Truth & Dare (25 page)

Fat chance, the one Fazia said I was in with.

She apologizes for her brother, but of course it’s not her fault. It’s like if males aren’t insulting females and/or leaving them, they cease to exist.

And I sort of wish that would happen, really. The world would be a more perfect place.

Fazia hasn’t texted back yet and the sky is growing darker. I’m coping with the bedcover, at least. I change into pajamas, pull out a book and read on my bed for ages, carefully ignoring the cats. Eventually, though, I have to leave my room because I can’t go forever without using the toilet. I may be
Minger-Ellie
and the laughing stock of my whole school but I’m still made of a human-related substance, deep down.

I open my bedroom door a crack and peer out. There’s no sign of life so I dart quickly into the bathroom.

And that’s when I walk in on a naked guy.

Yes, naked. And a guy.

Just when I’ve been wishing the whole male population of
the world away, one appears naked in my flat.

My pajamas are fluffy and have teddy bears on them. No one outside my family was supposed to see them. When I left my room, I dashed past the other bedroom doors just in case they were open and my new housemates saw something they shouldn’t.

I now see almost everything I shouldn’t.

I see a naked guy. Young. A bit older than me, I think. Fit. Buff, even.

He has one foot in the bath and his body half turned away from me.

I scream.

He yelps and gapes at me. “Oh Jesus, doesn’t the lock work? Oh Jesus, I didn’t realize!”

His accent is American. His body is … really interesting.

I gulp and tug at my pajamas (the bears! the bears!) but I can’t seem to speak. I see chest. I see muscle definition. I see a small line of hair starting at his navel. I see more.

While I’m busy seeing all these things, he’s grabbing the nearest towel, which seems to be a hand towel.

No, it’s smaller than that. It’s a titchy little bidet towel, designed to dry certain private parts of the body. It has a flowery pattern on it.

The boy covers one private part of himself in flowers. His, um, front part. I can still see the rest. I try not to look but my eyes are drawn there.

He finds a bigger towel. He doesn’t look at me as he wraps it around himself and lets the bidet towel drop to the ground.

With the bottom part of him covered, my eyes travel north and I take in the dark tattoo on his shoulder. It is a girl’s name—“Jen”—plus a heart. It dances as his arm muscles move, tying his towel tighter.

He has gorgeous arms.

I wonder what “Jen” would say if she knew I’d walked in on her boyfriend like this. And is Jen the Hello Kitty girl or the vamp? The boy has longish hair, but I’m still not sure which girlfriend is more likely, not until he puts some clothes on.

“It was locked!” The boy stares accusingly at the door. “I checked.”

“Oh,” I say. It’s the first thing I’ve said. It occurs to me that I shouldn’t still be standing here at all, but I’m kind of frozen.

“I’ll ask my dad about the lock,” I manage. Yay, my voice is back. And it seems to want some exercise, too. “It’s just typical of my dad to put me in a flat with total strangers as housemates and not even check the bathroom door lock works and …” I hesitate. “Are you the boyfriend of one of my new housemates?”

“No,” he says. His hand is all clenched where he’s clutching the tied edges of the towel. “I live here. Since yesterday.”

He
lives
here? “Wait—you’re my actual housemate?”

“I guess,” he shrugs. “There’s me, and there’s Yoshi. We moved in yesterday. Yoshi’s something else—wait till you meet her.”

I’m confused. It’s none of my business, but I say it anyway. “So who’s Jen?”

The boy looks shocked. Then he turns his head and frowns at the tattoo. “Oh. I’m not with Jenna anymore. That’s why I’m here.”

He tattooed her name on his shoulder, but he’s already moved on. He already thinks Yoshi is “something else,” and he met her yesterday.

Yeah, he’s a guy, all right.

He holds out the hand that’s not engaged in towel-clutching
duties. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Andy. So you’re the landlord’s daughter?”

I nod. “Ellie,” I mumble. I shake his hand. And I’m now staring again.

I snap my eyes away.

“Okay, so … I’ll just come back later,” I say, suddenly swept up in a shyness I probably should have felt a lot earlier. “A lot later. And, I’ll, um, knock first.”

Andy looks relieved. “Thanks, Ellie,” he says.

“That’s okay. So I’ll be going.” I edge out of the door.

“Hey, Ellie?” Andy says.

I slink back, my eyes fixed carefully on the ceiling this time. “Yes?”

“Nice pajamas.” He grins.

I pull at the hem of my pajama top. I wish I could bring myself to say something cheeky like “nice birthday suit,” like Sofia or Fazia probably would in this situation.

I turn to leave, and that’s when I meet my other housemate, who’s just walked into the flat and is staring toward the bathroom, and me, in curiosity.

This one is definitely a girl. She has funky bright-pink and black hair that’s spiked at the front and all different lengths. She’s covered in bright makeup and her lipstick is the color of bubblegum. Her clothes are mismatched and clashy, with all shades of pink from pastel to electric. She looks like something off a high-fashion shoot.

She looks stunning.

Andy pokes his head out from behind the bathroom door, now covered in about three more towels. He beams at the style princess. “Hey, Yoshi! This is Ellie.” He waves a hand between us. “Ellie, Yoshi. I’m about to have a shower and the lock’s broken—don’t come in!”

“I buy pizza?” Yoshi says. “For three?”

She looks at me and I nod. Well, I’m starving.

Andy shuts the door halfway through saying, “Yoshi, you’re the best!” He couldn’t have just said “yes”?

I’m almost relieved to go back to the cat-filled room and change out of my pajamas.

After Yoshi gets back, Andy emerges from his vamp cave dressed in head-to-toe black. The pizza smells delicious. We sit and eat and talk.

Well, Yoshi doesn’t talk all that much. She’s way too cool. Or maybe her English isn’t that great. But Andy works hard to include her in the conversation and he laughs in her direction all the time and generally looks interested in her. Then he looks disappointed when she says something about “having exam” in the morning and she goes to her room to study.

He definitely likes her. A lot.

Tattoos are forever, but “Jen” is clearly forgotten.

When we’re alone, Andy asks me about Dad, because he knows that the landlord’s name is Armando Minghelli, a professor at the university.

“So you’re Ellie Minghelli?” he asks, and I brace myself when I nod. But he doesn’t laugh, or think of a nickname.

“My name’s Elena really, but I don’t like that either,” I tell him. “I hate my name. I get teased about it at school.” I don’t tell him exactly how or by who.

“I hear you. I have issues with my name, too,” he says. “Though I’m starting to forgive it now, if it’s the reason I’m here with the world’s coolest roomie.” He grins. He has to mean Yoshi. He has seen my teddy-bear pajamas.

Andy continues, “I guess your dad wanted two girls to move in with you, huh? This mix-up probably happened because I’m called Andrea.” He spells it for me. “I’m Italian-American,
and it’s a boy’s name. But that didn’t stop the stupid things they said in the locker room at high school back in the States. It was bad.”

Oh, yeah? I’ll bet my story beats his.

“The girly-boy stuff has mostly stopped now, and I’m in Italy.” He runs a hand through his longish hair. “But it was Jenna who called the agency, and she said the girl there was Aussie. And Jenna called me her roommate, not her
ex-boyfriend
. They do so many sublets in this city of students, they don’t really check stuff.”

I stare at him. Apart from the hair, there’s nothing remotely girly about him. Stubble. Large hands. Muscles. Sexy smile.

Extremely recent break-up with a live-in girlfriend whose name is tattooed on his arm and who made post-break-up arrangements for him. Obvious attraction to our other housemate.

Focus, Ellie, focus.

“So why did Jenna find you another place to live?” I don’t know why I want to know, but I do.

His eyes shift downwards. “Well, she wanted me to leave.”

“Yeah?” So she broke his heart?

Or
he
broke
hers
? And she issued him with an eviction notice? That’s what Mum did with Dad in the end.
“I’m sick of hanging around waiting for you,”
Sofia and I heard her shout.
“Just get out of my life and stop even
pretending
you have any interest in me or the girls.”

Andy says, “Yeah. She … she threw me out.”

Good for Jenna. “My dad definitely said I’d be sharing with two girls,” I tell Andy pointedly. Suddenly, I want him to worry.

He worries. “Do you think he’ll let me stay?”

I feel instantly bad, so I tell the truth. “He probably won’t even notice. He doesn’t really pay much attention to me.” That sounds a little pathetic so I add, “I think he thinks I’m all grown
up, now I’m sixteen. Independent.” Like a cat. That sounds less pathetic, but it’s a lie because he didn’t pay much attention to me when I was twelve, either. Or six, for that matter.

“You’re sixteen? You going into junior year?”

“Um … I’ve just finished GCSEs. I’m starting A levels next year—like your high school leaving thingies. I think.” Then I blurt, “I hate school. I can’t wait to leave forever, but I like … I like studying.” This is a terrible thing to admit. Social death. “I just don’t like the people much.” That is possibly worse.

Andy laughs and pulls up closer to me, settling in his chair like I’ve just given him a License to Talk About Yourself in Tiny Detail.

“I feel the same,” he says. “I had the toughest time in school, mostly because I refused to be like everyone else.”

“Oh. I don’t refuse. I’m just …
not
. I can’t help it.” I have no idea why I’m saying that. Except that it’s true.

He nods. “High school sucks,” he says. “But it’s over pretty quick, in the grand scheme of things, and I promise it gets better after that. All those haters? They kind of get over themselves. Or they’re easier to avoid. Or override.” He grins at me. “You know, with your superior intellect.”

I’m not sure I have one of those, but I don’t like to mention it.

Andy’s still smiling at me. “I go to school in Chicago now and that’s pretty cool.”

Huh? “You’re still at school?”

“I’m a JYA at the international university here,” he says. “For college credit, you know?”

I must look really confused because he explains, “I’m nineteen. So is Yoshi, though she’s from Japan. I know her from class. We take Italian culture and language together. The rest of the time, I study philosophy. It’s my major back in the
States.” He smiles, eyes shining with love for his subject. I feel myself relaxing about my earlier admission.

“This city’s famous for its philosophical thought,” I say, because Dad told me that once. But, bizarrely, all that springs to mind right now are the Italian chocolates Dad used to buy us for a taste of home. “Chocolate kisses,” they were called, if you translated the Italian. Inside the wrapper of each one there was a little philosophical quote. Faz and I would stuff ourselves and giggle for hours at the messages. We’d take it in turns to read them out in silly voices.

“They even wrap their chocolates in philosophical thoughts,” I say, which has to rate pretty highly on the Stupid Things to Say scale.

But Andy gives a huge belly laugh. Then he gets up. “Well, I have the same test as Yoshi so I’d better get studying too. See you tomorrow, Ellie Minghelli.”

The vamp bedroom door shuts behind him.

I’m all alone again.

I decide to intrepidly venture downstairs and onto the street, where the shops still seem to be open even though it’s getting late. I buy myself a small box of those famous chocolates and unwrap one.

“
In order to find perfect love, embrace imperfection
,” the flimsy paper reads.

“Embrace imperfection?”

Welcome to my life.

Surprise surprise, I don’t see much of Dad for the next few days. He does come round a few times, and the first time he finds out about one of my new housemates being male. He asks whether I mind and when I say “no” he says, “Good. I trust that agency.”

Yes, because they clearly try to meet their clients’ needs … by sending the opposite of what they’ve asked for.

And aren’t fathers supposed to worry about their daughters sharing bathrooms with strange men?

Not mine.

I ask him to fix the bathroom door lock and he does. He tells me to call if I need anything. I don’t tell him I don’t have his number. He doesn’t ask what I’ve been doing all day.

What I’ve been doing all day is exploring. Mostly on my own but also with Andy, whenever he’s not “in class,” as he calls it. It just kind of happens, because he knows his way around. We’ve been thrown together. I’m enjoying myself, though. I’ve found we can talk about anything and everything, and we do.

When I finally get hold of Mum, she doesn’t sound like herself. She’s been out loads with the people from her course. She tells me about women called Tasha and Rose and Hannah, who she feels like she’s known forever. Then she goes on about their tutor, Robert, and how much fun he is and how he’s just one of them, really, and he’s turned his life around with the power of positive thought and he’s an inspiration.

She certainly sounds positive. She won’t even join me in bad-mouthing Dad, which is a total first for her. She’s not worried about Dad losing his phone and us not knowing where he lives. She says, “I’m sure he’ll get a new phone soon, and anyway it sounds like he’s popping round a lot.” She adds, “Ellie, don’t let this go to your head, but I trust you, and I know you’ll be fine. And don’t be afraid to ask Armando for help if you need it. He’s not as useless as you think he is.” She contradicts herself spectacularly in the next sentence, something only my mother can do with such style. “Anyway, you could probably look after him better than he could look
after you. Honestly, Ellie, try to enjoy yourself. Think positively. Have fun. Robert says …”