Chapter 3- Liquid Confidence

'If one drink, could make tonight, slip your mind then you
Should drink up, so you can convince yourself that I'm cute'

He pushed me up against a wall, hands roaming up and down my body with a need that made me dizzy with want. I groaned as his lips attacked mine, revelling in their soft saltiness. He pressed up against me and I stifled a lusty moan.

"Daisy, you're so beautiful," he breathed into my ear.

I groaned even harder, desperately wanting some friction. How wanton I felt. How free.

"Do you want me Daisy?" he said between kisses and I could only nod.

I was awakened from my daydream from a buzzing in my pocket. Using my super ninja powers, I stealthily sneaked my phone out of my pocket for a quick check. Miss didn't suspect a thing; just kept rambling on about ships and pirates and treasure or something and all I could think about was 'I ship Johnlock.' – don't judge me.

The screen flashed up. One new message. From 'Danny Flint-stone.'

As expected.

Dan and I had been texting each other non-stop for two weeks, after the whole Scott incident. We'd become so close, it was hard to know where he ended and I began (no, not in a dirty way, who do you think I am? Some sort of dirty, cheap ass hooker? I've got a little bit of class people. Only a little)

'Omg I had a dream I was a mad scientist... A bad ass one though, like Tony Stark,' the message read and I have to stifle a laugh as I hastily though slyly wrote my reply.

I wanted so ardently to tell him about my dreams. But I couldn't. Because they were about him and his friendship meant more to me now than a stupid attempt at pushing it further when we weren't ready for it.

Most of my dreams consisted of me and him getting our groove thing on, or a romantic date where we got our groove thing on, or we were at school in lessons and got our groove thing on. Some were sweet. Others were mannerisms close to creepiness reserved for the likes of extreme-fangirls. Some were just plain wrong.

I don't have a dirty mind, I have a sexy imagination.

'Hahaha, omg, Avengers is the best superhero film ever. Jeremy Renner is so badass,' I sent back before slipping my phone back into my hoodie pocket. The exercise turned out to be futile; my phone was out again within a few seconds, his replies fast and funny.

'Yeah, and Captain America's arse. Mmmm, if I wasn't straight and he was a chair…' I let out a loud snort of laughter. The historical babble that had been streaming out incessantly out of our history teacher's mouth – who I'm pretty sure pre-dates the stuff she's talking about – suddenly stopped.

"Yes, Miss Bridges?" she raised her uni-brow at me, "you find the fact that the African people got forcibly removed from their land and sold into slavery amusing?"

"Um… no? I just remembered this funny joke about pirates. Actually my friend… er… Pedro told it me when he was a pirate but that was years ago, when he lived in Somalia," I rambled on, horrified at the word vomit that I was spurting out but unable to stop myself.

The uni-brow went up again. "What is this hilarious pirate joke then?"

I stared at her, willing her to just move on and ignore what she knew was going to be a train wreck of epic proportions. But she's a stubborn mule. Looks like one too.

Now, my improvisations skills are legendary, which is why I was able to pull this off with such an air of grace, it looked planned. Plus I have an infinite range of awful/hilarious jokes in my arsenal.

"What's a horny pirate's worst nightmare?"

Miss stared at me warily.

I paused for dramatic effect before delivering the punch line.
"A sunken chest with no booty."

The class erupted into screams of laughter – whether at my joke or my owning of the teacher – while Miss is left flailing and floundering for words like a washed up clownfish. I just smiled at her.

Abi, who was sat a little way behind, called out, laughing, "Horny pirates would be terrified of you then Miss!" which sent the class into another uproar of hysterics.

By the time the class finally settled down and the Donkey had stopped throwing me and Abi death glares, the bell had rung and I was out of there so fast even Sonic would've been out of breath. Outside the classroom, leaning against the wall was the Flint to my fire, the bridge to my river, the David Tennant to my Rose, the candy floss to… my tongue.

I grabbed hold of his arm and yanked him down the corridor before Ass-Face caught up to take me to her Dungeon of Misdemeanours. Dan laughed and I metaphorically beat down my shit-eating smile with a stick. I never got sick of it and if I could set that as my ringtone, I would. But I can't.

Because that would be creepy.

We met everyone in the canteen as the weather, as per usual in Winter-England, fluctuated more than a PMS-ing pubescent girl's moods and it was now more miserable than Josh when Arsenal lost to Birmingham in the Carling Cup final.

I let go of Dan's arm to launch myself at Josh's back. Luckily, he's known me a long time so was able to not collapse under the weight of my fine ass. I slid back down to the ground after thirty seconds of him making crude innuendos about 'back doors.'

Dan came forward and joined our little circle-oblong-rabble-thing and chatted to the boys. I was too busy staring at him to notice Josh talking to me. I turned back to him when he playfully (albeit painfully) punched me on the arm.

"Huh?" I said startled.

"If you weren't too busy staring at your lover-boy over there-" cue blush-explosion "-you would have learned that I'm having a little get-together/sleepover of doom tomorrow. You know, to celebrate… Vibe Week? Vibe Week."

Josh rarely needed an excuse to party.

"Yeah, duh, of course I'll be there. Thine party would suck royal monkey testicles if I had refused attendance sir," I bowed low and Josh laughed before picking me up by the waist and spinning me round, earning some filthy looks off of the teachers on duty.

Setting me down, he turned to Dan, "You've got to come to a Franceschi bash mate; it'll blow your peasant mind!"

Dan glanced at me and I raised my eyebrows suggestively, "Dude, you're asking me if I want to come to your house, drink your alcohol and generally fuck shit up. Stupid question. Of course I'm coming!"

I giggled internally at the word choice.

"Abi, hurry up already, we're going to be late!" I yelled up the stairs.

"You can't be late for a house party D. Besides, you can't rush perfection!" came the reply.

I rolled my eyes and continued reading the new issue of Rocksound, my leg bouncing impatiently against the floor. I'd been ready for about twenty minutes as, going to lengths of previously unrecognised organisation; I had planned what I was going to wear the night before. It was a black flowery skirt (which Abi let me borrow because she's fantasmic) that reached quite a bit above my knees – my inner middle school nun had a heart attack and collapsed – topped with my low cut white Rage Against the Machine tank. The shoes belonged to Abi also; black heels that I could only just walk in. My usually Merida-level-untameability auburn hair was pinned smoothly behind my head and Abi had done my makeup all smoky so that when I looked in the mirror I barely recognised myself. Basically I looked like a sex god. I'm not going to deny it. Nor the person I was all sex-god-upped for.

Daniel Mother-loving Flint.

I smiled to myself, as thoughts of him had done for the last 2 weeks. It's crazy how close we'd gotten in such a short space of time. And a little stupid. But I don't care. The wholesome happiness I felt when with him was too much to ignore. I hoped he liked what he saw tonight.

The elephant-parade on the stairs told me that Abi was ready. I turned and my mouth fell open. Bloody hell. She looked like a minx on acid. Heels a mile high, shorts covering up way too little, yet still too much, hair and makeup done to perfection… she looked stunning. Josh won't know what hit him.

We set off to the party, both of us as nervous as each other.

"Woah."

Josh stood in the doorway of his home, jaw slackened, eyes popping out of his head comically. Behind him, the party was in full swing.

"You gonna let us in, baby cakes? Before we die from pneumonia?" I said in response to his stare.

He stood back, giving us access, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like, 'if you were wearing clothes,' but I let it slide, feeling Dan's pull more than the rage to punch Josh.

Despite the fact that it was only our group attending, the whole house was pretty much trashed. Knowing Josh, he'd rope us all into clean-up tomorrow. Abi and I dropped our bags by the back door, which is when I saw the infamous Franceschi tent. We had some good times in there – get your mind out of the gutter, children, not that sort of 'good time'. The first party we ever had with alcohol had resulted in the tent collapsing on top of us all, when a drunken Max had jumped on it, ironically screaming the lyrics to Nelly Furtado's 'Jump'; he didn't jump very high. Neither did Neil Armstrong when he was on the moon. Did Armstrong actually invent the moonwalk? Because that's quite a weird thing to do when on the moon, I mean-

Oh god, thought vomit. Even my thoughts were nervous. Great.

'Every step closer to the living room brings you closer to him.'

Yeah, that did nothing to calm me.

I took a deep breath outside the door to get myself together and stepped over the threshold.

He turned towards me, started, and then smiled. Damn it. Composure = gone. Rubbing my arm self-consciously for the first time in years, I looked up at him through my lashes. Even with my heels, he was a good 3 inches taller than me. He was wearing dark skinny jeans, paired with an Aztec-patterned jumper. Atop his head was, instead of the usual beanie, a backwards cap. It all just looked casually sexy.

Wolf whistles came from the rest of the boys as they caught wind of our arrival. I felt an arm drape itself along my shoulders; Josh had re-entered the room, carrying offerings of beer. I gladly took the one handed to me and swigged a bit. I grinned at the boys as they told me how much they'd pay for me if I was a hooker – their way of complimenting me.

Finally I was left facing Dan. I stepped forward and gave him a quick hug (inner fangirl) before giving him a twirl, asking how I looked. He just smiled, raised his eyebrows cheekily and took a swig of the beer in his hand.

"Run around the fucking tent, you imbeciles!" a very, very, very, very drunk Josh yelled from out in the garden. The rest of us (except Abi because she was in lurrrve with Josh) were in the living room, out of the chilly, chilly, freeze-your-willy Autumnal wind. Nobody did as he commanded. We weren't genies. Gosh, Josh. Hehe. That rhymed. I'm a poet and I didn't know it. But I'm not drunk. Ok, maybe a little bit. But not a lot. Ok, a lot. Don't judge me!

The later the night went on, the more the alcohol had loosened my tongue and my hips. I danced provocatively to the thumping music, grinding on anything and everything. All of a sudden, hands were on my waist, pulling me flush against something warm and solid I turned round and laughed when I saw it was Dan. He was so adorable.

"What was that?" he slurred.

Oh shit did I say that out loud?!

"I said, you're so cool," I garbled out, giggles escaping.

"Well, I think you're really hot," he whispered in my ear. Chills ran down my back as his fingers trailed languidly up my arm. God, he was hot.

"More like tepid, lukewarm, room temperature," I breathed back, turning to face him and wrapping my arms around his neck.

I stared into his eyes, feeling oddly sober, entranced. My eyes flickered down to his lips and back up again. A small smile upturned his lips. Why was he so gorgeous?

I was wrenched away from our little bubble by a thoroughly intoxicated Max. I laughed, covering the sound of my heart breaking (it sounded rather like a seal getting slapped in the face with its dead seal father's flipper) letting myself get pulled further and further away from Dan.

I danced with Max for a bit, aware of Dan's eyes burning into my head. I left to get another drink from the kitchen to drown away my blues. I pushed Dan to the back of my mind; not hard to do drunk really.

A few shots and bottles of beer (and perhaps a couple of glasses of wine) later, I was stood on the dining room table, singing ridiculously badly to 'Buck Rogers' by Feeder.

"… got a CD player-player-player-player!" At the chorus I started jumping around on the table, in heels, which turns out wasn't the smartest move. Who knew?

I lost my balance and stumbled, falling what felt like 1000 feet to the carpeted floor, my life flashing in double time before my melodramatically dying eyes… then suddenly I wasn't plummeting to the earth. I was wrapped up in a bundle of warmth that matched that of the alcohol I'd consumed. Looking up I saw my saviour, my guardian angel in a backwards cap, Dan. He was looking back, eyes flooded with raw passion. My eyes flicked from his eyes to his lips and back again, heart racing like a runaway train. He leaned down.

And time went in slow motion.