The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(149)

‘Hello? I’m the one who texted you?’

That gets Chris’s attention. ‘Are you f*cking serious?’

Julia does some combination of a shrug and a wiggle and a giggle.

Chris’s head goes back and he moves, a tight fast circle around the clearing. He’s furious with her, for not being Selena and for seeing that look on him, and Julia knows she should have planned for this.

She sends her voice up an octave, coaxing little whine, good and submissive to the big important boy. ‘Are you mad at me?’

‘For f*ck’s sake.’

‘I’m sooo sorry for . . . you know. Fooling you. I just . . .’ Julia tucks her head down and looks up at him sideways. Itsy-bitsy voice: ‘I wanted to meet you. In private. You know what I mean.’

And just like that, Chris has stopped moving and he’s looking at her. The edge has fallen off his anger; he’s interested now.

‘You could’ve just come up and talked to me. At the Court, or wherever. Like normal people do.’

Julia pouts. ‘Excuse me, if you weren’t so popular? There’s always, like, literally a queue to get near you.’

And there’s the beginning of a gratified grin, at the corner of Chris’s mouth. This is so easy, Julia can hardly believe it; suddenly she can see why everyone else has been doing it all along. ‘Sooo,’ she says, doing a boob-stretch. ‘Can we, like, sit down and talk?’

Chris says, suddenly wary, ‘How did you . . . ? That phone you texted me off. How did you . . . ?’

He wants to know if Selena was in on this. For a second, Julia considers letting him think she was. But then he might go off on Selena about it, and that would complicate everything. She goes with the truth, or part of it. ‘Me and Selena share a room. I found her phone and I read your texts.’

‘Whoa,’ Chris says. He steps back, hands going up. ‘You know about us?’

Julia does a winsome giggle. ‘I’m smart.’

‘Jesus,’ Chris says, face curling up in undisguised disgust. ‘Isn’t she your friend? I mean, I know girls can be bitches, but this is, like, something special.’

‘You have no idea,’ Julia says. She doesn’t bother to put a cutesy twist on it, and for a second Genius Boy’s brow furrows, but before he can start to wonder if this is some elaborate scheme to take the piss out of him, she takes a condom out of her hoodie pocket and holds it up.

That knocks everything else out of Chris’s head. His eyes pop. He was expecting a snog and a bra-based struggle. This never entered his mind.

After a moment he says, ‘Seriously? I mean . . . like, we’ve talked, what, three times?’

Julia manages a giggle. ‘Come on. James Gillen must’ve told you about me. Right?’

Chris shrugs uncomfortably. ‘Well. Yeah. But James talks a load of bullshit. I thought you’d told him to get lost, and he was just being a prick.’

For one second, Julia feels that shake her. Here she thought everyone believed shitty little James Gillen, and all the time Chris, the last guy she would ever have thought of— The creature calls a warning in the cypresses again and things pelt at her, if Chris was actually serious about Selena, meant the things he texted, if he was someone she might actually like instead of— They’re chipping her away, battering her soft. Another second and she’ll be cracking apart, gone.

She says, ‘James is a total prick. But he’s not a total liar. Hello, it’s the twenty-first century? Girls are actually allowed to like sex too? You’re a babe, and I heard you’re a great kisser. That’s all I need to know. I’m not looking to marry you.’

And Chris can’t have been all that in love with Selena, after all, or else the condom has him hypnotised. He steps forward.

‘Whoa, slow down there,’ Julia says, and flat-palms him, giving her nose a cute little scrunch to soften it. ‘Just one thing. I’m not sharing a guy with my best friend. I don’t care who else you want to do, but starting now, Selena’s off your menu. Deal?’

‘Wha . . . ?’ Most of Chris’s mind is still on the condom, but his eyebrows pull together. ‘You said you didn’t care that I was with her.’

‘Hey. Pay attention. I’m serious. If you try to play us both, I’ll find out like that. I’m going to be watching Selena and watching that phone – I’ll keep texting you off it, just so you know I’m not kidding. If you try anything cute, I’ll tell Selena, and you’ll never get another shot with either of us. But if you leave her alone – like, alone alone, no texts or anything – then every time we get a chance . . .’

Julia shakes the condom, dry little rattle in the air. In the end it turned out to be easy, getting away from the others down at the Court, where all the toilets have machines covered in pregnancy-related posters and graffiti. Just going to the jacks back in a sec, already moving away from the fountain, and gone before any of the others could stand up. Easy as that, escaping, if you wanted to. Just none of them had ever wanted to before.

Chris hasn’t moved. Julia says, ‘Hello? Is there a problem? Because the only reason a guy’s going to turn down a deal like this is if he’s gay. Which I don’t have a problem with, but you could at least tell me, so I can find someone else to play with.’