Angel Kiss - Laura Jane Cassidy [38]
I really liked that Colin could be so direct and friendly at the same time. And Emily seemed to be taking it well. I smiled to myself. I was beginning to feel comfortable with this group of new friends.
By eleven o’clock David’s fears had been realized. Most of the surrounding area’s teenage population had descended on the house. But he was concentrating so hard on impressing Emily that he didn’t have time to worry. So I started to worry for him. It’s not like I had anything better to do – I’d hardly seen Nick all night. I was starting to think that maybe he was avoiding me. He obviously wasn’t that interested after all. I convinced Chris that seeing if he could lift a plasma screen television with one hand wasn’t a good idea and I managed to direct a brown-haired girl to the bathroom before her beer came up to meet the carpet.
‘Jacki! Don’t worry about it,’ said Colin, as I tried to wrestle a crystal clock from Simon. I gave up and flopped down on the couch.
‘Here, put on something good,’ said a guy wearing a baseball cap in the corner.
‘What did you say?’ said Fitz.
‘I said put on something good!’ the guy shouted.
‘Do you know who this is?’ said Fitz, walking slowly towards him.
‘Eh … no.’ The guy looked kind of scared.
‘This is Rory Gallagher. An absolute legend. How dare you!’
‘Oh, right … sorry, man … It’s just this album has been on for ages.’ He was right – nobody had bothered to put on something different. I usually delighted in being the DJ, but I’d been too preoccupied with making sure David’s house didn’t get trashed.
‘Right, fine,’ said Fitz. ‘I’ll change it … any requests?’
‘Do they have any Thin Lizzy?’ asked Colin.
‘Think so,’ I said.
Colin gave me a wink as the intro to ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ came on.
‘Ah, deadly!’ said David as he and Emily came into the sitting room.
‘Come on,’ shouted Colin, jumping up and holding out his hand.
‘No, it’s OK,’ I said. I wasn’t in the mood for dancing. I’d really thought something might happen between me and Nick, but that was looking unlikely now.
‘Jacki, don’t make me dance by myself!’
‘I don’t really feel like –’
‘Come on!’ Colin grabbed my hand and pulled me up. I gave in and danced with him. By the second verse almost everybody was up dancing and singing along, and for one tiny moment I didn’t care where Nick was.
When the song finished I sat down on the couch and Colin went to get us drinks. My eyes met those of Carla’s friend, Amanda, who was hovering awkwardly in the middle of the room.
‘Do you want to sit down?’ I asked her.
Turned out I was really going to regret that. She talked at me non-stop for ten minutes: ‘… we met at this random party and got on great and everything, and we made out for a while, but then the next week … he told me he loved me. I thought that was a bit weird. I mean, we’d been seeing each other for, like, a week. Don’t you find that weird? So obviously I said, “OK, thanks,” or whatever and then dumped him the next day by text. But anyway, yeah, that was him texting me there. He’s been practically stalking me ever since. Carla says to just ignore him and he’ll get bored with it, but it’s totally freaking me out. What if he gets obsessed with me or something?’ Amanda took a sip from her drink. I’d been listening to her love-life dilemmas for far too long. She’d gone into way too much detail and unfortunately I was trapped. Emily was nowhere to be seen, and some guy had nabbed Colin to fix the DVD player. And there was still no sign of Nick.
‘So … how do you know Carla?’ I said, eager to steer the conversation away from Amanda’s more personal activities.
‘I met her at Irish College last year and we stayed friends. She’s so nice. I haven’t seen much of her tonight though. She’s been with some guy most of the time. Do you have a boyfriend?’
‘No.’
‘Yeah, me neither. I’m enjoying it. It’s weird, ’cause I’m hardly ever single.’ Amanda tossed her hair over her shoulder. ‘So, think any of the guys here tonight are cute?’ she asked.
I looked around