The moonlight changes him. Daytime, he’s just another Colm’s rugger-bugger, cute if you have cheap chain-restaurant tastes, charming if you like knowing every conversation before it begins. Here he’s something more. He is beautiful the way something that lasts forever is beautiful.
It goes through Julia like the punch off an electric fence: he shouldn’t be here. Chris Harper, half-witted teenage tit-hound, could come here and do his half-witted teenage tit-hound stuff and wander away safe and oblivious, no different from a mating fox or a spraying tomcat; the grove wouldn’t shift a twig to take notice of something so small and so common, just doing what its kind do. But this boy: the grove has taken notice of him. This boy like white marble, lifted head, parted lips: the grove has a part for him to play.
Julia understands that the only smart thing to do here is get the fuck out. She is way out of her depth. Head very very quietly back to her bed, hope Chris thinks Selena was messing him around and flounces off in another snot. Hope the grove will allow him to walk back to his daytime self. Hope it all goes away.
It won’t. What got her here hasn’t changed: if she doesn’t do this tonight, Selena will do it tomorrow, or next week, or the week after that.
Julia steps out onto the grass, and feels cold moonlight pour down her back. Behind her, the cypresses shiver into readiness.
Her movement sends Chris whirling towards her, bounding forward with his hands out, his face blazing up with what looks like sheer joy – the guy’s even better than she thought, no wonder Lenie fell for it. When he sees who it isn’t, he screeches to a stop like something in a cartoon.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demands.
‘That’s flattering,’ Julia says, before she can stop herself. She knows better than to be a smart-arse tonight. She knows exactly what to be; she’s watched enough girls force themselves into the right shapes, pull the strings tighter till they can barely breathe. She does a lash-bat and giggle that’s pure Joanne. ‘Who were you expecting?’
Chris shoves floppy fringe out of his face. ‘No one. None of your business. Are you meeting someone? Or what?’
His eyes are everywhere but on her, leaping to the path, to every rustle. All he wants from her is a fast exit, before Selena comes.
‘I’m meeting
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Hello? I’m the one who texted you?’
That gets Chris’s attention. ‘Are you fucking 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 fuck’s
‘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.
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
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?’
