The Flirting Games (The Flirting Series - Young Adult) (5 page)

He rejoined the conversation with
them, but his mind was busily turning over his next move. Or should it be her
move next? He didn’t want to come on strong; he would rather she chased
him
really. But would she? He needed to engineer something that didn’t seem to come
from him. He needed to know more about her to do it. He had a feeling that Alex
wasn’t going to be quite so accommodating about inviting him into their circle
any more. He needed to plot carefully from here.

Flora was looking for Ellie. She’d
tried the library and wondered whether to go alone into the games room. Ellie
was probably in their bedroom, but she wanted to check the ground floor before
she trudged all the way up the stairs to their dorm room in West Tower.

She felt an idiot for being nervous
about entering the Games Room, but people always seemed to look at you when you
were new. Taking a deep breath, she pushed through the door and then turned
into a puddle of doubt as she saw it was empty except for Gabriel Brenner.

He wasn’t playing any of the games;
just sat on a bench texting on his phone.

She gulped and started to back out.

“Flora? It is Flora isn’t it?”

He knew her name? She wavered with
indecision; part of her just wanted to run. But her legs wouldn’t work. She
tried to say “Yes” but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and all she
managed to come out with was, “Ung.”

He smiled at her, a nice welcoming
smile.

“Come on in.” He stuck his phone in
his pocket and waited expectantly.

Flora cast a helpless look back at
the corridor, but the heavy fire door was slowly closing behind her and she
would look twice as stupid if she ran for it now.

“Hi,” she managed. “Have you seen
Ellie Parkhurst?”

“Not recently.” He patted the seat
beside him. “Come and chat to me instead.”

Flora wondered if she was dreaming.
Gorgeous Gabriel Brenner was inviting her to come and sit beside him.

She walked over, every step feeling
like she was clumping through mud, and sat gingerly on the bench.

He leaned back, apparently
completely at ease. “So how are you settling in?”

“Okay. Good I think.” She began to
gabble nervously. “Everyone has been super nice and it seems like a really good
school.”

“Really? I think it’s pretty crap.
Standards seem to go down every year. I think the teachers are pissed half the
time.” He looked irritated.

“Pissed? Like angry?” Flora asked.

He laughed. “No, it’s an English
expression. It means drunk.”

Flora wasn’t at all sure if he was
joking or not so she said, “Oh.”

“So you’re happy here? You’re
sharing a room with Ellie aren’t you? Do the two of you get up to much?”

“Umm, well Ellie does. She has a lot
of other friends and does lots of activities and stuff, but I don’t really know
many people yet and there are a lot of lessons here that are different to my
last school. You don’t cover half the subjects we did, but you’re all way ahead
in other subjects, so I’ve been trying to catch up.”

He nodded. “So what does Ellie do
that you can’t tag along to?”

She shifted a little on the bench
beside him and began to tell him. They talked for another twenty minutes. She
was just starting to get really comfortable when he checked his watch and rose
to his feet.

“Cool. Anyway, it was nice talking
to you. I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you around.” He sauntered out of the room.

Flora sat where she was for a couple
minutes more. Feeling the glow his presence had left. She looked at the spot
where he’d sat, remembering the way he pushed his hair off his face. The way he
crossed his feet when he was relaxed. He really was the most beautiful thing
she’d ever seen.

She rose slowly and floated back up
the stairs on a cloud. Entering her dorm, she found Ellie sat at her desk,
frowning over a History book.

“Hi,” Ellie said without looking up.
“Any idea why
Ethelred the Unready
was called that? Do you think he took
hours to get dressed for a night out and when his friends came to pick him up
they would say,
‘Forsooth Ethelred you are never ready; all the buxom
wenches will be taken!’
No, of course you don’t know. You’re probably worse
at British history than I am.”

Flora gave her a dreamy smile.
“Yeah, not a clue, though I could tell you the entire life of Benjamin Franklin
if that would help?” She paused. “You will never guess who just spoke to me.”
She threw her school bag on to her bed and then sat beside it, bouncing up and
down.

Ellie turned away from her books,
looking interested. “The Holy Spirit?” she joked.

“Gabriel.” Flora spoke his name with
reverence, stringing it out into three clear syllables.

“So almost the Holy Spirit then.”
Ellie gave her a wry look.

“We talked. He actually took an
interest in…” Flora broke off, a look of horror coming over her face.

“Oh my goodness! I’ve just realized:
all that time I thought we were talking about me, we were talking about you!”

She flopped backwards on to the bed,
her arms wide.

“I don’t believe this,” she wailed.
“I finally fall in love, for the first time in my life, and he was just pumping
me for information about you!”

Ellie moved to sit beside her and
patted her arm. “I’m sure that’s not true. Gabriel has no interest in me
whatsoever.”

“He does.” Flora shut her eyes
against the pain. “Everything he asked me was indirectly about you. Why is
every boy in this school in love with you? Everywhere we go it’s all, ‘Hey
Ellie’, ‘Hi Ellie’, ‘Cute shoes, Ellie’. Gabriel is just another victim of the
Ellie magic!” Flora knew she was being unfair, but she pulled away.

“Seriously Flora, you should pay
more attention. It’s never actually about me. None of them care about me. It’s
because I’m Jack’s sister. If you think about it the comments are more like,
‘Hi Ellie, how’s Jack?’, ‘Hey Ellie, what’s Jack doing now?’ I’m known just for
being his sister. It’s not really that flattering.”

Flora opened her eyes. Thinking
back, she realized Ellie had a point. People were always asking after Jack.
Ellie saw the comprehension dawning in Flora’s eyes and nodded.

“Jack was such a legend at this
school, even the teachers are always asking me how he’s getting on. He was
Captain of everything. Half the trophies in the hallway have his name on them
and he boxed for the County. He’s even famous for having punch-ups. That’s the
only reason everyone knows who I am.”

Flora sat up. “It’s not the only
reason. Boys ask you out because you’re pretty.”

Ellie smiled. “I hope so. But it’s
not easy living in Jack’s shadow. I’ve often wondered if that’s why Alex is so
different from Jack.” She looked thoughtful. “You know, he’s actually much
smarter than Jack. At science anyway, Alex is very clever. Maybe he purposely
doesn’t compete with Jack.”

Flora flopped back again. “Gabriel
wouldn’t care about Jack. He never mentioned him.”

“Hmmm, I wonder.” Ellie was still
smiling. “Do you think maybe Nate put him up to questioning you?”

Flora once more jerked back up.

“Of course! He was asking for Nate.
He’s Nate’s best friend and Nate clearly has a total crush on you.” Relief
swept through her.

Ellie went back to her desk.

“Well, I don’t know about the total
crush, but it makes more sense.” She bent her head back down to her book,
wanting to avoid Flora’s eye. She was sure that Gabriel had been asking for
Nate. But why? She couldn’t help but feel a furl of excitement in her chest
that Nate had obviously talked about her to Gabriel. Was Nate genuinely
interested in her? Or was this part of some flirty point-scoring game she felt
they were playing with each other?

Either way, it was a pretty big
compliment.

***

Later that evening, Gabriel waited
till Jerry and Owen went to bed before brandishing his list triumphantly.

“Uh hum – I now present the full
low-down on one Eleanor Parkhurst: she likes cats. She watches school sport
most Saturday mornings; likes watching the First Fifteen play rugby this time
of year or the cricket in the summer. She is good friends with the school chef,
Rene, and has tea with him every Sunday around 6 pm, sometimes with Rose or
Alex or both. She is fond of Chinese food. On Mondays she sometimes plays at
the chess club; she is long-standing champion. Her other evenings are generally
free. She is very good at English and French, but failing Math and History.
Current boyfriend is Liam Anderson; at least he says he is. His friends confirm
they are going into Oakworth together on Halloween, which is also her 15
^th
birthday. Because of her brothers and cousins she has friends in almost every
school year. She emails her parents every week and talks to her brother just as
often. Do I need to remind you who he is?”

“Good grief, Gabe! You got all that
in a few hours? You should join MI5.”

Nate took the list from Gabe, who
sat back looking smug. “So now you have it, what will you do with it?”

“I’m not sure; there must be
something useful here. Chess club? That’s a bit geeky; I’ll give that a miss.
Tea with Rene, yes, maybe that could be useful. Failing History, yes, I’m sure
I can use that.” He skirted over the Liam Anderson bit. “Thanks Gabe, I totally
owe you one.”

***

The following afternoon was a Sunday
and at around four o’clock Nate went to visit Rene.

He said he wanted to chat about the
history of bread for a school project. The school had an old-fashioned bread
oven, said to date back to 1730, and Rene was enthusiastic about explaining to
him how it all worked. They continued to chat about the different baking
methods in Tudor times until nearly six, when Rene commented that Ellie and
Rose would be coming down to visit shortly and Nate said he really ought to be
off.

He passed them in the long corridor
to the kitchen. He smiled a hello, but didn’t stop.

Rose nudged Ellie. “Gosh he’s good
looking, isn’t he?”

Ellie shrugged. “I suppose so. You
don’t fancy him, do you?”

Rose smiled. “No, he’s definitely
not my type: far too confident, but I can still look! Anyway, Alex tells me
that Nate seems to have set his sights on you?”

Ellie’s insides jumped. Was that
really true? Personally she had thought Nate was just playing a cat and mouse
game because she had got in his way and annoyed him. She should have backed off
as soon as Rose stopped being his target, but she couldn’t help feeling a
little thrilled by his attention.

Trying not to give anything away, she
shrugged again. “Nah, it’s just a bit of harmless flirting. He’s not interested
in me.”

Rose looked concerned. “Are you sure
Ellie, because he’s a bit of a heart-breaker. Not that I think you couldn’t
handle him,” she hastened to add. “I’ve always admired how blasé you are with
boys, but I figured it was because you had just never fallen in love. It would
be awful if you finally did and it was Nate!”

Ellie gave Rose a look that quickly
shut her up. She didn’t want to have this conversation. Rose was more right
than she realized when it came to Ellie’s feelings about boys: she
was
searching for that elusive amazing guy who made her feel something more. But
she didn’t want it to be Nate either.

Unfortunately, the more Alex or Rose
told her to stay away from him the more appealing he became. She seemed to see
him everywhere suddenly and she wished people would stop mentioning him at all!

Rene waved from the stove,
indicating that they should sit at the table.

“What a shame,” he said. “You’ve
just missed Nathaniel Naverly. I’ve not spoken much with him before, but he
seems a very intelligent boy.”

Ellie sighed. It was all a great big
plot to make her think about him constantly and everyone was in on it.

***

Nate was pleased: as plotting went
this one was going well. So far he had ignored her leaving the kitchens, but
hopefully left Rene talking about him. He had overlooked her in the Games Room,
chatted to his friends while she had been there with hers. He had passed her
alone in the courtyard and pretended to be talking on his phone. He had sent
Owen to chess club and got him to mention him a lot. He had even let Pamela
McBride sit on his knee at dinner one night, even though she bored him, aware
he was in full view of Ellie over at the West Tower table.

He had given Ellie too much
attention and now he wanted her to miss it. She was a clever girl, but she was
out of her league at game playing. Right now she should be feeling a bit
neglected.

The next stage of his plan was to
somehow get their History teacher, Mrs Marsh, to invite Ellie to join him for
some extra History lessons and if he’d got it right Ellie ought to jump at it.

***