“So, what are you two doing?” Mum asked, eyeing both of us suspiciously.
Oh, just off to shag on a float! I hated that they were so suspicious of me and Kai. I wouldn’t bloody cheat!
“Not much,” I said, licking the cone as my ice cream dribbled down the side.
“Oh. We’re going to get a drink now if you two would like to join us?” Mum asked, looking at Kai.
Kai smiled awkwardly again. “Err, sure, that would be great, thanks.”
“Good, well, let’s go.”
This was going to be a barrel of laughs.
Mum and Ava led the way to the local pub and me and Kai trailed behind, neither of us really wanting to have a drink with them. He couldn’t have just said no?
“Why don’t you find a table and I’ll bring the drinks over,” Mum said.
“I’ll get them,” Kai replied.
Mum shook her head. “Please, I want to. What would you like?”
“Okay, thank you. Fosters, please.” I couldn’t help admiring how cute Kai was when he was nervous. He didn’t seem to care that much at Ava’s party, so I wasn’t all that sure what happened to change him from not giving a single fuck to nervous and super polite.
“You girls want your usual?” Mum asked.
We nodded and I was pretty sure that Mum didn’t know my real usual and I’d end up with a bloody coke.
Me, Kai and Ava found a table near the window and sat down. The silence was awkward. Ava didn’t like Kai and made no attempt to just be polite anyway. I tapped my fingers on the wooden table while we waited for Mum to come back. Six seconds into my It’s Raining Men finger drum solo Kai slammed his hand down over mine.
“That’s getting annoying quick,” he said, removing his hand and staring at me pointedly. Well, the silence is getting awkward.
Ava cleared her throat. Right, apologies, I forgot the touch of a hand is a promise now.
Mum walked over to the table with a tray holding two glasses of wine, a beer and my damn coke. I would need something a lot stronger if I was going to get through this. Why did Kai agree to it again?
“Thank you, Alison,” Kai said.
“You’re welcome, Kai.”
I wanted to bash my head on the table. How much sickly niceness could they fit into one small exchange? Kai – as much as he didn’t want to care – cared a lot about what my mum thought of him. I didn’t. She could hate him if she wanted; it wasn’t going to change my mind. I didn’t give a single fuck what people thought about me.
We all made it through the first drink. Yes, me and Kai practically downed ours. Having drinks with someone that thinks you’re committing sin with the person on your left is plain awkward. I wasn’t sure why all the judgement since both Mum and Ava had friends of the opposite sex that they managed not to screw every time they set their eyes on them. Double standards.
“We’re going to check out more of the fate,” I said, standing up. It was only when Kai leapt out of his seat at the first syllable that I realised just how awkward it’d been for him. I thought it was pretty sweet of him to suffer through that for me, it couldn’t be that nice to sit with people that had a clear dislike of you.
“Okay, we’ll see you home later then,” Mum said.
“Thank you for the drink, Alison,” Kai said, following behind me, just as eager to get away. Once we were safely outside he turned to me. “Well, I think it’s safe to say I’m still on their shit list.”
“I’m sorry about them.”
He shrugged. “Don’t worry ‘bout it. I kinda understand why they’re not my biggest fans.” So could I, but they could at least be polite to the guy, he’d actually done nothing wrong at all. “So, how come Lucas isn’t here?”
“He’s street racing.”
Stopping dead in his tracks he faced me. “Racing?”
“Yep. What’s with the face? I find it hard to believe you’ve never raced a car before.”
“No, I have…. when I was seventeen.”
“Oh, and what do you do for fun now, since you’re so beyond racing? Play chess?” I teased.
Kai’s eyebrow raised suggestively and he smirked. “I think you know what I do for fun now.”
I didn’t blush often but the way he looked at me, like he was replaying one of the times we’d had fun in his head, heated my cheeks. I slapped his arm. “Stop thinking about it.” There was an uneasy feeling as I remembered some of those times. I shouldn’t think about it now I was with Lucas.
Shaking his head, he batted my hand away. “Can’t. Sorry. Once you’ve been above, beneath, behind or beside someone you reserve the right to fuck or re-fuck them in your mind whenever you want.”