This kiss was a bomb, and it was exploding, breaking the whole world apart.
Which, in theory, sounds like everything you want from a kiss.
But my world had been blown up before.
‘No!’ I said, breaking away. ‘No, no, no, Dylan. Wait.’
‘Mandie?’
She looked so beautiful in the early morning light. Her hair was in disarray. Her lips were swollen. There were fading marks on her shoulder from where my fingers had dug into her skin.
What had just happened? What were we doing?
What wasshedoing, kissing me?
Something started to bubble up in my stomach, a volcano of panic and confusion and fear.
‘No,’ I said, and fled.
I didn’t even realise I’d left my heels behind.
14
When you get angry as infrequently as I do, you get kind of rusty at it. It’s like a muscle that’s out of shape. You barely realise it’s there. But then you use it, and it starts to ache.
It took me a long time to realise I was furious.
There was no time to go to bed before call time the next day. So I showered, did my best to unwrinkle my dress, put on my bubbliest voice and chatted to Murray about the Last Chance Party in my ITM. ‘So what was it like when Dylan G interrupted your kiss with Dylan JM?’ he asked.
‘Oh my goodness, it was so awkward when Dylan G interrupted us!’ I said, wishing there was a pie nearby that I could smash into his face.
I was mad at Murray for setting me up, for making Dylan walk in on the kiss, for all the little strings he kept pulling. That I knew. That wasn’t news.
But that wasn’t when I realised I was furious.
They’d flipped the order of the dates for this episode, so the group date was first, with the remaining seven of us lined up in front of Romeo-Dylan in one of the rose gardens. ‘Today we’re going to play a game that will help us find out who really knows Dylan best,’ Z said. ‘On the ground in front of you, you’ll find a whiteboard and a marker. In Dylan’s hands, you’ll find a stack of questions.’
‘They’re not hard, I promise,’ Romeo-Dylan said.
‘Dylan’s going to ask these questions, and you’re going to write your answers on your whiteboards,’ Z said. ‘For every question you get correct, you get a point. The person with the most points at the end of the date will win the all-important single date.’
Romeo-Dylan smiled at us. I was mad at him too, although I knew it wasn’t entirely fair. His job was to be a perfect Prince Charming who women wanted to be with, and all he was doing was exactly that. And who could blame him for falling for Dylan? I’d done exactly the same thing.
So that wasn’t when I realised I was furious either.
It wasn’t when Z announced the date’s big twist – that we’d be competing in this trivia contest againstCece, of all people, who Romeo-Dylan had apparently found time to become friends with after she fainted on that first night. It wasn’t when Cece managed to win the trivia contest either, giving her the next single date, even though she wasn’t technically in the competition.
And it wasn’t when we were trudging back up to the Villa after the date ended, cold and miserable, as everyone bitched about how unfair it was that Cece was going on a date withRomeo-Dylan. ‘What is this “friend” thing they’ve got going on anyway?’ Jess D demanded.
‘I know, right?’ Naya said. ‘Just how much time has he been spending with her if she can win a whole damn trivia contest about him?’
‘Do you think he’s going to invite her back into the Villa?’ Kumiko asked.
‘He’d better not,’ Parisa said.
Dylan didn’t say anything. I glanced sideways at her as we walked up the hill. She was looking straight ahead, stone-faced.
I almost realised I was furious then.
