The Flirting Games (The Flirting Series - Young Adult) (3 page)

Ellie couldn’t disagree. “I don’t think
he even noticed
I
existed and I was the one playing him at pool. I think
I was just some girl who needed swatting like a bug.”

“Oh I wouldn’t be so sure. I can
guarantee the other boys noticed you anyway. Nice moves by the way.” She jabbed
Ellie in the ribs.

Ellie grinned back at her. “I know I
came across like a dreadful flirt, but there was a good reason.”

“Yeah? I could see four good
reasons. I love being at a school with boys!”

That night Flora sat at the desk by
her bed and filled three pages of her journal describing Gabriel Brenner. His
tall lean frame, his almost white blond hair, his chiseled cheekbones. She had
been so homesick, but now she felt she never wanted to leave Compass Court. Now
she felt lovesick. Gabriel-sick.

Nate sat in the North Tower Common
Room with his friends. Gabriel was teasing Jerry about being beaten by a girl.

“Not just a girl, but a lowly fourth
year!” Gabriel laughed.

Jerry’s eyes took on a dreamy look.
“Yeah, but mature for her age. Did you notice her rack?” This last comment was
made to much elbow nudging and more laughter.

“Definitely a fox” agreed Owen. “She
can play me whenever she likes, especially if she’s going to bend over in that
shirt.”

Nate privately agreed with them. The
shirt, or what it hinted at, was certainly memorable.

He was a little perplexed by Ellie;
he had been positive she had come there to see him. He had sensed her watching
him. But then she had totally ignored him and instead played with two of his
friends, but not him. She could have put her name back up and then she would
have been playing him next. But instead she had left.

He got the feeling she
didn’t like him. Did it bother him? Maybe it did a little. He changed the
subject.

Gabriel tuned out as his friends
talked about girls. He wished Vanessa would call him. He hated it when she was
on a modeling shoot in some part of the world that didn’t have mobile
reception. It made him insecure that she was going off him. It was a novel
feeling for him – girls had always liked him – but he had a tendency to treat
them badly if they were too nice. It wasn’t that he meant to, they were just
always so keen it became irritating. But it wasn’t like that with Vanessa. He
felt lucky to be with her. She was so glamorous.

He remembered how beautiful she’d
looked when they first met. Laughing with her friends in a bar on the mountain.
She was dressed in a bright red ski suit with matching hat. Her skin was
flawless and the cold had made her blue eyes sparkle, and her lips were full
and the same red as her outfit. She was the very image of perfection.

Vanessa had spotted him and come
over. She’d assumed he was a model as well and been stunned to learn he was
still at school. It was a bit of a contentious issue between them. After all,
he was old enough to leave school if he wanted. She hadn’t wanted to be seen
dating a schoolboy, but he’d persuaded her to meet him again.

That night he had taken her to
dinner and pulled out all the stops to charm her. They stayed out drinking and
talking till 2 am and then she invited him back to her chalet. It was a night
he would never forget. They opened a bottle of red wine and lay on a sheepskin
rug in front of a roaring log fire. He explored every inch of her amazing body
and felt he could die happy right there.

It was six in the morning when he
had rolled back into his family chalet, only to find his dad still up and
furiously pacing. He’d been sorely tempted to leave school right then and there
and forget about the education his father thought was so important. But the
truth was it was important to him as well.

Vanessa kept trying to persuade him
to leave school and become a model.

“Just think about how much money you
could be making right now instead of wasting your time doing silly lessons.”
She would argue.

But he didn’t just want to be a
pretty face. He had a plan. He didn’t want to leave school with no
qualifications for a career that was a few years at best. She thought he could
use modeling as a platform into acting. That was his real dream, but he didn’t want
to bypass the training, he wanted to prove himself and get a place at a decent
stage school. He wished she understood, but she didn’t.

Jerry kicked his foot, dragging him
back to the present. He was talking about the new girl Flora.

“She’s pretty. I like that wholesome
look. How old do you think she is?” Jerry clearly had a bit of a crush.

“Jail-bait, that’s how old she is.”
Nate said.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Jerry shrugged.
“If only we could all have older girlfriends like Gabriel, then at least we
could get laid regularly.”

Gabe smiled, but the
smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. He hadn’t heard from her in days. He hoped
he still had a girlfriend.

After his friends went to bed, Nate
pulled out the mobile phone he’d swiped earlier. Alex had left it on the table
at dinner and Nate had seen the opportunity and stuffed it into his own back
pocket. He would return it to Alex at breakfast in the morning. He couldn’t
think of any other way to get Rose’s phone number. It was hard to get her alone
and sending her a few cheeky texts or emails would be a good way to get some
one on one banter going. Even the most shy of girls felt more relaxed being
flirtatious when it wasn’t face to face. Scrolling through the contacts he made
a note of Rose’s number and her email address which he also found there, and
then for some reason he copied Ellie’s too.

***

Ellie took her breakfast tray over
the West Tower table and sat down between Flora and Rose. Flora was doing some
last minute homework and dropping marmalade on her text book and Rose was
sketching. This was nothing unusual. Rose was passionate about art and always
carried round a pad for doodling.

As she finished her cereal Ellie
looked over to see what Rose was drawing.

“Oh for goodness sake!” She huffed
when she saw the picture. It was a sketch of the North Tower table. Though it
was incredibly good Ellie was not pleased by what she saw. Rose had captured
the features and personalities of about 8 people all sitting in a row. Ellie
could clearly distinguish the thin face of Owen Lang, thrown into relief by the
large frame of Jerry Doury. Gabriel Brenner’s haughty expression was conveyed
perfectly and there right in the middle, like Christ at the last supper, was
Nate. Rose had been shading in his golden hair and had made him, if anything,
even more handsome than real life.

Ellie resisted the urge to get
cross. Her temper was shorter than ever first thing in the morning. But it
wouldn’t help to tell Rose off, she was probably completely unaware that she
was sat there drawing Nate with a dreamy expression on her face. Clearly he had
gotten to Rose too much already.

“Can I have that?” Ellie took the
page when Rose nodded.

“Good. Sorry Rose but he’s just not
that angelic.” Ellie grabbed a black pencil and gave Nate evil eyebrows and a
twirling black moustache, then for good measure she drew a pair of devils horns
on top of his head.

“There.” She smiled “Much more
accurate.”

She groaned inside when a shadow
crossed the paper. She knew exactly who it was without looking up. Beside her Rose
turned bright red and stared at the tablecloth.

Ellie looked up defiantly, but Nate
had turned away to Alex.

“Hey Al, is this your phone?” Nate
sounded relaxed.

“Oh brilliant, cheers mate, I
thought I must have lost it.” Alex was totally unaware of her and Rose’s
embarrassment.

Ellie slid out of her seat. She
pushed the picture under her books, mumbled to Flora about seeing her in class
and made a quick exit. She could feel Nate’s mocking gaze all the way down the
room.

On Sunday afternoon Rose went down
to the river with her with her sketchpad. She sat on a wooden bench and watched
the school rowing team out on the water.

Nate followed her at a distance. He
had seen her leaving the school and had been keen not to miss an opportunity to
catch her alone. He leaned back against a nearby oak tree and watched her with
an indulgent smile. Now he knew who had drawn the picture of him. She was so
absorbed that she jumped when she noticed him.

“Hi.” She said shyly. “I didn’t know
you were interested in rowing?”

“I’m not.” He said it laced with
meaning.

“Oh, then–” She stopped suddenly as
Ellie came towards them walking swiftly.

“Rose, I think Ben is looking for
you.” Ellie pulled Rose up and gave her a shove. “In the courtyard.”

“Really?” Rose looked delighted and
hurried away. Ellie felt bad about lying to her, but needs must.

“I think they will finally get it
together this year.” Ellie told Nate who was looking at her with
barely-disguised annoyance. “They’ve liked each other for ages, but they are both
too useless to do much about it.”

Nate raised one eyebrow. “Is that
so? We’ll see.”

Ellie clenched her fists, stepped
right up to Nate and snapped, “Yes, it is so! Why the hell don’t you pick on
someone your own size?”

Damn. She hadn’t meant to lose her
temper and give the game away. Her short fuse was a curse indeed. So much for
playing games with him.

Nate looked down at the angry little
fourth year squaring up to him and smiled nastily. He slowly looked her up and
down.

“Someone my own size you say? And
that would be you?”

Nate folded his arms and leaned back
against the tree and laughed at her.

Ellie wanted to punch him, but she
had to be smarter. She got her temper under control and stepped up so close
they were almost nose to nose.

“You have no idea who you’re dealing
with.” Her voice dropped to a low and sultry level. She pressed her thigh
gently and deliberately into his groin.

“Come and have a go if you think
you’re hard enough.” She murmured. She let her eyes trail down to where her
thigh rested then turning on her heel and walking away.

Nate couldn’t move. Hard enough? He
was quite suddenly hard enough to be pretty embarrassed if anyone looked too
closely.

Who the hell did she think she was?
No one had ever,
ever
challenged him in that way. In a way where he felt
he might very well lose. She was a fourth year for goodness’ sake! Hardly worth
his time. Extremely pretty, yes. Very popular, yes, but still surely she should
be a bit more in awe of him?

He went to bed that night thinking
about Ellie Parkhurst.

Ellie lay in bed thinking about
Nate. It had been a few days since she had attempted flirting with him by the
river and she hadn’t properly seen him since.

She was putting extra attention into
her appearance each day, but wondering if it was a wasted effort. She saw him
at meal times, sat at the North Tower table, and sometimes from the corner of
her eye she was sure he was looking at her, but when she turned round he
wasn’t.

Ellie had plenty to keep her
occupied: her homework for a start and actually a rather good social life. She
was enjoying getting to know Flora. Flora had quite a cheerful personality; she
found the funny side in most situations and Ellie liked that a lot. It occurred
to her that having had Jack as her best friend had perhaps prevented her from
developing a close friendship with another girl she could discuss this stuff
with. She had a feeling that Flora might turn out to be the best friend she had
hadn’t realized she needed.

Ellie also had several ‘boyfriends’,
or boys that she liked flirting with, though she kept them at arm’s length. She
had never really felt enough for any of them to let it go much beyond flirting.
A few kisses had been the extent of her actual experience.

Most boys had been too scared of
Jack to try to take it any further, but since he had left their levels of
persistence had gone up. She had actually agreed to meet Joe Phillips in the
common room at midnight a couple of weeks ago after some pressure and he had
asked her to ‘go out with him exclusively’. Ellie had for some reason found it
hilarious and then he had become offended and gone back to bed.

Liam Anderson had asked her out in
the library just yesterday. She had been flattered – he was in Year 6 and a
prefect – so it had come as a bit of a shock when he had then stuck his tongue
down her throat and attempted to grope her in front of the Geography books. She
let him for a good minute before cheekily telling him that she would go out
with him if he learned to kiss better. The look on his face had afforded her no
end of amusement. It hadn’t put him off though and she had promised to go with
him the next time she went into Oakworth Village.

But she wasn’t thinking about him
tonight. She tossed and turned in bed, wondering what to do next about Nate
Naverly. She reached over to her bedside and checked her phone to see if Jack
might have texted her. He hadn’t. It was nearly eleven; probably too late to
text him. She looked over at Flora, but she was sleeping peacefully. She lay
awake for another ten minutes. Perhaps she was hungry, she had a tuck box under
her bed but she had a craving for ice-cream. Without really thinking about it,
Ellie slipped out of bed, pulled her black silk dressing gown around herself
and crept barefoot from the room.