Irresistible Read online

  “Um, no, thanks. Dan’s walking back with me, so …”

  Jamie shrugs. “I don’t know who Dan is.”

  Dan and Melanie look over from one of the tables. Dan’s got a sort of a pleading look on his face. Melanie’s probably showing him the pictures on her phone of her and Simon in Turkey.

  “Oh, he’s …”

  I turn back, but Jamie has already gone.

  Chapter 5

  As we leave, Dan yawns. “I’m pretty tempted to take them up on the offer of a bed, to be honest.”

  Julia had told us that we were welcome to stay in the old servants’ quarters on nights when we finished late. Apparently special events, particularly weddings, can go on into the early hours.

  Dan widens his eyes, trying to make himself more awake. “Maybe not on the first night. We’ll never leave!”

  “We should one night, though—we can explore all those secret passages,” I say and stop, slightly worried that I sound like the woman whose clothes were falling off on the cover of the receptionist’s book. “The corridors,” I clarify firmly. “That Julia told us about.”

  “Yeah, definitely,” says Dan, looking amused. “On Friday it’s the same as tonight for the late shift. Sleepover? You, me, and Melanie?”

  We look at each other, both clearly thinking of beloved Simon. “Maybe not,” we say in unison. Dan raises his eyebrows at me and we share a smile. It’s the second time tonight we’ve said the same thing at the same time. We walk out the reception door and in front of the castle toward the grounds. It’s surprisingly chilly for a summer evening, and though I try to hide it, I suddenly have an uncontrollable shiver spasm. Dan sees and insists I borrow his hoodie. I explain it’s my own fault for bringing only a cardigan. I don’t want to leave him cold.

  Dan smiles and points out that the chilliness isn’t actually that surprising, unless I was under the impression that Kent is part of the Mediterranean. I refuse again, until he reveals that he’s brought a spare hoodie.

  “Do you always carry spare clothes for handing out to women?”

  “No! My mom just follows me around, putting things in my bag. I can also provide you with tissues, an apple, and a selection of plastic bags.”

  “Well, if we ever get lost somewhere, it’s good to know we’ll be able to share an apple and cry.”

  Dan laughs, and it sort of echoes around us. I turn around and look back at the castle. We’re walking along the wide, central path that leads from the castle through the grounds. Only a few windows are lit up, so the black edges of the building seem to blur into the sky, making it look even more huge. I can still just about make out the two front turrets.

  By the time we are out of sight of the castle and have found where the grounds meet the river, it is pitch black. It hadn’t occurred to me that there wouldn’t be any lights. I didn’t technically tell Mom I was walking home. Jeff said he’d get me, but I said I was getting a lift. I suppose by a little stretch of the truth, I am. Dan could be carrying me.

  Just as I have that thought, we have a sort of collision. His foot goes in front of mine and I trip. My hands flail in the air and grab the nearest solid thing, which turns out to be his face.

  “Oh God! I’m sorry. I just grabbed your face!”

  “It was mostly my ear. It’s fine. I’ve got another one. Sorry I tripped you!”

  “I don’t think we really thought about this walking-through-darkness thing,” I say, secretly glad that it’s hiding my face. I have this thing that whenever the slightest embarrassment happens, I go bright red. Not in the attractive English-rose way; in the way that someone might glance over and say, “Oh, how strange. A tomato with the body of a girl.”

  We soon get into town and can finally see where we’re going. I like walking along the main street when it’s all empty, walking down the middle of the road because we can. It’s so easy to talk to Dan, and we just flow from subject to subject, finding out more and more about each other. Dan just finished Year Thirteen and is taking a gap year off. He got into university for engineering, but he wants to go traveling first.

  I immediately start asking him where he’d go and what he’d do, and he laughs in surprise. He says he wants to travel around Europe and then go to Ecuador and work on a farm. I tell him I want to see Barcelona. And Asia. And New Zealand.

  “Planning your gap year already?”

  “Yeah,” I say vaguely, and drift off into a daydream in which I turn up at the station with my own rail pass and say, “Surprise, I’m coming too!” Dan, of course, is overjoyed and grabs my hands and says in an atrocious French accent, “Paree, allons-y!”

  “Would you go on your own?” Dan says, and I’m jolted back to my less exciting life of not going to Paris and being slightly red.

  I try to look at him like I’m a normal person and I didn’t just invent an imaginary relationship for us. “I’d like to, but every time I bring it up, my stepdad goes on about how if I delay university, the tuition will probably go up again, and Mom says it doesn’t sound very safe and that maybe I should go with my weird cousin Hugh. I would actually rather eat my own hand.”

  “Does she call him your ‘weird cousin Hugh’?”

  “No, but I said, ‘Mom, he’s weird’ and she said, ‘I know.’ He got caught putting some of my LEGOs up his butt when we were little. And when he came to visit last year, he really freaked out my friend Gabi. We took him to a party and he got really drunk and licked her leg.”

  I’m completely rambling now. We’ve stopped walking because we’ve reached the end of my road and are just standing there chatting with our hands deep in the pockets of our hoodies and occasionally shivering. Dan looks down at his chest and frowns, like he’s debating something. Then he looks up at me quizzically from behind his hair.

  “You know, if I stay out there and end up living somewhere awesome, like New Zealand or something, you can always look me up. I’ll be a traveling maestro by then.”

  “Well, yeah, I would probably need tissues and an apple at some point,” I tell him.

  He grins. “Exactly.”

  We both look around us, still hovering on the same spot. I don’t really want to go inside, and I’m hoping he doesn’t want to leave yet either. He scuffs his shoe back and forth on the ground, and I’m playing with the strings on the hoodie. Our eyes meet and then we both go, “So …” and then start laughing because this synchronicity is becoming ridiculous. He says we should probably swap numbers if we’ll be working together all summer, so we do. As I’m typing in his name, I get a text from Mom asking when I’ll be back. I tell Dan that I should go. He says he should probably get a few hours’ sleep, as he’s on the early shift tomorrow.

  We look at each other for a moment, both unsure if we should hug at this point. But we just say “Bye” at the same time and then walk in opposite directions along the road.

  I can’t stop smiling to myself and must look insane. But it all seems so easy. Not like with Kieran, where Gabi and I plotted forever to get his number and there was a huge operation to get us alone in a room together at someone’s party. Even when we were going out I had to be careful not to text too much so he didn’t think I was clingy.

  I freeze. Dan went to the same school as Kieran. He’d have been in the year above him, but still—he might have heard something. I have the usual crazy reaction I get whenever I think of Kieran—that I should just never speak to anyone who knows him or any of his friends. Obviously, that’s impossible. I close my eyes and take a deep breath as panic washes over me again. It’s always lurking somewhere in my mind, just to give me something to worry about. Or relive.

  My phone is still in my hand after taking Dan’s number and it vibrates, making me jump. It won’t be Dan already, will it? I smile. If it is, at least I won’t need to worry about seeming eager.

  I look down, but it’s not Dan. It’s from a number I don’t know. I open the phone, curious.

  Joseph, shame you couldn’t stay.

  OH M
Y GOD! He texted me.

  My heart lurches. The nervous, excited feeling I got when he was talking to me is pounding through me again.

  The more sensible part of me notes that he must have gone and found my number somewhere, and that is pretty creepy behavior. I’ll delete the text.

  But maybe I’ll save the number.

  I mean, I might need it for … work.

  Chapter 6

  The next day I’m on the evening shift again, but Dan’s on in the daytime. It must have been pretty difficult for him to get up early after the late night; I slept in till eleven. Jeff bobbed awkwardly into my room a little later and asked me if doing all these shifts would leave enough time for studying. I am supposed to be starting my A-Level exams to see what universities I’ll qualify for in September. Well, assuming I’ve passed my GCSEs. I’ve picked my four subjects but have done absolutely no reading. In reply to Jeff I just said, “Hmm” and looked like I was doing something important and school related.

  Gabi comes by in the afternoon before I have to leave, and I tell her about Dan and the number. Her reaction is typical Gabi.

  “Thank GOD. I was beginning to think you were asexual.”

  I throw a magazine at her. “Oh, thanks!”

  There’s a pause, and I think about bringing up the Jamie text too, but she continues.

  “Well, we know you weren’t always asexual; but I thought after Kieran …”

  I give her a look.

  “Don’t let him upset you still, Mi. He’s a dick and a jerk.” She grabs my arm to make her point. “A total jerk.”

  “Yep,” I say abruptly.

  She’s always saying I should be more open and willing to talk about sex. Which is easy for her to say, seeing as she’s doing it and I’m not. Gabi likes to show me all the positions she and Max do it in to “get me used to it” while I try to ignore her. Jeff walked in on her doing that once and he spluttered and spilled his tea everywhere. She said she was doing yoga, but I’m fairly sure he only pretended to believe her. He’s definitely learned to knock before coming into my room now.

  “So, this Danny …”

  “Dan.”

  “Yeah. We need a plan of action to get you and this Danny up against the dishwasher.”

  “We do not,” I tell her, although the brief mental image I get has some appeal.

  Right on cue, I get a text. From Dan. He says the lunchtime shift is crazy and he has to stay to finish washing the pots, so we’ll probably overlap.

  “Overlap …,” says Gabi, and wriggles her eyebrows up and down.

  I ignore her.

  “Say back, ‘You can wash my pots …’”

  “Probably not,” I tell her, racking my brain for some sort of hilariously witty reply.

  “Say back—”

  “Shut up.”

  Gabi shuts up. For a tenth of a second. Then she starts reeling off more inappropriate things I could say. Most of them aren’t even innuendo—just outright rude. But they’re pretty funny. It’s fun having a new person to get excited about. But I think most of all I’ve just got a good feeling about the summer. Having something to do and meeting new people. And getting one step closer to my secret traveling plan.

  The first person I see when I walk into the restaurant isn’t Dan. It’s Jamie. He’s sitting at the bar. I walk past and he doesn’t look up at me, but he says, “Joseph,” as I walk behind him.

  “He’s been here all day,” says Dan as I get to the kitchen door, “trying to get Melanie to request different wines from downstairs for him. Then when she mentioned her wedding, he said, ‘Oh, do tell me more,’ so she started going on about it. It only took thirty seconds before he said, ‘God, you’re boring,’ which shut her right up.”

  “Harsh,” I say.

  Suzy, the other barmaid, walks past us. “I don’t know; if I have to listen to another Simon story, I will stick pins in my eyes. Or hers.”

  “Well, at least you’re saying it about her and not to her,” says Dan.

  Suzy just narrows her eyes and says, “Hmm.”

  “Doesn’t Julia mind him hanging around here all day?” I say, still staring at him. He’s doing that frowning and pouting thing.

  “Whenever she’s around, he chats to the guests,” says Dan. “I heard one woman tell Julia how charming he is. It’s only when she’s gone that he starts bothering us.”

  Jamie is leaning across the bar now and whispering in Melanie’s ear. Although she’s determined to look serious, her cheeks turn pink and her eyes flicker as if she’s flustered. As I watch his lips move, I think back to him appearing at the window on my interview day. I wonder if he’s going to kiss her.

  Dan whispers in my ear, “You’re gaping.”

  I turn around and laugh. “Who says ‘gaping’?”

  He grins. “You should know, Gapy.”

  Dan hangs around for about half an hour of my shift. I realize after he’s gone that he’s taped a note to the fridge. He’s drawn a cartoon woman with bulging eyes and a wide-open mouth and underneath has written, Gapy McGape.

  I fold it up and put it in my pocket. Okay, Dan. Bring it on.

  Chapter 7

  The next day Dan and I are both on late shifts. At the beginning of the shift, I hide a cartoon I drew of a gaping cat for him to find in the cupboard where all the cleaning stuff is kept. A little later, when I’m taking the order from a family at table four, I find that he’s drawn a gaping old lady on my order notepad. Thankfully, the family just thinks that I find the mom ordering sea bass very funny.

  Later on, the other waiter, Andreas, suggests playing a game where we have to get as many song lyrics as possible into conversations with the guests. Suzy is up for it, but Melanie just gives us a pitying look.

  I manage to get one in when someone orders moussaka and I pretend to mishear it. “Hey Macarena?” I ask them.

  At the bar, Suzy has it easier because every time she makes a drink, she can say something like, “Oh, I call this one the ‘Rude Boy,’” although it does sound odd when she’s just talking about a glass of beer.

  Toward the end of the shift there’s just Dan and me left, and we’re laughing at Andreas stopping in the middle of taking someone’s order, clutching his chest and saying, “Oh, sorry, I think I’ve had A Total Eclipse of the Heart. Wait—actually, I’m okay.”

  “Speaking of desserts,” says Dan, “do you want any of the pie before I throw it out?”

  “Hmm, let me see.” I lean over to the pie, scoop up some of the cream, and throw it at his forehead.

  “Hey!” he shouts, and flings some back at me. It hits me in the eye. I try to throw it back at him, but he starts running around the central oven. Still unable to open one eye, I chase him and grab his arm, and he wriggles out of my grasp saying, “Beware Squinty the Cream Bandit,” through his laughter.

  The kitchen door bangs open and we freeze. “We’d like some service, please.”

  “Oh, sorry, man. We’ve stopped making food,” says Dan. I attempt to subtly de-cream my eye.

  “I’m sure you can rustle something up.” Jamie frowns at me. “Sometime tonight would be good.” The kitchen door bangs shut again after him.

  “Can we rustle something up?” I turn to Dan. I hope it turns out he is a gourmet food whiz. If it falls to me, we’ll be serving them Mom’s winey spaghetti or maybe just food poisoning.

  Dan is rummaging in the fridge and finds a bowl of strawberry jelly.

  He looks at me solemnly. “Do you think they’re ready for this jelly?”

  I head out into the restaurant with my notepad. Jamie is sitting at a table with a boy with black wavy hair and a red-faced, middle-aged man in a dinner jacket.

  “What can I get you?” I say. “The chef’s gone home, so our menu might be a little limited, but we’ll do our best.”

  “You have something in your hair, Joseph,” Jamie says with a look of amusement.

  I go bright red and get the stray glop of cream from my hair.
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br />   He turns to his friend with the wavy hair. “Next shift, I will arrange to have her washed. What are we having?”

  The temptation to tell him he’s a dickhead and can get his own food is a big one. I clench my teeth together and just think of the money I’m earning.

  The middle-aged man says, “Forget the food; I’ll have more wine,” and then laughs a throaty laugh that quickly turns into a cough. He turns purple. I watch him warily, wondering if I should do something about the fact that he could be choking to death. But as I move toward him, Jamie slaps him hard on the back and he stops.

  “Freddie?” Jamie says to the other boy.

  “Oh, ahm, oh, ay dain’t know,” he drawls.

  I resist the urge to lean in closer and make it clear that I’m struggling to understand him through his accent. “Do you do, ahm, chaisy frites?” he asks.

  “‘Chaisy frites’?” I repeat. “Oh, cheesy fries! Yes, well, I’ll see what we can do.” It seems I might not need Dan to be a gourmet chef after all.

  “Grait!” He grins, showing a lot of teeth.

  “Make that two,” says Jamie and gives me a big grin. “So kind of you.”

  Despite my mood, I smile back at him.

  I set Dan to work on the fries. I figure it’s probably okay if I get a bottle of wine from the bar. I’m not old enough to serve there, but the waiters are always grabbing drinks to take over to the tables when it’s busy. As I look for the corkscrew, I see that Jamie has walked over and is leaning on the bar.

  “Mr. Grassingham is our Parliament rep. He’s staying here with his wife.”

  “Fascinating,” I say, finally locating the corkscrew.

  “Would you be so kind as to flip this coin?” He’s holding out a fifty-pence piece. “Heads, I reveal to the local paper that he’s fudged his taxes. Tails, I sleep with his wife.”

  “Right,” I say. Surely he’s not actually serious. The cork comes free from the bottle with a squeaky pop. He’s still holding out the coin.