I THANKED THE low lights where we were standing because I was, undoubtedly, as red as a tomato. Heat was creeping up the back of my neck, too, giving me a tickling sensation.
"Thank you," I told him. "You have Autumn to thank, though."
"My sister's good with that sort of thing, yes, but she can't make just anyone look the way you look now."
A waiter came up to us, then. I was glad for it, able to bypass what Archer had said. He lowered his tray from his shoulder so that we could see its contents. I picked up a small shoot of champagne, but Archer shook his head, and the tray of drinks disappeared in the crowd, likely to shortly be rid of each glass.
"I'm going to find Miles," I told him. He nodded and pulled me towards him. Our faces were so close I swear I forgot to breathe, or how to, or what breathing even is. My eyes fluttered shut on their own accord until I felt his cheek against mine and the ghost of his lips on my skin.
"I'll see you later, then," he said, able to make his way through people with ease.
I tried to collect myself a little before I started moving again, in hopes to be able to actually put one foot in front of the other. But with each attempt, all I could smell, was him.
***
Miles was in a corner when I finally found him, Melanie there too. They were talking between each other, laughing together.
"Hey," I said, coming up behind him.
The atmosphere seemed to change slightly as they ceased laughing almost completely.
"Hey," they each said.
"You both look nice," I told them because they did. Melanie was wearing a flowing gold dress that hugged her in all the right places and complimented her skin so perfectly, she looked like she was glowing. An actual goddess. Miles looked equally as good, his tall, lanky frame covered in a plumb suit that actually fit very well. "Is something wrong?"
"Well, we thought we were all getting ready together but not to worry, hey?" Melanie said, never one to beat around the bush.
"Oh, I thought I'd told you, Autumn said she'd help me out."
"Of course she did."
"Hey, Jolie!" Piper said, coming up to us with her hands filled with drinks. "Oh I didn't get you any champagne."
"No worries, nicked one earlier," I said, holding up my still full glass with a smile.
We stayed talking for a little while, but that tenseness was still prominent.
"Are you coming to the gallery?" Melanie asked me at last.
I stared at her. "Gallery?"
Miles scoffed, and raised his glass to his lips, clearly trying not to say anything.
"The one that's hosting Miles's work," she said as though it was obvious.
I was still confus— oh, right. That one that Miles had been obsessing over about. He'd told me about it when we'd snuck out to our secret place in the dead of night. It hadn't been that long ago, but it felt like years had passed.
"Oh my god, I completely forgot," I said.
Melanie's eyes were blazing, whereas Piper looked like she wanted to drown in her champagne glass. I couldn't tell if Miles was angry or was going to cry.
"Miles?" A voice asked, splitting the tense silence. "Ms Kingsley's looking for you." He nodded and followed the boy away.
"You're a real piece of—" Melanie began to me.
"Okay, we're going to go," Piper interjected, hurriedly. "Mel, why don't we look for the hors d'oeuvres?"
She led, more like dragged, her away. I watched them go.
"That seemed heated," a voice said, lilting slightly with a german accent. I turned to Michelle.
"It's a long story. I-"
"No, I don't think I care enough to listen to it," she said, turning her nose up as a waiter offered a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "God, it's cold in here."
I looked to her goose pimpled arms and then felt my own warm cheeks. But then that was probably because I was still recovering from Archer's touch and had somehow pretty much destroyed a friendship.
"I need to find him," I said. "To apologise."
"I wouldn't do it now," she said.
"And why not?"
"Fine, fine." She raised her hands. "Do what you want."
Yeah, I will I thought, leaving the girl in the green dress in my wake.
I tried to trace the steps that Miles and the boy had taken, but quickly lost where'd they'd gone. Instead, I just made my way to Ms Kingsley's office, but upon peeking through the door, I found it to be empty. Strange.
I'd given up by this point, working my way back.
I jumped as a door to one of the hidden supply closets was nudged open. As quietly and quickly as I could, I back stepped until I was behind the wall, able to see them but them not see me.
It felt wrong to snoop and would be beyond embarrassing if they caught me, but it was a reflex and I was too far gone to stop now.
Once the person was certain the coast was clear, they stepped out. I almost choked.
The person that had been in the closet doing god knows what, though it wasn't too hard to guess as they fixed their messy tie and retucked their shirt into their trousers, was none other than the blonde haired, hazel eyed, btec Draco Malfoy, Harry.
He looked round, clearly conscious of the hit his reputation would take, had he been spotted. His platinum hair was disappearing around another corner. I released a breath at having not been spotted myself.
I may not have paid him much mind, had it not been for the person who followed after him mere minutes later.
Miles.
He pulled his collar up, just giving me enough time to see a large purplish bruise appearing on his neck, before it was covered. I could barely move.
I contemplated jumping out, confronting him, even shouting at him for fraternising with the enemy, his bully, but as he began to walk away, I struggled to conjure the courage. And in the end, let him stray from my sight, mind whirling.
***
"What are you doing here?" I asked the boy, clutching my chest in shock, as he sat, slumped against the wall and picking at a bag of crisps.
"Ms Dubois?" A voice suddenly said, in such a position that they could see me but not the boy. It was Houman's guard. "Have you seen the prince?"
I looked to the boy in question, briefly. He sharply shook his head and raised his finger to his lips, dark eyes clinging to a certain desperate glint.
I paused. "No, can't say I have." He nodded grimly, turning on his heel and striding down the corridor, uniform taunt against his muscular build.
"Thank you," Houman said, tucking back in to the crisps, letting them crackle loudly as he bit down. "I just can't be bothered having to deal with someone less than three metres from me for the whole night."
"Fair enough," I said. "May I?"
"Sure, guess I owe you one anyway," he said, budging over so I could plop myself down. Once I had, he offered me the bag in his hand. I took one, smiling appreciatively.
"Why aren't you in there then?" I asked, looking toward the room where the music was blaring from and several people were beginning to stumble out of, clearly shit faced and struggling to act sober in front of the teachers, though I expected they were much the same.
I'd spotted Mr Jawl stood in a corner, almost blending in with the low lights and Ms Everton muttering something to him, face pulled into her signature look of distaste, like she had a foul smell under her nose.
He shrugged. "Not really in the mood to socialise with so many people right now. You're alright, though."
"Cheers," I said, half-joking.
"You know what I mean," he said, hitting my shoulder with his. I didn't miss the moment of recoil he showed when we touched and the flash of surprise on his face at having done the action in the first place. He recovered quickly. "Not so..." he raised his hands and stuck out his tongue. "Blah."
"They can be a little tiring," I admitted.
It surprised me how easily it was to talk with a prince or at least this one. I hadn't had much of a chance to speak to him before, besides with the whole group, but even then he seemed to keep himself to himself a bit. Yet, I knew enough that had you told me I'd be sitting on the floor, almost shoulder to shoulder with him, sharing a big packet of crisps, I would have laughed.
"You don't act like many people I've met," he said. "A little odd."
I raised my eyebrow, eyeing his covered hands. "Says the boy eating sea salt crisps with gloves on."
He looked down at his own hands, and seemed to remember that he was, in fact, wearing gloves.
"Touché. But I mean around me."
"Do you want me to act differently?"
He thought for a moment, brushing his hair away from his face with his arm. "No, I think I quite like it. Ask me."
"What?"
"The question playing in your mind right now," he said. "Ask me it."
I relented. "Why do you not take those gloves off?"
He smiled, as if knowing what my question would be before it had even wandered tentatively across the distance between us. "You're perceptive. It's tradition and..."
"And..?"
He sighed. "It takes a while for me to be comfortable with skin to skin contact. It's just something from my childhood and I guess it just... stuck. So now I wear these gloves twenty four seven. Call it a quirk, if you will," he said, shrugging. "What is it?"
He must have noted the colour draining out of my face as I caught a glimpse of my best friend, plumb suit enabling him to blend in, yet also appear like a beacon to my eyes.
"Nothing," I said quickly, averting my eyes.
"Ah," he said, having followed my gaze just before I'd dropped it. "You know then." It wasn't a question.
"You knew?" I asked, shocked. "Who else knows? Does everyone know but me?"
"I know everything. I make an effort to know everything that goes on where I stay," he said. "Besides, I'd get suicidally bored if I didn't have something to keep up with."
I leant my head back on the wall, eyes closed.
"I've been so blind," I groaned. "I let myself get so wrapped up in your world." I gestured, vaguely, to everything around us. "I could have prevented this."
"Maybe, maybe not." He shrugged. "You can't stop attraction, resist temptation sometimes. You must know that better than anyone."
His eyes felt as though they were reading my very thoughts, so expressive yet impossible to read. A momentary flicker of his lips is what gave it away.
"You know," I said, bluntly. "That Archer and I aren't a real couple."
"I told you Jolie, I know everything."
He got up, brushing crumbs from his expensive attire, and cradling the crisps like a child.
"You're leaving?" I wondered aloud. "It's barely nine thirty."
"I'm the master of leaving a party early," he said, before waving a gloved hand in farewell and going off on his way.