He pours a glass of lemonade and hands it to me. “Mm, fine.” He steps close to me, so close I almost think he’s going to go in for a kiss right here in front of the people chatting and drinking around us, but instead he just gazes up at me beneath dark hair with icy eyes, smirking slightly, the tease of a dimple in one cheek, letting loose everything that made me physically attracted to him in the first place. I’m half confused and half extremely aroused.

“Nick,” he says, so low and quiet I probably wouldn’t have heard it had I not been staring at his lips.

I let out a nervous laugh but don’t really know what to say. We’re not exactly averse to public displays of affection, but we’re never like this when other people are around. What is he trying to do?

“I want a drunk hook up in the bathroom later,” he murmurs, and then he walks off before I have the chance to answer him.

CHARLIE

I am aware that I am combatting my feelings about Nick going to university by a) refusing to talk about it and b) flirting with him so hard it’s actually embarrassing, but honestly, I’m this close to punching the next person who even uses the word ‘university’ in a sentence. I have not punched anyone yet in my life, but it’s never too late to start.

Oh, and c) I am getting drunk.

Very drunk.

It doesn’t take a lot to get me drunk, which is extremely useful for situations like this, where Year 13s are everywhere and no one will shut up about leaving school and prom and summer and university and I just want to go home.

I stay away from Nick as much as possible because hearing him talk about it is the worst part of all of it.

I am a terrible person.

It’s eleven o’clock now and I’ve lost count of how many vodka-lemonades I’ve had, and I’m having to stay seated on an armchair next to Tao in the conservatory because standing up is proving quite difficult at the moment. There isn’t really enough room for both of us on the armchair and my leg is sort of going numb because Tao is slightly sitting on it, but he’s too engrossed in talking about something or other, I don’t know, I’m not really paying attention— “Have you and Nick talked about it?” he says, snapping me out of my daze, but it’s still like I’ve got cotton wool in my ears and nothing that’s happening is actually happening.

“What? I wasn’t listening.”