All the Little Things Sarah Lawton (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

and collected in a white T-shirt and cut-off grey jeans. I’m a sweaty mess and I wish I’d had another shower and not eaten so much of Mum’s lasagne. He’s caught me off-guard, which is rude.

‘I know where everyone lives. It’s not a big place, is it? Can I come in?’

I begrudgingly agree with this statement, and I step aside to let him come in. I catch that earthy, smoky scent again as he walks past, and the clean smell of his skin, and I feel my heart beat faster. His dark hair curls at the back of his neck onto his collar and I have to stop myself reaching up and threading my fingers through it. What is wrong with me?

He walks straight into the front room like he owns the place, flops on the sofa and starts eating my popcorn.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ I accuse him.

‘Which one?’ he replies, throwing a piece of popcorn in the air and catching it in his mouth, like a dog. ‘Okay, I was bored, I wasn’t lying about your friend, and I already told you I know where everyone lives. What are we watching?’

I’m mildly embarrassed by the ‘recently watched’ list that pops up as I turn the TV on, so I quickly flick to movies.

‘I don’t really want to watch a film,’ Alex says suddenly, turning to look at me. He takes the remote from me, fingers brushing mine, and switches off the TV. ‘Has your mum got anything to drink?’

Feeling a bit like I’ve fallen asleep without realising and gone into a lucid dream, I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. There are a couple of bottles of white wine in there and I know there’s a box in the cupboard too, because Mum gets a wine club thing, so I think I could pinch some and she wouldn’t notice, even though I haven’t really drunk it before as we usually get cider. I grab a bottle and two glasses and go back in to the front room, trying not to shake with nerves. I don’t like not knowing what to expect.

Alex is looking at our books.

‘I like that one,’ he says, pointing at one of Mum’s. I don’t see which and I don’t really care, because books are boring. I sit down and he takes the bottle from me so I can put down the glasses. He pours us both a glass then goes and puts the bottle back in the fridge.

‘Warm wine is the worst,’ he says, coming back in and sitting next to me, closer than he was before. ‘So, pretty little Vivian, tell me everything about you.’

‘I don’t think there’s much to tell.’

‘You don’t sound like you’re from here. You haven’t got a farmer twang.’ He’s leaning back on the sofa, scuffing lines in the suedey material, then rubbing them out again with his long fingers.

‘No, we moved here from London. We’ve been here since I was nine.’ I find myself leaning back too, mirroring his position. I read somewhere that it’s what people do, to make other people feel comfortable. I don’t, but I don’t want him to know that.

‘Why did you leave?’ He looks so directly at me, and I try to do it back.

‘Why do you care?’

‘Just trying to make conversation.’

‘I saw you trying to make conversation with Molly the other morning.’ As usual my mouth snipes quicker than my brain can think. He laughs.

‘Ah, Molly. She’s really pretty, isn’t she? I bumped into her on the way to school.’ I don’t like him saying Molly is pretty. Is he here with me because he wants to get in with her? Jealousy pricks me. It’s always Molly.

‘I’ve not seen you walking that way before,’ I tell him.

He just smirks, and changes the subject back to London, again. ‘I’m from London, too. Why did your mum want to leave? I don’t know why anyone would choose to come here if they didn’t have to.’

Despite the repetitive questions, which annoy me, he’s surprisingly easy to talk to. He asks me loads more. People usually just want to talk about themselves, integrate themselves by comparing their experiences to yours, take over. We talk and talk for ages. I do eventually tell him about where we used to live in London and I even talk a little bit about how awful it was there, about the bullying and how the other kids were so horrid to me. I’m telling him about Tristan trying to touch me last weekend after the party when I notice that his eyes have gone all flinty; he looks angry.

I swallow more of the suddenly sour-tasting liquid in my glass – the last of the bottle I see now, empty on the table next to us – a bit disconcerted by the look on his face. We both put our glasses down at the same time, and then he reaches out, pulls me towards him and kisses me, hard. He drags me up onto his lap and I go with it willingly, feeling a rush that surprises me, straddling his legs like Molly did to Matthew, wrapping mine behind him. When he crushes me against him, pulling my hips down, it almost steals my breath. He slips his hands under my top, smoothing them up and down, and it feels like they are big enough to circle my waist entirely. His thumbs rub the skin at edge of my bra, back and forth, bumping along my ribs.

His tongue is in my mouth properly now, and I always thought this would feel completely disgusting and cold like a fish, but it isn’t. It’s hot and fierce, and I want it all. I drag my fingers through his hair, pulling on it, and he tips us over on the sofa, and he starts to rub himself against me through our clothes, and I realise that he’s got an erection and it’s the best feeling ever, that I’m doing this to him, that