Page 49 of Star Struck

His hand came up, almost defensively, and a finger traced the leather. ‘Pretty much.’

‘Even when you’re working?’

There was a kind of pause, during which I suddenly realised that the thong was so much more to him than mere decoration. I didn’t know what it stood for, why he wore it, but I could see in his eyes that questions about it made him wary. ‘Mmm. Look, what’s all this about not wanting to go to the ball?’

I sat on the bed, fiddling with the flappy bit of dress where I was still incompletely laced up. ‘Jack. Look at me.’

His stare briefly traced my face before settling back into my eyes. ‘What am I supposed to be seeing?’

‘This!’ I poked myself in the scar and stood up again. The weight of the skirt tugged the dress down a few inches and I had to perform a haulage operation in order to get the bodice to cover my chest.

‘Okay. Seeing it. Refusing to believe that’s what’s stopping you from coming to the ball with me. Don’t you think it’s just a touch solipsistic to think that people will even notice? There’re people down there who have spent months on their costumes, getting every detail right . . .’ He gave a short, hollow laugh. ‘They’re really not going to be looking at your scar. And anyway, don’t you want to see if I can dance?’

‘You said you could.’

‘Maybe I was lying.’ He tilted his head to one side and gave me an unblinking stare. ‘Or is it something else? Someone . . . oh, please tell me you’re not going to let Gethryn ruin our evening! Skye, I know the guy is a bastard but . . .’

‘He scared me,’ I said quietly. ‘What you saw in the car park, you were right, I didn’t want it. He was . . . I mean, I think he would have stopped if I’d told him, but . . . I’m not sure, and he’s said things . . . just because he’s famous he seems to think he can have any woman he wants, can make her do whatever he wants.’

Despite my anxiety, when Jack ran his tongue along his lower lip, thinking, a tingle ran the length of my spine. ‘Nobody has ever accused him of anything,’ he said slowly. ‘But then he does tend to pick girls who . . . sorry . . . have issues. Girls who might be grateful, girls he can manipulate because they think he . . .’ A sudden shake of his head sent his glasses askew across his face and he pulled them off, pushed one of the side arms into his mouth. ‘I tried to warn you.’

‘Yeah, right, for the record, Jack, an actual warning might have been more use than your oblique “he’s not very nice”, you know. If you’re going to warn someone, telling them what you’re warning them about is generally better than dark, broody hinting. This isn’t an episode; you don’t have to keep up the tension for the full fifty minutes.’ I realised that my bodice was heading floorwards again and gave it a mighty heave.

I got a grin for that. ‘Sorry. Force of habit and lack of experience. Now, come on, you’re not going to let him deprive you of the chance to watch me strut my funky thing, are you?’

I closed my arms against my body. ‘I don’t know.’

Gently he pushed me by one shoulder until I turned around. ‘Do it up properly and we’ll go down. Go on, I’m not looking.’

He wasn’t. When I sneaked a quick glance over my shoulder I saw him staring down at his feet, wiggling his long toes against the carpet. His hair hid his face from me. ‘So, then.’ I began relacing the dress, refusing to let my mind go back to thinking about Gethryn when Jack was there, so darkly alluring. ‘You were going to tell me about that thing around your neck?’

He did it again, raising his fingers to toy with the leather. ‘It was Ryan’s,’ he said in such a quiet voice that I wasn’t sure I’d heard.

Ryan. His best friend. Who’d been killed in the accident that had given Jack his scars. Whoo. Was there some kind of homoerotic thing going on here?

‘I wear it to remind me.’ And then his voice strengthened. ‘Why don’t you wear your engagement ring? I’d have thought it would be something you’d find it hard to be parted from.’

My fingers became clumsy. ‘I . . . we . . . I don’t have one.’

Why didn’t I have a ring? Michael had been loaded, some kind of job in investments, regular bonuses, a collection of cars and his own flat. I’d been told all that much, seen the pictures. So why hadn’t he bought me a ring? If I’d thrown it at him during that last fight at the party, why hadn’t Felix mentioned it? I pulled the last string through. ‘I’ve finished.’

‘You look fabulous.’ Jack’s eyes gleamed behind his glasses. ‘Real Skeldarian Queen. Apart from the strange smell.’

‘That was Gethryn. Well, it was his drink. I’ve had the dress hanging out of the window ever since, but it still smells a bit . . .’ I sniffed, ‘fruity. Do you think I should change?’

‘I really don’t think anyone but me is going to notice, Skye. Honestly, it’s okay, it doesn’t even smell like drink any more.’

‘Well, sorry, but colour me still slightly worried.’

He stood up alongside me. His height matched mine now I wore the towering shoes I’d borrowed along with the dress; my gaze was exactly level with his eyes. I could just make out the darker ring of pupil inside the near-black iris. ‘Onward then.’ After a momentary hesitation, Jack took my hand and looped it through his elbow. ‘Come on. Let’s make a grand entrance.’

‘You’re in your pyjamas.’

‘And you smell of boiled fruit, but we can still make an entrance, can’t we?’

It was, indeed, an entrance. I hadn’t realised, but most people were already in the diner and our arrival coincided with a pause between tracks that the band had been playing, accompanied by images from the show projected onto the long back wall. We walked in to chatting, which died away, to be replaced by a round of applause.

I was holding my breath.

---