The Flirting Games (The Flirting Series - Young Adult) (9 page)

At a certain age you just needed
good girlfriends, and Alex certainly didn’t want to talk about boys.

Rose, Sophie and Grace had shared a
dormitory at Compass Court since they all started over five years ago and
though the three of them were very different they had bonded instantly.

The fourth girl in their room,
Diana, had never really been their friend.

Diana didn’t seem to have or want
female friends. She was thin and had perfect porcelain white skin, with an oval
face, dark eyes and naturally red lips. There were a few girls in the year
below who hung on her every word and tried to copy her waist length long dark
hair, but she seemed hardly to notice them. Rose thought Diana was very
beautiful but very cold.

The only person Diana was close to
was Leo Flanagan. Both Diana and Leo were originally Irish, though both their
families now lived in England, only about half a mile away from each other by
all accounts. Rose thought that Diana and Leo might be related, but as neither
of them spoke much to her or her friends she didn’t really know.

“Who are you looking at?” Sophie
nudged Rose out of her reverie.

“No one.” Rose shook her head. “What
were we talking about?”

“I was just saying what a dry term
it’s been for boyfriends. It’s Christmas already and we’re all still single.”
Said Grace

It was the 20
^th
of
December on the last day of their first term in Year Six. It was dark now by
five o’clock and the Common Rooms were the coziest place to be in the evenings.
The three of them were sitting in the West Tower Common Room enjoying the fact
that as it was the end of term and they didn’t have to do any studying. They
had a low coffee table at one end of the room with a sofa and a leather
armchair that they always tried to get to before anyone else. It was
comfortable and intimate. There were no other seats close by so no one could
overhear their conversations. Across the room in an alcove under a tall lamp,
Leo and Diana had a little table for two and looked like they were actually
doing homework.

“And I was wondering what’s going on
with you and Ben Castle this year?” Grace continued as she swiveled sideways on
the sofa to rest her feet against the radiator on the wall.

Rose shrugged. “You know how it is
with me and Ben, he asks me out, eventually we kiss and then it just seems to
fizzle out.”

“So are you going out or not?” Grace
furrowed her brow in confusion.

“Beats me. I would say probably not
seeing as we haven’t spoken in over a month. We had that snog at Halloween and
we spent most of the evening talking. But we’ve hardly had time to speak since.
He’s always got sporting commitments and I’ve been working on my English
coursework most nights. It all just seems a bit of an effort to find the time
and I’m not going to chase after him.”

“I think you should just dump him
once and for all” said Sophie. “You two have been on-again off-again since the
first year, you’ve never done more than kiss and neither of you is getting the
chance to date anyone else.”

“That’s true.” Rose thought back to
her first year. It was Alex who had befriended Ben, they were in the same
biology class and had introduced him to her.

Ben was considered very attractive,
though not traditionally handsome. He stood at over six feet, his large frame
was reassuringly solid but his gentle personality made you feel you would be
safe with him He had brown hair with a tendency to curl, big brown eyes and a
friendly wide smile. There was something very appealing about his open
countenance. So it was all the more confusing that he blew hot and cold with
their relationship.

“The thing is” Rose continued,
“there isn’t really anyone else I want to date anyway.”

“No. The talent has totally dropped
off now that Jack’s gone.” Sophie pouted. Rose laughed, as Sophie’s crush on
Jack had been extreme and unrequited for several years.

“But I don’t want to date Jack.”
Rose joked “That would be gross as he’s my cousin.”

Sophie kicked Rose’s foot off the
table to show how little she thought of the joke.

“Sorry Soph.” Her face softened at
her friend’s down-turned mouth. “One day Jack will notice how lovely you are.”

Sophie glanced at Grace. They both
knew that Jack had already noticed Sophie, but had decided not to tell Rose as
she would only rail at Jack about it. Grace saw the look and nodded
imperceptibly to show she still knew not to say anything.

Sophie and Jack had gotten together
at the end of year dance for the Upper School at the beginning of the summer.
More than gotten together. The trouble was that they had both gone home the
next day and although Sophie had given Jack her phone number, he had never
called. She was too embarrassed to tell Rose. Rose had spent some of the summer
holidays with Jack’s family and she would have forced him to call Sophie. After
discussing it with Grace, Sophie had decided this would be worse than Jack just
not calling. Unfortunately Jack had now left Compass Court for University and
Sophie was despairing of when she might get another chance to speak to him without
looking obvious.

“Anyway,” said Rose “Didn’t you have
a bit of a thing going this term with Danny Barnett in Year 5?”

“Barely.” Sophie snorted. “At first
I thought he was so cute, with his boy band looks and that fab hair.”

“His hair is only like that because
he puts so much gel in it.” Grace said.

“Totally. Anyway, cute or not, he
turned out to be really vain and immature. It lasted what? Only two or three
weeks before he got on my nerves. I think he thought because I was in Year six
I would be easy or something. I’m not going to date anyone younger than me
again.” Sophie stated.

“We were in Year 5 only a few months
ago.” Grace reminded her with humor.

“Yes but we’re girls, we mature a
lot faster. Danny was not decent boyfriend material. He actually seemed to
think I would be impressed if he could guess my bra size correctly.” She rolled
her eyes and then rounded on Grace. “Lets not forget about you. What’s your
tally been this term? Even worse than us, the only action you’ve seen is that
you spent the North Tower Christmas Party in a corner with Jerry! What were you
thinking? He’s hardly brain of the year.”

“I wasn’t interested in his brain”
Grace smirked. “I just like my men big.”

“I’ll bet you do. And just how big
is Jerry?” Sophie waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Not like that!” Grace laughed and
threw a cushion at her. “You know what I mean. I like a bit of muscle on a man.
I can’t stand skinny bony boys.”

“Maybe
you
should date Ben
then instead of me.” Rose joked.

“Yes because that’s what friends do
to each other.” Grace said sarcastically.

“Tell me again what your doing this
Christmas?” Sophie asked Rose.

“Well, as you know it doesn’t look
like my parents will be able to leave South America until early next year,”
Rose chewed her lip “and Uncle John is training troops right up until Christmas
day. So Jack’s organized it that we all stay at school during the holidays and
his parents are coming just for Christmas lunch.” By ‘all’ Rose meant herself,
her brother Toby, and her three cousins, Jack, Alex and Ellie.

“You’re so lucky.” Sighed Grace. “No
parents, no schoolwork, just total freedom.” Her own parents were pretty strict
and made her study several hours a day even during the holidays.

And two weeks with Jack
, thought Sophie, though she didn’t
say it aloud. “I can’t believe the school are just letting Jack come and stay.”
She said.

“Yeah, well, it
is
Jack. You
know how much the Head Mistress thinks of him. I think she probably cried when
he left last term.” Rose rolled her eyes.

She wasn’t the only one
, thought Sophie. “When is he
arriving?”

“Sometime tomorrow, you might see
him before you leave, do you want me to ring and ask him?” Rose said.

Sophie shook her head. She didn’t
want Jack to know she was bothered.

“So who else is staying?” She asked.

“I’m not sure.” Rose’s eyes traveled
back to where Leo and Diana were sitting. She had heard a rumor that they were
both staying, though she couldn’t think why.

“Definitely Anne-Marie the Head
Girl, and I think a boy in Toby’s year, which will be nice for him.” Toby was
thirteen and had not taken the news of his parent’s absence this coming
Christmas at all well.

“So no one particularly interesting.
No cute boys?” Said Grace.

Rose let her gaze linger on Leo for
a second more. “No. No-one interesting.” She confirmed.