Isis got up, yawning. She’d been tossing and turning for the majority of the night, her thoughts spiralling round and round the same path. Kael.
What on earth was he up to? Was he really interested in her? And, most importantly, what did she think about that?
Part of her told herself to stop being so ridiculous. There was no chance that someone as rich and good looking as he was would fall for someone as poor and average looking as she was.
The other part of her hung on to the way that he had looked at her, as if she was the only one he could see, and as if she was some sort of seductive goddess or as if she was Dido, sat enthroned, and he was Aeneas, struck by love on the spot. She rubbed her forehead. Now that was ridiculous.
She cut the bread for the sandwiches firmly, as if doing a domestic task would take her mind away from romance. You don’t have time for romance, she told herself, for what must have been the hundredth time. So why she found herself thinking up little romantic situations she and Kael could somehow be thrown together in was beyond her.
Instead, she went on cutting bread, cutting several slices too many in her great enthusiasm. Oh dear. Not much was going right today.
She was surprised she managed to get to school on time, in the end. Freya had kicked up yet another fuss, pleading her ill health to attempt to get the day off school, and she’d pretty much had to drag her to school, leaving her flustered and in a hurry as she half ran the distance to school.
Harry met her at the door. ‘Isis!’
‘Hi Harry,’ she panted breathlessly.
He grinned at her, taking her bag from her arm. ‘I haven’t seen you in ages! I thought I’d better lie here in wait to see if you had any new friends you’d betrayed me with.’
Isis reached up to ruffle his hair. ‘You silly boy,’ she told him, affectionately. ‘I do have new friends, but of course I wouldn’t neglect you.’
‘New friends?’ Harry looked interested. ‘Who are these new people? Are they in the play too?’
Isis nodded. ‘Yep. Lydia plays the Nurse, and she’s absolutely lovely.’ She had a feeling that she and Lydia would be friends for quite a while: they just clicked together, something Isis had only ever previously experienced with Harry.
‘Lydia Roper?’ Harry smiled. ‘She was talking to me about you, actually.’
‘Really? What did she say?’
‘How absolutely lovely you are too,’ he replied. ‘Any more friends?’
Kael, thought Isis, but for some reason, she didn’t want to mention it. Though at times the pair of them were friends, at times, it was insufferably awkward: like after he almost kissed her, and then she somehow aroused him. Now, that wasn’t friend like behaviour. What sort of behaviour was it, then? she asked herself.
‘All of the cast, really,’ she told him.
‘I feel jealous,’ Harry responded, with a mischievous smile at her.
Isis laughed. ‘Don’t be jealous!’ She nudged him. ‘What about the girl you like, anyway? Does she know yet?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Noooo. I can’t tell her!’
Isis gave him a stern look. ‘Now that,’ she began, ‘is just ridiculous. If you don’t tell her, I will!’
‘But you don’t know who she is,’ Harry pointed out, entirely unhelpfully.
‘You’ll just have to tell me then, won’t you?’ she told him, looking up into his face to meet his eyes with a pleading expression. ‘Come on, mister, spit it out.’
He shook his head. ‘Nope.’
Isis sighed. ‘I’ll get it out of you in the end.’
‘I’ve no doubt you will,’ Harry told her, and, as they walked off, he slung an arm around her shoulders in a way others might have called protective, but Isis knew it was entirely a friendly gesture. She was glad to have Harry as a friend, but it was certainly better now that she had other friends too. Especially if Harry was going to bugger off with some new girl. Isis almost hoped he would: she knew he had few friends in his classes due to being painfully shy, and she felt sorry for him. Looking up at him, she noticed he looked a lot paler than usual, the bags under his eyes looking darker. She frowned. Perhaps she ought to being paying him more attention too?
With an internal sigh, she added Harry to her list of things to worry about. This list seemed to be growing longer every day as more and more things piled on top of her. She was just thankful that she had the play as a sort of release: as an escape.
*
Kael woke up, slowly, desperately hanging on to the final few fragments of the dream, savouring the last few moments as they slipped indomitably out of his grasp. Mm.
His eyes snapped open. Sitting up so quickly that he almost overbalanced and tumbled out of bed, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Had he really dreamt that? Oh god.
He was a teenage boy, it was expected that he had the odd cheeky dream once in a while. But his cheeky dreams usually involved Rochelle. This time, it had been Isis in his bed, Isis who he’d been undressing, Isis who had been… Oh god, thought Kael. She’ll absolutely kill me if she finds out.
Getting up and pulling on some clothes, images from the dream still haunting him as he went. As he looked in the mirror, he saw the way he’d seen her in his bed, her hair fanned out in a blonde semi circle around her as she tangled up his covers. As he went downstairs, he saw her as he’d seen her in his dream, twirling a strand of hair around her finger, dressed in barely anything. Okay, so he must have had to imagine what she looked like beneath her clothes, but what he had imagined had been shockingly incredible.
Oh dear. He was shortly becoming absolutely obsessed. And she had a boyfriend.
That shouldn’t be too much of a problem, Kael thought, and instantly closed his eyes in frustration. He shouldn’t be thinking like this: she wouldn’t be interested in him in the slightest. Shutting his eyes probably wasn’t the best idea. Isis danced beneath his eyelids, the image going around his head like a broken record playing.
He was absolutely desperate to kiss her, absolutely desperate to take her in his arms and do all of the things his hormones screamed for him to do. Well, maybe not all of them. That would probably be a little too much too soon.
Sighing, he headed to his car, driving as fast as he could get away with to attempt to take his mind away from her. It worked. For a bit.
However, the rest of the day was another story entirely. Throughout his lessons, he found himself daydreaming about the dream he’d had, and wondering if he’d ever get the chance to see what it would be like in real life. He tried to stop thinking about that in particular. It wasn’t really good for certain parts of him.
When the time came round for the rehearsal, he wasn’t sure quite how he was going to cope with actually seeing her. He realised it would most likely be that he was barraged with images of her in various states of undress which had somehow stuck in his mind from the dream, or perhaps, her looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes, with a look that made his knees feel weaker than a kittens.
That one look was ten times as seductive as the provocative dancing he’d imagined in his dreams (he really was turning into such a pervert), and this puzzled him. Surely something as minor as a certain look underneath her entirely natural eyelashes wouldn’t be that alluring. He was actually starting to realise that he was attracted to Isis for entirely different reasons than he liked to think. She wasn’t a Rochelle- practised in the art of seduction, playing on his overactive hormones to get him to fall for her. She wasn’t trying to seduce him at all, but somehow, she was.
As he headed towards the stage, he spotted her, talking earnestly to Callum, who was smiling. As she watched, she tucked a bit of hair behind her ear as she nodded, fervently. He couldn’t help but smile at her adorableness.
‘Oi, lover boy.’ Tearing his eyes from Isis, Kael glanced to the side. Lydia stood next to him, looking at him with an amused expression all over her face.
‘Me?’ he replied. Lover boy?
‘Yes you, you daft idiot.’ Lydia folded her arms, looking alarmingly determined. ‘You’re smitten with Isis, aren’t you?’
‘Smitten?’
‘Well, whatever you want to call it. You like her.’
For a moment, Kael considered admitting it. But he couldn’t. Isis had a boyfriend, and he didn’t want her to find out about the fact that he was lusting after her. That would be way too awkward.
‘I like her in a friendly way,’ Kael told Lydia, mustering all of his acting skills. ‘Not in the way that you mean, though.’
Lydia quirked an eyebrow. ‘Right,’ she said, in a tone of complete and utter disbelief.
‘It’s true!’ Kael protested. ‘She’s not really my type, Lydia. Sorry to ruin your matchmaking.’
Lydia laughed. It sounded a little ominous to Kael. ‘You underestimate me, Kael Willoughby.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked, warily, taking a step back from her.
‘Well,’ Lydia murmured. ‘Let’s just say, I think you might need some seclusion when you write out the script.’ She winked at him, then turned. ‘Isis!’ Isis turned, and Kael had to bite his lip to prevent himself from making some unintelligible sound. ‘Get over here!’
Pulling out some paper, some pens and a dictaphone, Lydia handed them to Kael. Isis, having come over, obediently, looked up at Kael in bewilderment. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Follow me,’ Lydia instructed them, in the sort of tone which they didn’t dare disobey.
‘Bossy, isn’t she?’ Kael commented to Isis, who chuckled.
‘I’m going to ignore that, Kael,’ Lydia retorted. She led them up a hallway, and then pointed out an empty classroom. ‘Right, in there. You need some peace and quiet to write out this first bit of the script, I should think. Enjoy!’
And, with that, she gave Isis a gentle shove in, gave Kael a meaningful look, closed the door shut, and, to Kael’s disbelief, pulled out a key, and locked the door.
Isis burst out laughing. ‘She locked the door? Does she have such little faith in us?!’
Kael gave a half hearted smile, his mind going into overload at being locked in a rather dark room with a girl he’d been having lusty dreams about. Oh dear.
‘So.’ Isis looked around the room. It was dingy, and the chairs were all breaking, the posters all peeling off of the walls.
‘I guess we’d better get started,’ Kael said, stiffly. He was too busy worrying about what his hormones would do if he let himself look at her properly to be warm and friendly.
‘Don’t sound too enthusiastic,’ Isis replied, with a laugh. ‘D’you have neat handwriting?’
Kael shrugged. ‘It’s alright. Why?’
‘Well, mine’s a state,’ she said, matter of factly. ‘Look.’
Reaching over, swiping a pen from his hand, she scribbled her name on a piece of paper. ‘Isis Diana McKinley.’ She was right, her handwriting was uneven and messy, but Kael rather liked it.
‘Diana, huh?’ he asked, eyeing the word. ‘Another goddess.’
Isis laughed. ‘Mmm. I told you my mum was a little bit obsessed.’
‘Do your entire family have god and goddess names?’ Kael inquired.
She shook her head. ‘Not my mum. My dad wasn’t either.’
‘Wasn’t?’ Kael spoke before he thought, and watched in dismay as Isis’ face crumpled.
‘Er, well, he died a while ago,’ she said, quietly.
‘I’m so sorry.’ For once, Kael actually was sorry. Usually that phrase was just one you just casually used when you didn‘t know what else to say. But he really did feel sorry for her.
She smiled bravely. ‘It’s fine, really.’ Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she looked up at him. ‘Do you have any siblings?’
Kael shook his head. ‘Nope. Only child.’
‘Did you ever want siblings?’ she asked.
Kael was surprised, and this must have shown on his face, because he tilted his head to look at her.
Her eyes widened. ‘If I’m being too nosy, just say,’ she told him, earnestly. ‘I’m curious, remember?’
He laughed. ‘No, it’s fine.’ He paused. ‘Just, no one’s ever asked me that before.’ He mulled over it. ‘Well, I guess I did use to want a little brother. But my mum was adamant she was never going to put her body through that much pain again.’ He chuckled. ‘She always puts her looks first, you see.’
‘And your dad?’ Isis asked, studying his face as he talked, letting him see that all her attention was focused on him.
‘He probably didn’t have time to make another baby,’ he replied, grinning. ‘He’s always off at work.’
Isis giggled. ‘That’s cheeky.’
Kael raised an eyebrow. If she thought that was cheeky, she clearly wouldn’t be very amused if she found out the unholy thoughts he’d been entertaining about her over the past few weeks.
‘You’re not into cheeky behaviour, then?’ he asked, unable to help himself.
She bit her lip. ‘Clearly not in the way you are,’ she replied.
He ducked his head. ‘Ah, you know me,’ he said. ‘I can make a girl swoon with just one look.’ Any girl but Isis, he thought, ruefully. Why was he saying all this crap anyway? He probably sounded like a total arsehole.
‘You’re a ladies’ man then, are you?’ Isis asked, looked anything but swooned.
‘Oh, definitely,’ he responded, giving her a devilish look. ‘Nah, I’m joking.’
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ she asked, not sounding particularly interested in the outcome.
He shook his head. ‘Well, no.’
‘I would have expected you to have them falling at your feet,’ she told him, with a saucy look back. ‘Being a ladies’ man, and all.’
Kael was rather impressed. He wasn’t sure what by. Perhaps by the fact that she wasn’t playing up to him, or even flirting back. She was teasing him, yes. But not flirting. Kael wasn’t used to that.
‘I have done,’ he said, cheerily. ‘I had my first make out on my twelfth birthday.’
‘Eww,’ Isis replied, unable to help feeling that it must have been rather a messy occasion. ‘When was your first kiss?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he replied. ‘I remember the make out, but not my first kiss.’
‘Terrible,’ she told him. ‘It’s meant to be special! Who was your first make out with? I take it she was older?’
‘No,’ Kael said, thinking back. ‘Her name’s Rochelle.’ He sighed. ‘Hot, gorgeous, everything a guy could want.’ Though, he just hadn’t thought about her in ages. Strange.
Well, she bloody would be, thought Isis, unanticipated waves of jealousy pulsing through her veins. ‘I take it you still know her now?‘ Isis asked, to cover up her jealousy.
He nodded. ‘Yeah. She’s a bit of a bitch, now, though.’ Bit of bitch? He never thought he’d say that about her. Bitch? Well, he supposed she was. He hadn’t been deaf- he’d heard her slating someone else every five minutes. But that’s what most girls did, wasn’t it? He realised with a start that he hadn’t heard Isis do it…
He looked at her, and smiled. Her hair tumbling in a blonde sheet down her back, her face lightly scattered with a dusting of freckles, Isis seemed infinitely preferable to any girl he’d ever met before. Even Rochelle. Whoa, what the hell was wrong with him?
‘Your first kiss?’ he asked, to change the subject.
She looked flustered all of a sudden, dropping her large blue eyes from his in embarrassment. Oh god, who was it? he wondered.
‘You have to tell!’ he probed. ‘I told you mine!’
‘You told me your first make out, actually, mister,’ she informed him, her cheeks still flushed.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Come on, Isis. Tell me!’
She didn’t meet his eyes. ‘I uh, I haven’t had my first kiss.’
Kael felt staggered. She hadn’t kissed any boys? He felt oddly delighted. Though he had no right to be. ‘Really?!’
‘Yeah.’ She looked even more embarrassed at his disbelief. ’I er-’ She snuck a glance at him, and looked away.
‘What about your boyfriend?’ Kael asked. What sort of boy would date this girl and not kiss her? It was a bloody crime!
‘Boyfriend?!’ Isis’ eyes met his at last. She looked startled. ’I don’t have a boyfriend!’
Kael had never been more relieved in his life. ’That boy who has his arm round your shoulders all the time?’
‘My best friend!’ She sounded shocked at even the thought of dating him. ’Not like that! Not at all.’
‘So you haven’t kissed anyone?’
‘Nope.’ She laughed. ‘Kind of sucks that my first will have to be on stage, kissing Callum, doesn’t it?’
Kael paused, then, surprising himself, he said: ‘It won’t be your first.’
‘Huh?’ Isis looked at him, adorably bewildered.
‘Your first kiss won‘t be on stage,’ he repeated, daring himself to do it, to do it before he chickened out.
‘Why not?’ she inquired, looking non plussed.
‘It won’t be,’ Kael told her, pushing the table between them out of the way, ‘because I’m going to kiss you first.‘
And, smiling at her startled expression, he pulled her at last into his arms, and did just that.