Tightrope

Keep Talking Dirty To Me

I threw a coat hanger at him. "As if you, narcissist of the century, would be seen with Barrel Girl."

Knight pointed at me. "First of all, I would walk away from you and refuse to acknowledge your presence." Then he sighed. "Second of all... I'm not going."

I stared at him for a moment, holding still as he winced, staring at me as if I was about to exhibit violent behaviours against his person. I have no idea what he thought of me, but I was hardly violent, and he had no reason to think so; if you ignored my track record and constant threats of violence, that is.

But I did not choke him with his innards, or drop him into a koi pond full of piranhas. I tried a different tactic all together; cool, collected, dignified. "You have to come," I begged, dropping to my knees and looking up with pleading insistence. "Please, please, please, come, Knight."

"Oh, baby, baby," said Knight without any enthusiasm, flipping through the pages of a magazine discarded beside the heaping pile of clothes. "Keep talking dirty to me."

I grabbed onto his knees with desperation. "You have to! It's going to be unbearable. Unbearable. Everyone else is all coupled up. I can't be the lonely and sad bridesmaid. Holly is, like, fifteen and she has a date. Please. I already told Elena I was bringing a plus one, and everyone else is bringing a plus one, and you said you'd go with me."

"Well, I can't now," said Knight. "I didn't know how to tell you. Kaelin spoke to Elena, and she told her that your plus one was me. Cue Elena's confusion, because I was already invited, and so are my parents."

Realisation dawned and I nodded slowly. "She sent the invitations to your old house."

Knight grimaced. "Bingo. Seems Elena might be having a chill wedding, but it's going to be a big one. Enough that the Knight's were invited, and they're going to go. Personally, I'm not quite ready to reunite with dear old Mum and Dad just yet."

I sat down on the bed beside Knight and leant my head into the crook of his shoulder. It couldn't be easy, I imaged, to lose the people who'd raised you. From the tidbits that Knight had shared with me, they had never been particularly loving people, but slight neglect was a far cry from cutting off your child and throwing them onto the streets.

I mean, for Christ's sake, they hadn't even given him enough time to get a job, and it was infinitely harder to pick up work when you didn't have the money to look presentable for the interview.

"I'm sorry, Knight," I said quietly.

"Yeah." His voice was hard. "Me too."

I sat upright and fiddled with the edge of a lace dress. "I can't believe I'm going to have to go alone. I mean, Chance suffers from extreme social awkwardness, and Alex's only topic of comversation with adults is 'what is your opinion on alchemy?'"

"Alchemy?"

"Yeah, someone should probably tell him that he means the economy. Jonah is already going with Daria. And Cady won't be my date; she hates weddings. She says that love is a lie!" I glared at Knight. "The only reason I'm single is because you set me up on a bad date instead of setting me up with my Prince Charming! This is your fault! Let's sabotage your parents' car and then you can come with me."

Knight grinned. "Okay, Carrie Underwood. Luckily, I'm a great friend who would never ditch his bestie without giving her an alternate option. You've got a date to your wedding." He leant back against the sheets, grinning from ear to ear.

I poked my finger on his chest. "You better not be setting me up with someone like Tommy Aster again, or I swear to god."

"Not Tommy Aster, no. I've set you up with someone of the finest calibre. Some could say he is one of the last good guys on earth, and one of the finest in that bunch."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Hugh Jackman?"

"A man with beautiful hair, glorious eyes, some could say he's stunningly attractive, even. You definitely would."

"Uh, Hugh Jackman?"

"Think younger. Think..." Knight smirked. "Think of a guy who likes to flirt with pretty girls who hate him on the roof of an old toilet block."

I stared at him. "You didn't."

Knight was gleeful. "I did!"

"Jace Hartley is my date to my cousin's wedding?"

Knight lay down on the bed and kicked his feet in the air joyfully. "I called him and he said yes!"

The last time I'd seen Jace Hartley, my tongue had been down his throat. Taking him as a date to my cousins wedding would be a new realm of awkward that I didn't even want to consider. Like, ever. In fact, I simply wanted to fall into a hole and die instead.

Despite the phone call, it would still be strange. Especially since half of our friends—the ones I had refused to confront for a week, citing a job I didn't have as the reason I couldn't hang out—would be in attendance. I would have to face Daria, Jonah and Kaelin, and, most awkwardly, Jace.

And I could already envisage it; what having Jace Hartley as my date would be like. Jace in a button-down shirt, his hair falling handsomely over his forehead, his hand on my back guiding me through the crowd, his eyes in the crowd, watching me as I stood at Elena's side opposite the groomsmen, his gaze like two hot pinpricks on my skin. Leaning over the bar to order me a drink, vodka and cocktails and whiskey downed as the temperature rises, both of us a little messy and a little happy, giggling and whirling and dancing and tension from that kiss, that world ending kiss, building and building and...

"Please tell me you didn't," I said.

Knight looked at me innocently. "What's wrong with inviting Hartley, Lena? We were just going as friends, and you two are friends now. So why is it weird that he is your date to this wedding?"

It just... it was. The declarations of love, the dancing, the drinking, the outfits; with Knight, it would've been funny. A joke. We would've done the jitterbug on the dance floor and snuck our drinks into little plastic water bottles to take advantage of the free grog. He would've made fun of my shoes and I would've made fun of his hair. When Elena and Jack declared their eternal love for each other, I would probably cry while Knight poked me in the ribs and mocked my tears.

With Jace, I could already picture it. He would make a little quip about my appearance, and then tell me I looked pretty, and it would be heated and strange. He would hold me close as he danced with me, and our eyes would lock and we would laugh as we spun, two stars in the centre of a galaxy, feeling as if everyone else was merely in our orbit. When Elena told Jack she loved him, I would cry and he would trace the curve of my wrist with his fingers, laughing quietly at me. We would sneak a bottle of vodka from the bar and, after a round of greetings and chitchat, we would sneak behind the barn to steal sips of the grog, giggling and arguing and revelling in the strange new heat that had lingered since the night in my bathroom.

"You are right, Knight. How insightful of you. We are just friends, and those stupid kisses meant nothing. So, nothing is weird about it," I said through gritted teeth. "Now I'm going to murder you, but I want you to know it is for entirely different reasons completely unrelated to this."

Knight squeaked in protest as I smashed the pillow against his head.