Twelve. Danny.
It was really cool being at Jez's. Seeing everyone, again, and stuff, it was really great. Actually, I thought it might be a bit awkward, seeing Lauren and Claudine and everything but it wasn't, really. I wondered if I should tell Jade that I'd dated both of them but it probably would've made things more uncomfortable. And nobody wants things to be uncomfortable at Christmas, right? So I decided I'd just keep quiet about it, guessing we'd put everything that happened last year behind us.
On Christmas Eve, we had this big party. The girls got all dressed up and we drank and ate Chinese and ended up in the living room. By the time it was half ten, there were only the six of us left, me, Lauren, Claudine, Jez, Lola and BB.
It was Lola's idea to play Twister.
Actually, it was pretty fun a, you know, as a bit of harmless, slightly drunk, Christmas Eve madness. Lauren spun the wheel, because of her neuralgia, and everyone piled their phones and whatever else they had in their pockets (in Lola's case, a fistful of make-up). We got into countless little arguments about the rules; it was so childish but so much fun.
But there was this one point, and I ended up with 'left arm, yellow'. I leaned forward, to balance, and Claudine's face was right in front of me. And I swear, there was this… heat between us. And, I don't know, it was probably just because I was wearing long sleeves and I'd been playing Twister for the last half hour but it scared the hell out of me.
I almost sighed with relief when Jez's foot came between us, blocking me away from having to look at her face.
In the end, Jez won Twister, who managed to stay up while Lola stumbled and knocked over me, BB, Claudine like dominos, and somehow also nearly broke a vase. By the time Stefan came back downstairs, everyone was tired and Jez persuaded Lola it would make Christmas come quicker if she went to sleep now.
When I got to my room, to my surprise, Jade wasn't in bed. To be honest, I'd been having such a great time with the others downstairs I'd almost forgotten about her. She was up and dressed, changed from the dress she'd had on before into jeans and a t-shirt. Jade was throwing clothes, her clothes, into a suitcase.
"Hey, what's going on?" I said, grabbing her arm.
"I'm leaving, Danny." She jerked her arm away from my grip and headed over to the wardrobe again.
"Leaving? You can't just go, what for?"
She paused, momentarily, and looked right at me. "Danny, it just doesn't feel right here, I don't want to spend Christmas with these strangers. You all seem to know each other really well and you're in this really tight group and it just seems like nobody wants me here."
"That's not true…" I said, although it sort of was. "I want you here."
That wasn't really true, either. I would have preferred it so much more if I hadn't brought Jade, or anyone else, to take on the responsibility of having to spend time with. I just wanted to chill with my friends. Jade made things more… complicated. And I didn't even like her that much; we'd only been going out about two weeks. I didn't have a clue why I'd brought her out here, to England. Just seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess.
Jade was looking at the floor. "Sure you do."
"What?" I backed myself up. "I do!"
"It's just you don't seem that interested anymore! I mean, you're spending all this time with these people and that girl is going past flirting and simply throwing herself at you. It just doesn't make sense, why did you even bring me here anyway?"
Jade, I have just been asking myself that exact same thing.
But I couldn't tell her that, could I? I didn't want to be some heart breaking jerk, here. I slowly took her hand, and sat down on the bed. She sat down next to me. Ok, good sign.
"Jade, I brought you here because I really like you and I want you to spend Christmas with me." I said.
That was good, wasn't it? Keep it simple, nothing too over the top but still romantic at the same time.
She brought her hand to the side of my face and kissed me, softly.
Forgiven me, then?
It looked like we were good, then. That was great; I was out of trouble for a while. Then, when we went back to America I could finish with Jade and find someone else worth spending my time with.
She kissed me again, her arms snaking round my neck.
Wait, had she meant Claudine when she was talking about a girl flirting with me?