Betting Boy

Chapter Thirteen - Isabelle

"King Charles. That's what they're calling us. The flat, I mean."

"Like the dog?" Alysha asks. She wrinkles her nose, confused. "Does he look like a puppy or something? Wait – are they calling you a dog?"

I shake my head, burrow into a more comfortable position on my bed and rearrange my laptop on my stomach so Alysha can still see me (and, at this angle, all of my three hundred chins).

Kian and I spent half the morning at the walk-in centre waiting to be seen before a doctor gave me the morning after pill and told us to be more careful next time, and passed us a bowl full of condoms to take a few. I feel like it's no big deal, and it isn't, really. But today, it feels like a big deal. And naturally, the first thing I did after lunch was call Alysha to fill her in on everything.

Not before the entire flat cheered Kian and I when we got back home, because, you know, we slept together, and you can't get much past the people you live with.

And now they're calling us King Charles.

"Not like the dog. Because I'm Isabelle King and he's Kian Charles. King Charles."

"Jesus Christ." Alysha gawps, leaning into the screen. She switches her focus to look into the camera, not the screen. "That's genius."

I just roll my eyes.

Okay, so it is funny, but... I'm not in such a laughing mood today.

"Anyway," Alysha says, before I can say anything else. "Never mind your cute couple name. I can't believe you actually slept with him. It's nuts. It's so not like you. You don't do one night stands."

"If it's any consolation, it was a fucking nightmare."

"Why?" Alysha stops trying to pull her bushy hair back into a ponytail and leans into the screen again. "What happened? Was he totally crap? Is, did he hurt you? Do you need me to, like –"

"Nonononono," I say quickly, loudly, to cut her off. "Aly, nothing like that. It was fine. Actually, the sex was... really great. I didn't even know guys could be that good at sex."

"Out of ten?"

"Oh, a solid nine. There's always room for improvement. Not much, though."

She laughs, freezes for a second, and I wait for the connection to finish buffering before I carry on.

"Anyway. He was great. The sex was great. It was all great. Like, amazing great, not okay great. And then when he's done he just looks down and gets this look on his face like everything is totally horrific –"

"Shit," my best friend interrupts. "Were you bleeding? Please tell me you got your period in the middle of sex. That would be so funny."

"Uh, nope. No. guess again."

"I literally have no idea."

"The condom broke."

Alysha loses her shit, just like I expected her to. The first thing I have to do is reassure her that I've taken the morning after pill, and then she wants to know how Kian reacted to the whole thing, and doesn't believe me when I tell her how cool he was about everything, and then we dissect the entire night over.

And then:

"Are you gonna sleep with him again?"

I open my mouth and nothing comes out.