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

He found he was cracking his
knuckles under the table like a cave man.

That scene in the pub today had
thrown him. She hadn’t even seen him; she had been too busy sucking face with
that idiot Anderson. She wasn’t pining for his attention; she hadn’t even
noticed him. Then her brother had come in and he had hoped Jack Parkhurst was
going to be angry at her public display of affection. In fact, he’d expected
Jack to put Anderson through the wall, but no luck there. Still, he was glad it
wasn’t him that had been caught kissing her though; Jack might have left
Compass Court, but you still wouldn’t want to get found compromising his
sister.

On the plus side, Alex was being
friendly again and had persuaded Nate to come and sit at their table for
dinner. He wasn’t sure why he had agreed. It was masochistic if Ellie was
bringing Anderson and it was against his plan to be aloof until the right time.
But then the plan was clearly not working, which stumped him a little; it
always
worked.

Ellie had indeed invited Liam
Anderson to join the West Tower table. Alex called her over and she sat down
opposite him. With a polite smile at Nate she pulled Liam down next to her so
he was sat directly in front of Nate.

As dinner unfolded, Nate began to
rethink his notion that it wasn’t working.

He watched from the corner of his
eye for all the small signs. Ellie wasn’t looking at him, but she was
deliberately
not
looking at him. She let Liam whisper in her ear, and
laughed and smiled up at him, but Nate noticed that when he tried to put his
hand on her knee she shoved him away without really noticing.

Nate began to smile to himself.

It was for his benefit; it was
all
for his benefit! She didn’t have strong feelings for Anderson at all. What a
player! She had very nearly fooled him into thinking she was just as
indifferent to him. He had to give her credit for matching him in the game.

But it had made him jealous just the
same and it wasn’t a game he wanted to continue any more. Somewhere along the
way his feelings had become involved. He couldn’t remember that ever happening
before. He didn’t want her to be with anyone else.

Maybe the time had come for a change
of tactics. Maybe it was time to get more up front and personal.

On Wednesday afternoon Ellie had
History. It was half past three when the lesson ended and she felt completely
confused. She couldn’t seem to get the kings and queens in any kind of order.
She turned, sighing, to put her book back in her bag and found Mrs Marsh at her
elbow.

“Still struggling, Ellie?” her
teacher asked kindly. Ellie nodded; she liked Mrs Marsh, but really didn’t
enjoy the class much. She had been fine with the War of the Roses, but now she
was lost.

“You know if it carries on this way
you won’t even get a C grade,” the teacher continued. Ellie nodded again
dejectedly.

“Did you know that Nathaniel Naverly
recently sat the entrance exam for Oxford University? A whole year early.
They’ve offered him an unconditional place to study History regardless of how
well he does in his A levels.”

Ellie looked suspicious. Was Mrs
Marsh part of the conspiracy that everyone seemed to be in on to talk about how
wonderful Nate was all the time?

“So how about a little extra
tutoring?” the teacher continued. “Nathaniel mentioned that the two of you were
friends and that he would be happy to give you some tutoring if you could join
him on Thursday evenings?”

Ellie was dumbfounded. Nate had
suggested it? How did he even know she was failing History? He had told the
teacher they were
friends
? Why?

Ellie found herself nodding to Mrs
Marsh’s suggestion.

The teacher smiled. “Well that’s
great, Ellie. I have no doubt Nathaniel could help you scrape your grade up to
at least a B. He has special access to the History books in my classroom after
Prep time. I’ll add your name for a late pass on Thursday evenings for the next
few weeks and you can let me know how it goes, alright?”

Ellie nodded again, still too
surprised to know how to take it.

On Thursday at breakfast, lunch and
dinner she had tried to catch his eye, but he seemed oblivious to her. She had
even tried to stop him for a quick word in the hall, but he hadn’t seemed to
even hear her and had carried on talking and laughing with his friends as they
swept out of the door.

That evening, as she stood once
again in front of the mirror, she looked at her own confused reflection and
tried to work out what his game was. Why would he want to tutor her? He was
smart and had probably worked out what her game was, and he was a total player
himself so he was probably playing it back. That would make sense. Yet Nate had
pretty much ignored her for the past couple of weeks. He had stopped taking any
interest in her or playing any games. He had seemed to forget she even existed,
which was fine, as until this year she
hadn’t
existed as far as he was
concerned.

But this year she had exerted
herself to come to his attention.
Not
because she had a crush on him,
she reiterated to herself firmly! But because she didn’t trust him and didn’t
want him near Rose.

Is that really the reason you don’t
want him near Rose?
her inner voice whispered.

“He’s bad news!” she said out loud
to her reflection. Why didn’t she seem to care about that?

He’s so gorgeous
,
whispered the annoying inner voice.

Yes, but so is Liam and several
other people who are much nicer!
her sensible mind answered back.

 
So why don’t you want them? Why don’t they make you feel like
he does?

Shut up!!
she almost shouted in her head.

Who was she fooling? Only herself.
She was clearly a sucker for a bad boy. When had she fallen for him? How had it
happened without her noticing? The whole point had been to make
him
fall
for
her
,
not the other
way round. No, the point had been to get his focus off Rose and it had worked.
But he was clearly much better at matters of the heart than her; she had ended
up being the one who had fallen for him. In a big way.

Now she admitted it to herself, she
realized she wanted him badly and only him. There had been moments when she had
felt like she was winning their flirting game. When she had turned up at the
Halloween dinner, she really thought she was getting under his skin for real,
but now she accepted she was probably the loser.

But at least he didn’t know; she
could never let him know! She still had her pride and she could hide her heart
beneath it forever if necessary. Oh well, might as well make the most of
getting some time alone with him.

She applied her make-up with
particular care that night. She was getting rather good at perfecting the ‘I
look great, but I don’t look like I’ve made an effort’ style of subtle make-up.
Although it was officially a History lesson, she also decided that as it was
after hours she would dispense with school uniform and instead went in jeans,
trainers and a long sweater which constantly slipped off one shoulder, giving
that ‘I didn’t mean to look sexy it just keeps slipping’ sort of skin appeal.

***

Ellie was bending over, looking at
the books on the lower shelves when Nate came in to the History classroom. He
stopped in the dark doorway for a few moments to admire her bottom before
coughing to making his presence known.

“Nate! You made me jump.” Ellie
began to edge behind a table. “I don’t understand why you told Mrs Marsh we
were friends. Why have you invited me here? What’s really going on here?”

“History is what is going on here,”
Nate replied smoothly. “And I thought we were friends? We’ve chatted a few
times, even sent the odd email; what a swamp of a mind you must have to think
it’s anything more.”

His eyes were full of humor as he
teased her and she began to smile back, relaxing slightly. Though not too much;
it was not going to be a good idea to let her guard down.

“I’m quite serious about History,
though, and I really am going to teach you,” he continued. “Put your books
away. What you really need is to be familiar with the real people.”

Ellie watched as he pulled up two
chairs side-by-side at a table and laid out a huge Royal family tree; each
important name had a portrait illustration beside it.

“Sit down. You can’t see anything
properly from over there.” Ellie looked at the chair next to Nate and her heart
thumped in her chest. She sat down, shifting slightly away from him, but Nate
just laughed and dragged her chair a little closer.

“I’m not going to bite you! Well,
not yet anyway,” he said suggestively. “But you do need to be able to see. Come
on, snuggle in.” She elbowed him hard in the ribs in response, but leaned
closer. They sat side-by-side, looking at each other for a few moments before
Nate began to speak.

“You need to know every king and
queen personally. They all have a story of their own. You need to know each of
them like an old friend so you can spot their face in a crowded room.” As they
both looked at the family tree, he began to tell her the story of Edward II.
How he had spent lots of money on pleasure and paid no attention to the
country. How Robert the Bruce had defeated him at Bannockburn and how in
desperation his own wife, Isabella of France, had successfully led an invading
force against him to put their son on the throne instead.

He was full of humorous anecdotes
about each king and Ellie soon found that she could pick them out much more
clearly the longer she looked; she could remember which was which by the
stories.

“Do you know,” Ellie said at last,
stretching and surreptitiously moving a little closer. “I’ve learned more in
the last couple of hours than I have in four years of History classes!”

“Last couple of hours?” Nate waved
his wrist at her. “It’s past midnight.”

“You’re joking? How did the time go
so fast? We only had a pass from nine until ten-thirty.” But she still didn’t
move.

He rolled up the large document in
front of them and leaned on his elbow, looking directly at her.

“The old adage about time flying
when you’re having fun might apply here?” he suggested.

“Are you having fun, Ellie?” He
traced his finger across her cheek and it seemed to pleasantly burn where he
touched her. She looked back at him, eyes wide, and was lost for words.

They continued to look at each other
for several seconds and she was sure he was about to kiss her.

At that moment he froze and lifted
his head to listen to the sound of someone coming along the dark corridor.

“Shit! It’s probably the caretaker,”
he whispered, looking frantically round for somewhere to hide.

Grabbing her hand, he pulled her
swiftly away from the desk and over to the stationery cupboard in the corner.
He tried the handle and was surprised when it opened.

Bundling her in, he pulled it almost
shut, careful not to let it lock closed behind them, and they stood silent in
the darkness with just a crack of light showing through the gap in the doorway.

She was acutely aware of his
closeness. They had very little room and their breathing seemed suddenly very
loud.

It
was
the caretaker. He moved into the History room, mumbling to
himself, “Was sure there was something, someone, bloody kids.” They heard him
moving around and then suddenly the light went out in the room, plunging the
stationery cupboard into almost pitch black. They heard that sound of the door
to the room closing again and then a key being turned in the lock.

Ellie made a move to get out of the
cupboard, panicked that they might be locked in the room for the night, but
Nate kept a firm grip on her arm.

“Don’t worry, Mrs Marsh gave me a
key,” he said, reading her thoughts.

The sounds of the caretaker’s
footsteps receded down the corridor and Ellie again pushed at Nate. He let the
cupboard door swing open and moonlight streamed in from the long windows of the
room that looked out onto the courtyard.

“I think we should wait for a
minute,” he said, keeping his voice low. “You know how sneaky he is; he might
have suspected we were here and just hoped to give us a scare before coming
back.”

Ellie nodded. She didn’t care; all
she was aware of was her hand now on his chest, his whole body pressed against
the side of hers. They didn’t have an awful lot of room in the cupboard and
even if she backed up there was nowhere to go, just rows of shelves behind her.
He pressed a little closer and she could feel something hard nudging her hip as
he smiled wickedly down at her.

They both looked up as a shooting
star crossed the sky outside the windows. So close it blazed a trail of gold.

“Make a wish,” instructed Nate.
Ellie closed her eyes and wished silently inside her head.