Page 4 of It Was Always You

‘Ha! Says the man who emptied a bag of cheese puffs over my head when I beat him at gin rummy last night!’

Adam straightened and pointed his racket at her. ‘That was an accident, I tripped over the rug and you know it.’

Lily huffed. ‘Accident-schmaccident.’

Adam laughed. ‘Don’t you mean snackccident?’

She contorted her face and crossed her eyes. ‘Hilarious.’ She wiped the sweat from her brow. ‘And you don’t accidentally do something like empty a whole bag of stinky crisps on someone’s head! If it’s an accident you stop when you realise what’s happening! I wouldn’t mind but I’d only just washed my hair, and the crumbs made it all greasy.’ She pretended to sulk.

Adam bent double again but this time it was through laughing. ‘Yeah… you smelled pretty bad too. You came close to getting a new nickname from that. Well… I say pretty close… Cheesy.’

That was it. She decided to seek revenge and there was no time like the present. Dropping her racket, she set off running towards him at full pelt, circumvented the net and before he could protest or get out of the way, she launched herself onto his back.

She clung onto his body with her thighs. ‘Time to pay, Adders.’

‘What are you doing?’ he gasped in between loud guffaws. Spinning around, he tried to release himself from her grasp. His laughter caused him the weakness she needed to finish him off, and so the struggle ensued. ‘God, you have the thighs of bloody Wonder Woman!’

She squeezed him tighter. ‘And don’t you forget it. Maybe you’ll think twice about pouring cheese puffs on my head in future, eh?’

He coughed. ‘Gerroff me, you loony!’ Still laughing, he struggled to keep his footing, but she was relentless in her attack, and he stumbled towards the grass at the edge of the court. He slumped to his knees and then onto his stomach. Lily fell flat on top of his back, still holding on.

It was then she began the tickling. ‘Do you surrender?’ she asked as her fingers dug into his apparently sensitive ribs.

He squealed in a high-pitched voice. ‘Never!’ And so, she continued her revenge assault, and he continued to yell. ‘Get off, Lily! Pleeeease! I’ll pee in my boxers!’

Out of breath, she finally stopped, and he rolled onto his back. His chest heaved as she lay half on and half off him, her hands flat on his toned, bare, glistening chest. She locked her eyes on his and suddenly felt trapped in his melted chocolate gaze.

Her smile disappeared. His smile faded too as he stared up at her and his hold on her upper arm tightened slightly. His heart pounded underneath her fingertips. His cologne, mixed with the manly scent from his damp body, infused her nostrils and her heart rate accelerated. God, he was stunning. Why had she not noticed that before? She inhaled sharply at the realisation, and heat rose in her cheeks. He frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but she broke the spell.

Clambering to her feet and turning away from him, she spoke as breezily as she could. ‘Come on. We need to get going. I think we can safely say that you won.’ She turned to where Adam still lay on his back, propped up on his elbows, brow furrowed and looking confused. ‘Adders! Come on!’ She feigned frustration as she collected her racket and made her way towards the gates.

Back at home, after they had parted in the middle of their street to go into their respective houses, neither evidently willing to discuss the incident at the tennis courts, Lily went straight to her room and sat on her bed. With her head in her hands, she recalled his toned body and his smell. Oh, shit. Not Adam. Please not Adam. She sent up a silent prayer to Gaia – she was a feminist, after all – willing her feelings to revert to the norm she was used to. Please let this be a glitch in the matrix. Because this can’t happen. It just can’t. Adam doesn’t see me that way. Oh God, maybe he read my mind back there. She recalled the look of confusion in his eyes. He did seem a bit befuddled. I’m so embarrassed. Oh, shit, what do I do now?

At only eighteen she had yet to experience a first love. In fact, she had no clue what love even felt like – until now – because what she had just experienced was like a thunderbolt. A moment of shocking clarity that she wished had never happened. But why did it have to be Adam? He was her best friend in the world, and she couldn’t risk losing him over something like this. She’d had several casual boyfriends but none of the heartbreaks had been that serious. Please let it be a phase. Please. Just a phase… please?

Adam arrived home and slammed the front door before heading for the stairs that led to his room. He took them two at a time as his stomach knotted and his head swam.

‘Adam? Is everything okay, love?’ his mum called from the bottom of the stairs.

Adam paused outside his room and clenched his jaw, inhaling a deep breath through his nose and exhaling it slowly in a bid to calm his ragged breathing. ‘Y-yeah, Mum, I’m… I’m fine. Just want to get a shower. It’s boiling out there.’

‘Okay, love. It just felt like you slammed the door a bit hard and I wondered if you and Lily had fallen out.’

He closed his eyes and remembered the feeling of Lily lying on top of him at the tennis court, and how her body moulded to his like a puzzle piece. God, that feeling. He really shouldn’t be getting aroused by Lily. What the hell was wrong with him?

He fought for composure. ‘Erm… We’re all good. Sorry about the door. It was an accident.’

‘Okay.’ His mum fell silent and he waited for her to ask more questions. He was a terrible liar, after all. But instead, she called, ‘Don’t use all the hot water!’

He walked into his room, closed the door gently behind him and flopped down onto his back on his bed, covering his eyes with his forearm. The image of Lily’s eyes locked on his was now seared into his brain. He touched his cheek where her breath had feathered him only a short time ago. What had that expression meant? She looked confused… annoyed maybe. She probably wondered why he was looking at her all doe-eyed. Idiot. How would he face her again? Probably best to just pretend it had never happened or else he could risk losing his best friend.

For a couple of weeks after the incident Lily found herself devoid of appetite, to the point where her mum fussed around her, making her all her favourite Spanish dishes to try to entice her to eat.

‘I wish you would tell me what’s wrong, cariño. You’re barely eating and I worry,’ her mum said, her accent still thick with her Spanish first language.

‘I’m fine, Mamá. Please don’t worry.’

‘I make you fabada and you hardly eat, Lily. Te estas poniendo delgada,’ her mum said with a furrow of concern to her brow.