Baby, It's Cold Outside by Catherine Cooper

Author:Catherine Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471403415
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2013-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

‘You want to see where I live?’ I asked, a bolt of panic rising through me. ‘Why? It’s just a boring old student house in a not-that-interesting suburb and there’s really nothing to see,’ I gabbled. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to do something like … I know! We could go ice-skating. There’s an outdoor rink specially for Christmas. We went yesterday. It was really fun. Why don’t we do that?’ I looked at Will expectantly, an over-enthusiastic smile on my face, which faded quickly when I saw the hurt expression on his face.

‘Are you … embarrassed about me or something?’ he asked. ‘I just thought it would be nice to meet your housemates, be able to picture where you live and stuff like that.’

He counted out three notes from his wallet, threw them down on the table and pushed his chair back. ‘But if you really can’t stand the thought of it, maybe it’s better if I just go back to the station and head off.’

I leapt up. ‘No! No. Don’t be silly.’ I could feel my heart rate rising as a flash of irritation passed through me. Will had always had a tendency to be a bit needy at times. ‘Of course it’s fine for you to come to the house, I just thought you might prefer to do something else,’ I added, trying and probably failing to keep the tension I felt out of my voice.

But if there was an edge to my tone, Will didn’t seem to notice. ‘No, I’m pretty tired, last night was a late one,’ he said. ‘It would be good to just go somewhere and chill.’

I forced myself to smile, my throat tightening. ‘Great, chill it is, then!’ I sang, my voice sounding falsely bright even to my own ears.

On the bus we carried on chatting about the same kind of stuff we had been talking about all day, but my sense of ease at being with Will had totally gone. I tried to listen to what he was saying but the whole way back I was fretting about what was going to happen when we got back to the house.

Would Lia be there? Or Jesse? Did the others know that Lia and I had spent the night together? Would they take the piss? Or even be horrified, like Jesse was?

I remembered that Lia had said we should do something together this evening. Go for a drink. And now Will was here, and it probably wasn’t going to happen.

I felt a surge of anger and resentment towards him. Why did he have to come now? Then almost instantly I felt guilty. I’d known Will for years, I’d known Lia about five minutes. But she would be going back to Durham soon and then …

‘Clara? Don’t you think so?’ Will asked.

I looked at him, no idea at all what he had been saying. I shook my head. ‘Sorry, Will, I was miles away.’ I reached up and pressed the bell. ‘C’mon, this is our stop.

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