The Fairest Stars

Chapter Eight: 'More inconstant than the wind.'

‘Why were you cross?’ she probed. She’d totally lost what was going on with the script, but everyone was continuing to read, thankfully loudly, which covered up her whispers. Not so much Kael’s, however.

Kael opened his mouth, and then shut it again. Shaking his head, he gave her a mischievous look. ‘Secret.’

‘Secret?!’ Isis was getting fed up. Shaking out her hair, she returned to her script, reading intently. Shame she was about two pages behind.

Kael looked at her, still grinning. Her hair was like sunlight, he noticed. He couldn’t help but reach out and touch it as it fell around her.

Snapping her head up, she glared at him. ‘What now?’

‘Pretty hair,’ he murmured.

Isis frowned, then flipped her hair over one shoulder, away from him. Kael found himself eyeing the pale skin of her now exposed neck with rather unholy sentiments. Hm. Seemed that the alcohol hadn’t got rid of his lust for Isis.

The rehearsal dragged. They went over the scene again, both Isis and Kael having no lines rendering them left to- in Isis’s case- ignore each other, or- in Kael’s case- to sit there and contemplate his inappropriate thoughts, and find that he couldn’t care less.

He’d gotten a little more drunk than he’d intended, he realised. He wasn’t a lightweight in any respects, but the drink had been strong, and he was now starting to think about how terrible he’d feel in the morning. It made him laugh.

Unfortunately, he laughed out loud.

Everyone turned to look, even Mrs Robson, who wouldn’t usually notice if someone ran into the class wearing a kilt and playing the bag pipes half way through the lesson.

‘Are you quite alright, Kael?’ she inquired, looking at him over her script.

He laughed again. ‘Yes!’

Isis covered her eyes with one hand, letting her head drop. What on earth was he doing?

‘Mr Willoughby, are you by any chance suffering from the effects of alcohol?’ Mrs Robson asked, her expression darkening.

Kael grinned. ‘Yep. I got a bit tipsy drunk,’ he informed her.

For a moment, Isis wondered if Mrs Robson would yell and scream and shout. Instead, she looked at him, sighed and turned to her. ‘Isis, could you take this boy out into the open air and get him some water or something?’ Isis groaned inwardly. ‘I don’t think he’s in a fit state to be at the rehearsal.’

Isis nodded, getting up and expecting Kael to follow. He just sat on his chair and beamed at her. Reaching out, she tugged on his arm. Kael felt electric shocks powering through his system at the feel of the smooth skin of her fingers on his arm, and got up.

Dragging him out of the room (he seemed to be skipping again), she marched him to the water fountain, and all but dunked his head in it, switching it on so it overflowed into his mouth. Spluttering, he withdrew from it only a few seconds later, wiping his mouth on his sleeve with a lack of care that would have sent his mother into hysterics, and looked at Isis. She was smouldering.

‘You disgust me, Kael,’ she said, her words biting through the air. Even tipsy drunk, he was starting to realise the implications of what he’d done. ‘What the hell are you doing?!’ His lust got the better of him. He grinned at the sight of her, rosy cheeked with anger, blue eyes flashing. She looked hot.

‘You’re disgusted, huh?’ he asked, coming closer to her. Her eyes widened. Putting one hand above her head, against the wall, he locked his gaze with hers. ‘Disgusted?’

She nodded, words failing her. She wasn’t quite sure what feeling was rushing through her, but she somehow simultaneously felt about three different emotions all at once, too quickly to name any of them.

Kael reached a hand to her cheek, running his thumb over her freckles, cupping the delicate bones of her jaw against the heel of his palm. ‘Still disgusted?’

She nodded. He moved, brushing his lips against her temple, his body quickly pressed up against hers. She felt suddenly very small, and very vulnerable; the feather light touch of his mouth against her forehead making her knees feel somewhat weak. ‘Are you sure?’ he murmured softly, his warm breath tickling her hair.

Isis came back to her senses with an alarming jolt. Raising her hands, she gave his torso a shove, feeling the muscle beneath, and ducked out from beneath his arm. ‘Yes, I’m disgusted!’ she shouted, and ran.

Kael fully considered chasing after her, then reconsidered. The effects of the alcohol seemed to be wearing off, and he suddenly felt extremely weary.

The feel of her body pressed up against his still lingered in his memory, intoxicating him more than the alcohol had. He’d thought that he’d been able to seduce her, but he’d failed. No other girl had ever run from him like that before: even Rochelle had kissed him back with passion when he’d cornered her against a wall.

Kael was simultaneously sobering up whilst being hit with the realisation that Isis didn’t find him attractive at all. She wasn’t bothered by him, she didn’t actually care. And he’d just cornered her and attempted to kiss her? She was going to think he was some sort of creepy rapist.

He needed to apologise… but first he needed to seriously sober up. Rubbing his forehead, he sank down onto the ground, and for the first time in his life, wished it would just swallow him up hole. 

*

‘Kael, I have to confess I’m disappointed.’ Nicholas Willoughby leant forward to look at his son. Though Kael had escaped the full blow of a proper hangover, the smell of alcohol mingled with his pale face, and the dark circles under his eyes had alerted his mother’s suspicions. When she confided these to her husband, he’d recognised the symptoms easily. Kael had been found out.

‘You’re always disappointed,’ muttered Kael, sat uncomfortably on his chair.

‘I thought you were going to give your all to this play,’ his father continued. ‘But sadly, it seems that I was wrong.’

Kael suddenly saw where this was going, and sat up bolt upright in his chair. ‘You haven’t given me a proper chance yet,’ he protested. ‘Okay, so I messed up a bit. But I won’t do it again. I’ve realised now that it’s stupid to get drunk as a way of solving my problems.’ He thought of Isis’s frightened face as she pushed him away. ‘It just causes more problems than I already had.’

His father sat back in his chair abruptly, his face suddenly betraying surprise. Kael looked again, and saw the bland expression his father usually wore: it gave away nothing, and hid everything. He wondered if he’d imagined it.

There were several long minutes of silence before he spoke again, slowly and calculatedly. ‘One week.’

‘What?’ Kael had been expecting something that made a little more sense than that. One week?

‘One week to prove that you’re actually going to give your all to this play; one week to prove that you actually have the capacity to work hard and stay focused. One week.’

‘And then what?’ Kael inquired, cautious of what his father would say. One week didn’t sound so hard.

‘If you fail to prove you’re worthy of taking on the business after this week, I will sign it over to your good friend, Mr Potts.’ His father gave him a smile that let Kael know that he was perfectly serious. ‘If you do well, I will not.’

Blackmail. Brilliant.

Kael sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll do it.’

His father smiled. ‘Perfect. I’ll speak to you later.’ Kael turned to go. ‘Oh, and Kael?’ He turned back. ‘Tell your mother I won’t be home until late, so dinner will have to be cancelled.’

Sighing, Kael nodded. Sometimes he wondered if he really knew his parents, or if they really knew him at all. Leaving the room, he found himself presented with a problem. How on earth was he going to feign extreme interest, and keep it up for a week?