Julia arches an eyebrow. ‘What, because I’m a girl?’
‘No. Because you believe in it. Kind of.’
‘I’m out here every day. The ghost hasn’t got me yet.’
‘You’re out here in the daytime. Not at night.’
Finn is testing; finding new ways to work out what he thinks of her, now that the normal ones are useless. They’re in new territory. Julia realises she likes it here.
‘This isn’t night,’ she says. ‘It’s nine o-fucking-clock. Babies are still out playing. If it was summer, it’d be daylight.’
‘So if I got up right now and went inside, you’d be totally fine out here by yourself.’
It occurs to Julia that actually she probably should be scared, here on her own with a guy who’s already tried once. It occurs to her that a few months ago, after what happened with James Gillen, she would have been scared; she would have been the one leaving.
She says, ‘As long as you left me the rum.’
Finn pulls himself up off the grass with a sit-up and a jump. He brushes off his jeans and lifts an eyebrow at Julia.
She waves up at him, from her nest. ‘Off you go and find yourself some nice tit. Have fun.’
Finn pretends to start turning away. She laughs at him. After a minute he laughs back and drops down on the grass again.
‘Too scary?’ Julia asks. ‘All that way on your ownio, in the big bad dark?’
‘It’s nine o-fucking-clock. Like you said. If it actually was night, bet you’d be scared.’
‘I’m badass, baby. I can handle ghost nuns.’
Finn lies back and passes Julia the bottle. ‘Right. Let’s see you out here at midnight.’
‘Bring it on.’
‘Yeah. Right.’
That grin, like a dare. Julia’s never been any good at turning down a dare. Thin ice, she feels it, but the rum is dancing in her and what the hell, it’s not like she’s going to tell him anything. She says, ‘When’s the next social?’
‘What?’
‘Come on. March?’
‘Sometime in April. So?’
She points up at the fancy-hands clock on the back of the school. ‘So at the next social, I’ll have a photo of that clock showing midnight.’
‘So you’ve done Photoshop. Fair play.’
Julia shrugs. ‘Trust me or don’t. Yeah, I want to own you, but not that badly. I’ll get the photo straight up.’
Finn turns his head, on the grass. Their faces are inches apart, and Julia thinks Oh God no because him trying to kiss her now would be more kick-in-the-teeth depressing than she wants to admit, but Finn is grinning, a wide-open wicked grin like a kid’s. ‘Bet you a tenner you don’t,’ he says.
Julia grins back, the way she grins at Holly when an idea’s hit them both. ‘Bet you a tenner I do,’ she says.
Their hands come up at the same time, slap together, and they shake. Finn’s hand feels good, strong, an even match to hers.
She picks up the bottle and holds it up above her face, to the stars. ‘Here’s to my tenner,’ she says. ‘I’ll put it towards ghost-hunting equipment.’
In the entrance hall the huge chandelier is off, but the sconce lights on the walls turn the air a warm old-fashioned gold. Above their reach, floors of darkness stretch upwards, untouched, echoing with Chris and Selena’s footsteps.
Selena sits on the staircase. The steps are white stone, veined with grey; once upon a time they were polished – there are still traces between the banisters – but thousands of feet have worn them down till they’re velvety-rough, with dips in the middle.
Chris sits down next to her. Selena has never been this close to him before, close enough to see the scattering of freckles along the tops of his cheekbones, the faintest shading of stubble on his chin; to smell him, spices and a thread of something wild and musky that makes her think of outside at night. He feels different from anyone she’s ever met: charged up fuller, electric and sparking with three people’s worth of life packed into his skin.
Selena wants to touch him again. She slides her hands under her thighs to stop herself reaching out and pressing her palm against his neck. With a sudden leap of warning, she wonders if she fancies him; but she’s fancied guys, back Before, even snogged a few of them. This isn’t the same thing.
She shouldn’t have let him touch her even that once, back in the hall. She understands that.
She wants the world to be that real again.
Chris says, ‘Are your friends going to wonder where you are?’
They will. Selena feels another nudge of unease: she never even thought of telling them. ‘I’ll text them,’ she says, feeling for the pocket in the unfamiliar dress. ‘What about yours?’
‘Nah.’ Chris’s half-smile says his friends expected him to go missing tonight.
To Holly: Am just outside, wanted to get out for a few mins, back soon. ‘There,’ Selena says, sending it.
The hall door opens, letting out a rush of thumping bass and squeals and hot air, and Miss Long sticks her head out. When she sees Chris and Selena, she nods and points a threatening finger: Stay. Someone shrieks behind her, she whips round and the door slams shut.
Chris says, ‘Back in there. I wasn’t trying to tell you what you guys should wear.’
‘Yeah, you were,’ Selena says. ‘It’s OK, though. I’m not mad.’
‘I was just saying. If you wear jeans to a dance and do your hair like that, people are going to laugh at you, end of. Your friend Becca – I mean, I know she has to be the same age as us, but she’s like a kid. She doesn’t get it. You can’t just let her walk out there to get eaten alive by Joanne Heffernan.’
‘Joanne would say stuff anyway,’ Selena points out. ‘No matter what Becca was wearing.’
‘Yeah, because she’s a total raving bitch. So don’t give her extra excuses.’
Selena says, ‘I thought you liked Joanne.’
‘I was with her a few times. That’s not the same thing.’
Selena thinks about that for a while. Chris bends over his shoelace, untying and retying it. His cheek glows. Selena can feel the heat of it, deep in her palm.
She says, ‘I think maybe Becca doesn’t want to be that.’
‘So? It’s not like those are the only two options. Be some bitch or be some freak. You can just be normal.’
‘I don’t think she wants to be that either.’