"The roses are dead,
The violets are too,
Don't mention romance,
You'll make me spew."
Francesca Burton knows all there is to know about love and romance. She knows that love is for the naïve and romance is for the delusional. Her parents taught her...
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It's Summer, it's hot and it's the weekend. The tech-heads have finally finished their bug-catching. We should be editing Chomper's footage of the train performance.
Pfft.
Did I mention that it's Summer, it's hot and it's the weekend? And that the Riordans have a pool?
It's one of those infinity pools, with soft blue tiles and one edge that drops off into nothingness as the block slopes down the hill. If you sit in just the right spot in the corner of the deep end and peer through the weeping birch trees, you catch glimpses of the city in the distance. That's where I'm hanging, forearms and elbows resting on the edge to stop me from sinking.
In the middle of the pool, Cecily and Travers are dunking each other. Although Trav is taller and broader, Cecily is surprisingly strong and unrelenting in her determination to beat him.
"You're going down, Riordan," comes the enthusiastic battle-cry.
"In your dreams, Ryan," he roars back, flipping her over his shoulder with a laugh. The resulting splash sends small waves rippling right across the pool. Cecily comes back up spluttering and cursing and completely undeterred.
Sharing space with lion cubs would probably be more peaceful.
Cass and Chomper are sitting on the steps in the shallow end, submerged up to their necks, chatting quietly and no doubt flirting up a storm. He's looking at her like she's a particularly delicious flavour of ice cream. She's staring at him like he invented penicillin. The whole thing smacks decidedly of 'this is going somewhere'. The thought makes my stomach clench.
Hard and fast is the only way that Cassie knows how to fall. I don't want her to get hurt. It's inevitable that she will.
Chomper and Cecily had the foresight to bring swimming gear with them, but Cass and I are both wearing suits borrowed from Gemma. Which is kinda gross when you think about it. I'm trying not to think about it.
The navy, string bikini Gemma threw at me in her bedroom is skimpier than anything I would usually wear and I don't have the appropriate boob-age to securely hold the top in place. That's the reason why I'm hanging out here by myself in the deep end – wardrobe malfunction avoidance.
At least, that's what I keep telling myself. Nothing to do with the fact that Travers and Cecily are joined at the hip; or that Cass and Chomper would clearly like to be.
I could hang out with Gemma and Gordo, who are lying on sun loungers in the shade. But neither of them has moved in at least ten minutes. I suspect both of them are asleep.
Thankfully, Marissa has gone home.
"You doing your silent, broody thing again?"
I look up to find that the lion cubs have finished their rough play and Cecily is climbing out of the pool. Travers settles himself in on the wall next to me, his elbow almost touching mine. I am annoyingly conscious of the curve of his biceps. Of the way the sun hits the droplets of water rolling down them. Of the golden hairs on his forearms.
