Oh Fuck. This is not going to be good. Kate’s about to get another dose of visual proof of why a bloke like me is the absolute last thing she needs.
Kate
The phone in my dormitory rings for the millionth time since I hightailed it out of the Viper Room last night.
Dax.
“Are you going to answer it?” My friend Abby is staring at me, an eyebrow arched expectantly, the end of her pen in her mouth.
“No.”
“He’s not going to stop calling until you do.” She puts down her notebook and joins me on my bed. “What happened?”
“So much,” I whisper. “It’s all the same as it was back home, but somehow it’s so different.”
“What do you mean? The band? Dax?”
“Everything.”
Visions of Adam with the blonde groupie last night are burned on the back of my eyeballs. The pictures in my head flash by so quickly I can hardly keep up—Adam and the blonde, Dax and Willa, the clusters of girls at the DK, the woman on her knees in the back room of the fight club…
“I’m sorry, Kate.” Abby puts a hand on my arm. “For whatever is making you so sad.”
“I just…” I hold in a sob. “My entire life has been about Dax Davies, getting him to notice me. Now that he has, I-I can’t do it.” Abby waits patiently for me to continue. “There will always be loads of girls, prettier girls than me, hanging around just waiting to give him a suck or a shag. Girls with more experience, or… I don’t know. More everything than me!”
The scene from last night replays in my head again—Adam smirking, a sexed-out blonde girl fixing her inflated cleavage.
“You don’t trust Dax?”
“He’s never given me a reason not to trust him because we’ve never been together, but I’ve been there, Abby. I’ve seen what he does… what they all do with the groupies. I can’t deal with it. I just can’t. I don’t have it in me to compete with them.”
“Kate, you don’t have to compete. If Dax didn’t want you, he wouldn’t pursue you.” The phone rings again. “And right now, if that’s who I think it is calling, my opinion is that he is definitely pursuing you.”
I wipe away a tear that has run down my cheek and quickly right myself on the bed. Plain Kate versus a veritable horde of gorgeous, posh girls. Yeah right.
“Forget it. I can’t deal with Dax right now. Let’s study. There’s no way I’ll pass my test tomorrow if I don’t learn this.”
* * *
It’s easy to avoid Dax after that night at the Viper Room. I’m so busy with school and traveling for football, I’m hardly ever at my flat. Not that he’s ever stopped by. There’s never a message on the whiteboard on my door and Lila’s never mentioned Dax coming to see me, although she would be the crazy type to erase any messages he might have left.
The holidays come and go, with Abby being kind enough to invite me to her family’s house for break. There isn’t enough money for an airline ticket back to the U.K. for Christmas. Mateo has left me alone, finally realizing we’ll only be friends. He’s a good bloke, just not the bloke I want.
“Bollocks!” The phone is ringing as I try to balance a takeaway cup of tea, my books, and my enormous footy bag while unlocking the door to my dorm. Somehow I manage to shove it open and get to the phone before it stops.
“Hello?”
“K-Kate?”
“Ellie?”
“Yes. It’s me.”
The door to the flat closes behind me. I drop my books and duffel to the floor. Right now, my only concern is my friend, a friend that has been through hell and back with no one there to support her. Tears flood my eyes, overflowing down my cheeks. My voice is already all choked up and my nose sniffling pathetically.
“Ellie,” I sob, “where have you been?”
“Can I come visit?”