art
studio was housed in a tall Victorian building built in the grounds of the
school as the Dower House to Compass Court from the days when it was a stately
home. The basement was now given over to pottery and housed a large kiln. On
the ground floor, where the ceiling was particularly high and the windows were
tall and let in a lot of light, the school had created a proper art studio. The
second floor was given over to textiles, reams of material and sewing machines
filled the three rooms.

Rose
assumed Leo was heading for the second floor but as they reached the top of the
stairs he stopped at a wall covered in wooden paneling. Rose watched as he took
a tiny key from his pocket and inserted it into a keyhole she had never noticed
before. A door swung open in the wood and revealed a narrow staircase. Rose
gasped with surprise and looked at Leo for an explanation.

“It goes up
to the attic. Grimey sent me up here in my second year to dig out some extra
supplies. He keeps the key in his desk and I lifted it earlier today in the
hope I could show it to you. I think hardly anyone knows it’s here.”

“Wow.” Rose
was excited with anticipation to see what was up there. “Then lead on, Macduff!”

She
followed him up stopped when they were suddenly standing at the top of the
stairs in complete darkness.

“Hang on a
sec.” She heard Leo moving around and then striking a match. He lit an old oil
lamp that stood on a side table, next to a huge overstuffed red velvet sofa.

Rose gazed
in wonder around the attic room now that it was dimly lit. It was built right
into the eaves and wooden joists crossing above them. There were trunks full of
clothes, baskets of plastic fruit that must have once been used for still life
painting and a folding changing screen with a Japanese design that she supposed
still life models must have used for undressing.

“This is
amazing!” She sat down on the sofa, and was enveloped in a cloud of dust as she
sank into it. Coughing and laughing, she struck a reclining pose.

“Planning
to paint me nude were you?” She joked.

“You can
laugh,” he said with a grin, “but you haven’t seen what I found when I explored
a bit!” He walked over to the farthest wall that was still in near darkness and
began to flick through a bunch of old oil paintings that were stacked in the
corner.

“Here we
are, brace yourself.” He held out a small canvas.

She took it
curiously. “Oh my stars! Is that who I think it is?” She grimaced at the
painting, which showed a young woman in old-fashioned underwear posing just as
Rose had on the very same sofa.

“Yup, our
scary headmistress in her heyday.”

“No way! Do
you think Grimey painted this? I wonder if they were involved? She must be
crazy to have left it lying where anyone could find it.”

“I suppose
they forgot it was here, it must be years old, and also no-one else seems to
know about this place, maybe it was their secret love nest.” He said.

“And now it
can be ours.” Rose held her arms out to him and he went into them pushing her
back on the sofa.

In the middle of January the whole of Year Six got
together to discuss the end of term play. It was a tradition that their year
put on a play on the last day of term. This was then followed by the Upper School
Dance, which was attended by Years Five, Six and Seven, plus any dates they
wanted to bring.

After much shouting, joking around and stupid suggestions,
some serious debate took place and the majority of the year eventually agreed
that the play would be
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
. As one girl put it:
“Vampires are totally hot right now.”

Lots of people put their names down for acting parts but
also for directing, producing, costumes, lighting and other technical roles,
and all sorts of other areas of the production.

Rose and Leo exchanged looks across the room, and both
signed up to do set design, knowing it would give them an excuse to spend even
more time in the art room, and perhaps in the attic room above it too.

The first role to be handed out was that of Director. It was
bedlam as people shouted suggestions, and the drama teacher sat down to wait
until the chaos subsided. In the end it was Grace who sorted it. She handed
everyone a slip of paper, told them all to write down who they thought it
should be and within minutes the hall had gone quiet as everyone thought. She
then had Sophie and Rose collect up all the slips and was completely bowled
over to find that most people had put that it should be Grace herself to direct
the play.

From that moment on, she was considered in charge of the
whole operation. She collected a list of people interested in assisting her and
said she would speak to each of them individually, then together with those
that were selected she would begin to sort out who else would be doing what. It
was custom that everyone in the whole year should have some role and it would
be a large daunting task, but one that Grace, with her method and
organisational skills, was well equipped to handle.

Grace
approached Rose a few days later.

“I’m really
sorry and this might be awkward for you but the only people with any real
talent who signed up for set design are you and Leo Flanagan.”

“Oh dear.”
Rose tried to look concerned.

“I thought
maybe you could be assigned totally different sets to do, and each of you could
be in charge of a few people separately, but unfortunately it will mean both of
you being in the art studio quite a bit. Are you going to be ok with that?”
Grace looked very apologetic.

“It’s fine,
Grace. Leo and I are often the only people in the art room anyway, it’s never
been a problem.” She didn’t mention that in the last few days it had been a
pleasure.

Keeping the
relationship secret from Grace, Sophie and Alex had turned out to be a lot
easier than Rose had thought. None of them even considered that anything was
going on. Only Alex commented, saying it was good that she was ok with doing
the set design with Leo.

Sophie and
Grace still occasionally sighed over him. Speculating on why he didn’t have a
girlfriend when he could choose almost anyone. Rose only got tense when they
talked about him and Diana.

Meeting at
night time was becoming much harder, and they gave up trying to stay up late
enough to do so on a school night, otherwise they were both yawning through
classes the following day, but Rose spent all week looking forward to Friday
night when they had agreed that he would wait in the Common Room until it was
empty and then send her a text so that she could join him for some
uninterrupted time alone.

It was just
after midnight when he finally texted her and Rose could tell by the breathing
of the other three girls that they were finally all asleep. Sophie had a bad
habit of reading very late on her Kindle, but none of them stirred as she slid
out of bed, put on her dressing gown and slippers and snuck down the stairs to
meet Leo.

He was
waiting in his favorite chair. Her heart melted at the sight of him. Sat
reading in the soft glow cast by a small lamp, the light danced in his black
hair. She wound her arms round his neck from behind and he turned, his face lit
up by his warm smile.

“Couldn’t
sleep, huh?” She teased.

“Not with
you on my mind.” He teased back.

She curled
herself into his lap. He slid his hands inside her dressing gown and round her
waist. They sat there and smiled at each other for long seconds, all time
together was precious and so it went so fast.

He finally
bent his head, and kissed her slowly, with great tenderness. She sighed against
him in happiness, her fingers pushing through the soft hair on the back of his
head.

She noticed
nothing, felt nothing but him, floated in his arms until quite suddenly…

“Oh! OH!
How could you!”

Rose jumped
up. Diana was standing in the doorway. Tears were streaming down her face, her
hands pressed over her mouth and her eyes wide with horror and hurt…

Diana fled
through the door, not towards their room but instead out to the stairs going
from the Common Room down to the rest of the school.

Rose put
her hands on her hips and turned to Leo. “How could I? Who does she think she
is? It isn’t up to her what I do. How bloody melodramatic was that!”

Leo sighed
running his hands through his hair. “Not how could
you
, Rose. How could
I
.
She was talking to me.”

“What the
hell is going on with her, Leo?”

He
shook his head. “Sorry, Rose. It’s none of your business.”

“None of my
business?” she felt her voice rise to a screech.

He just
shook his head again. “I’d better go after her.”

Rose glared
at him “Don’t you dare! You owe me an explanation before her!”

He just
looked at her. She thought she might thump him if he shook his head again, but
he just looked kind of sad.

Her
shoulders slumped. “I see.” Well, she knew where his priorities were now.
“Well, I guess that’s that then. You’d better go and pander to the princess.
But don’t expect me to still be here when you get back!”

She spun on
her heel and stormed up to her room.

She cried
quietly under the covers. She hoped he would tell Diana it was none of her
business. But she had already seen in his eyes that Diana came first. It took
Rose several hours to fall asleep. By the time she did, Diana still hadn’t come
back.

***

Leo knew
where Diana would be. He hurried straight to the first floor. Once there, he
went round the corridor until he got to a large bay window covered with a heavy
velvet curtain. Behind the curtain was a window seat covered in cushions. Diana
was curled up in a ball on the cushions.

Leo climbed
onto the seat next to her.

“I’m
sorry.” He reached out and hugged her.

“Why her
Leo? Anyone but her!”

“I
understand. But it’s not her fault, Di. Don’t give her a hard time, she hasn’t
done anything.”

Diana
sniffed. “I know. I’m being completely unreasonable. I can’t help it. I just
hate her! She has everything and now she wants you too… It’s not serious
between you is it? Please promise me you won’t get together with her, Leo,
please. Is it so much to ask?”

Leo looked
down at her tear-streaked face and felt the heavy weight of responsibility.

“Of course
it isn’t. I won’t go near her except when I have to, ok? But you have to
promise me to cheer up. I know Christmas was awful for you but you’ve got to be
stronger.”

Diana
nodded and cuddled deeper into the cushions. “Can we stay here for a while?”

Leo put his
arm around her. She still looked so young and childlike to him. He wished she
were more confident. Like Rose Falcon. He pushed images of Rose back out of his
mind. Oh well, it had been great while it lasted. But until Diana was over her
trauma, he would stay away from Rose. He wondered if that was likely to happen
any time in the next year and a half. Would he have to watch as Rose got
together with someone else? Maybe he would find someone else himself. After
all, he never meant to get involved with Rose. Sure, she was pretty, and funny,
and intelligent, and she had fantastic legs and a fantastic laugh. Oh bugger!
He couldn’t envision wanting anyone else like he wanted her. He loved just
being with her, even just talking. Much better to go back to how they were
before any of this happened. Stay well away from temptation.

***

It rained
on Tuesday. Rose arrived at the art studio dripping wet, having tramped over
from the main school building. She wondered if she’d ever felt so low. She was
wet and cold and she and Leo hadn’t spoken for three days.