Page 38 of The Alternate Captain
I hear her suck in a breath. “The pub?”
“I’m seeing some friends,” I say.
“Who?” she snaps.
“Some old friends from school. You remember Charlotte? I’ll be home before eleven, don’t worry.”
The fact that I have to say this makes me wish I hadn’t come home for the summer. Since Jeremy, she’s been overly cautious about anything that may result in a drunken night out.
“Fine. Send a live location to your brother, and Dad will pick you up. I’ll tell him he can’t have a drink.”
“You don’t need to do that,” I say.
“It’s fine. Send the location.”
End of conversation. But I send my location anyway, tosave the hassle later, before shoving my phone away.
The chatter from the beer garden has me wanting to turn around and head home. Because I’m socially awkward at the best of the times, and since I only know a few people, I regret my decision. But then Johnny’s question pops back into my head, and I take a breath and head inside to the bar where I order a drink.
The audacity of him. To think I’d be blabbing his secrets. And to my brother of all people.
I order a gin and tonic and glug it back, readying myself for social awkwardness, which kicks in straight away when I join Charlotte and a few others I remember from sixth form outside.
Charlotte does a round of intros to the faces I’ve not seen before, and once that’s over, she settles into conversation like we’re picking up from our text thread.
“Kelly had some crap news today,” she says. “So, we need to make sure we cheer her up.”
“Oh, really? What was the bad news?” Harry, a friend of Charlotte’s from uni, asks.
He’s sitting next to me and attempts to listen when I speak, which I find quite refreshing. He’s got a kind face and a mop of brown curly hair, which he’s brushed back with his sunglasses.
“I didn’t get a spot at this music school I auditioned for. But it doesn’t matter.” I shrug.
“You could always transfer to our uni,” Harry says. “We’re probably going to drag you down, but you’re welcome.”
“I’ll just stick where I am, but thank you anyway,” I say jovially.
“Is Darren still sniffing about?” Charlotte asks.
I nod before taking a sip of my drink. “Sadly, yes. So, I guess I’m stuck with him for another two years.”
Charlotte scowls, which prompts Harry to ask questions about Darren.
I’m about to tell him I don’t want to talk about Darren tonight, when Charlotte takes out her invisible megaphone and tells Harry all about how he followed me around for years, begging me to give him a chance and got into the same university as me only to cheat on me once we’d started seeing each other.
“Oh my, God. Really?” Meg, one of the other girls from school, says. She knows Darren, of course, but she didn’t realise that we’d become official not long after starting uni. “He was always a creep, Kel. You’re better off without him.”
“That sucks. I’m sorry,” Harry says.
“Well, it’s done now,” I say.
Meg asks how I found out he was cheating on me, and thankfully, I don’t have to recount that story as Charlotte does it for me. I let her do all the talking, and I jump at the chance to get another drink when Harry offers to get a round in.
“I’ll come with you,” I say, and he holds out his arm for me to walk ahead.
He’s chatty, and I like that at first, but the more he talks, the more I realise he likes the sound of his own voice. He talks and talks at me. And, for the rest of the evening, every time I go to the bar, he follows me.
An hour later, I send my mam a discreet message asking for a ride home, since I’ve well and truly had enough.
