Page 33 of Star Struck

‘Come on then.’ Jack put a hand on my forearm and closed his fingers around it. ‘I’ll get you some food.’

‘But I—’

Felix gave me a stern look and then rolled his eyes. ‘Go on, lover. You’re too skinny already. You need to eat.’

‘There’s no such thing as too skinny.’ I tried an uppish defence, even though I knew he was right. For my shape, I was too thin. I looked like a skeleton someone had thrown clothes at. ‘Oh, all right.’

‘So gracious.’ Jack headed away, not, as I’d thought, towards the diner but towards the stairs.

‘Sorry.’ I followed him. ‘I’m feeling a bit . . . odd.’

‘Bit pissed you mean. What were you and Geth drinking out there?’ He’d stopped on a stair, back to me but rigid. Waiting.

‘Did I say we were drinking?’

‘You didn’t need to. But you didn’t admit to it — interesting. Did he tell you not to talk to me?’

We walked along the corridor to his room and I stopped to think while he unlocked the door. ‘No.’

Jack ushered me past him, but stopped me before I could get inside by putting both hands on my shoulders and pulling me around to face him. ‘Skye, look—’

‘Oh, don’t start again with all the “stay away from Gethryn” bullshit, please. I’m sorry if you two have problems and I’m sorry you’ve both got all this machismo shit going on, but I’m not your little sister, and I bloody well don’t have a virginity to lose, so just stop all these dire warnings and leave me alone. What happened out there tonight was — well, it was under control.’

He held both hands up in the air. ‘Under control. Okay. You’re right, you’re a big girl, you can decide for yourself who you see.’

‘All right,’ I said, dubiously.

‘But whatever you think of me, I don’t make a practice of riding in every time I see a couple in a clinch, you know. I’m not some big killjoy who can’t bear anyone to be happy. I saw your face, Skye, and happy was not on the agenda there.’

‘So you were watching because it was me?’

Jack shook his head and moved inside the room. ‘You . . . you’ve just hurled in from home and I guess the accent and all, it’s making me feel a bit homesick. A bit . . .’ He tailed off, his eyes lost focus and he stared out of the window, hands working their way deep into the pockets of his black jeans. ‘Yeah. So. Food. These places are always rubbish at producing anything that’s actually good for you, so I brought some things along.’

‘Okay.’ What was he playing at? He seemed nervous, he’d lost that whole lone-hunter edge he’d had when we’d come in from the desert. Maybe he just needed a smoke.

‘Fine.’ He turned to the tiny fridge in the corner under the laptop and pulled out some fruit and a bar of chocolate, then plopped a pile of apples and oranges on the bed beside me and suddenly his words were coming in a breathless rush. ‘The fancy dress ball, Sunday night. Would you come with me?’

I let the apple I’d picked up drop back onto the duvet. ‘What, you mean like . . . a date?’

‘Well, I suppose . . . kind of.’

‘But you . . . this isn’t . . . that’s just weird.’

Jack sat down and stared at me over an orange he was peeling with his teeth. ‘What’s weird? Asking you to the ball?’ He tipped his head on one side. ‘I like you. And I know that I’m a miserable old bastard who smokes under stress and has a variable sense of humour, and sometimes I don’t know when I’m talking to real people and when I’m talking to the people in my head, but I can be fun, too. I think we could have a good time together. Now tell me, in what way is that weird?’

‘Is this just to stop me from seeing Gethryn?’ I felt the strangest urge to giggle like a schoolgirl.

‘No.’ Jack cupped the orange in his hand, pulled a segment away and looked at it closely. ‘I’m crediting you with some good sense on that one.’ His expression was dark. ‘I’m just a writer, a nobody and he’s the star.’ Shadowed eyes met mine and he let the orange fall onto his lap. ‘Gethryn will go with Martha,’ he said, quietly. ‘They’re both part of the cast and we like them to appear at these things together. Come with me.’ Long fingers elegantly excised a pip from the flesh and flicked it accurately into an ashtray on the table.

‘Can you dance?’ Stupid question.

‘Only one way to find out.’

‘Can I think about it?’ I could see the individual lashes of his eyes, the unconscious twitch of his lips, and all of a sudden I knew if he kissed my mouth it would be gentle, and I found myself wondering how he would taste; what he looked like, naked.

He stood up abruptly and went to the fridge. Took a can out, popped it open and drank. ‘I guess so. Although I’m already disappointed that you need to.’

‘You fancy yourself a bit, don’t you?’

---