Chapter 65

“We need to start decorating sometime soon” I remind my Dad. It’s the first day of December and I’ve only just realised how close it is to Christmas.

“I didn’t think you were into that type of stuff anymore” Dad laughs and I gasp.

“How can you be too old to decorate?” I frown.

“Well why don’t we get a tree and stuff today? We’ve had the other decorations for years now, we need to replace them”

“Yeah ok!” I nod excitedly. I’m already making a mental list of things we need.

“Be ready for two o’clock then” he nods at the clock. An hour and a half to go and I’m still in my pyjamas. My weekend hasn’t been that exciting so far. I jump out of my seat and run upstairs to my room to get ready. “And make a list!” Dad shouts. Instead of replying, I continue to get ready to go out. I tie my hair up in a high pony tail and put on a little bit of concealer and mascara. We’re only going to the shop...

I change out of my owl pyjamas and put on some high waisted skinny jeans and a plain white oversized t-shirt. I’m so fashionable.

I sit at my desk and start making a little list of things we’ll need. I get a bit carried away and before I know it, my Dad’s calling me downstairs to go out.

I jump in the passenger seat of the car and show him the list I’ve made before we set off.

“We’re going to be poor after buying all this” he jokes.

“We’ll be fine” I shrug and he rolls his eyes, pulling out of the driveway.

“So has your Mum told you about Eleanor yet?” he asks.

“She’s been texting me saying they’re planning on coming down for a bit but it’s nothing serious yet” I shrug. I’d literally do anything to spend my Christmas with Eleanor this year. I hate being an only child on Christmas, it’s so boring. Eleanor’s an only child too so when I lived in Cheshire, we used to go round to each other’s houses for a few hours on Christmas because our parents are really close. It probably helped that we lived next door to each other too.

“Yeah well your Mum was on the phone to Lauren last night and I think they’re definitely coming over for the whole holiday” he nods, keeping his attention on the road. My mouth drops open as I stare at him with wide eyes.

“Are you being serious?” I gasp and he nods. “Oh my god” I say slowly and he laughs.

“Don’t get your hopes up, I might be wrong. Ask your Mum when we’re home”

“Ok” I squeal. We arrive at the Christmas store and I practically run straight inside. After buying baubles, tinsel, lights, loads of wrapping paper, house decorations and a singing Santa toy that Dad finds seriously irritating, we make our way bag to the car to drop off all our bags.

When the car’s packed, we go to the garden of the store and spend about half an hour finding a perfect Christmas tree of my choice. I also persuade my Dad into buying a Christmas train track thing that will probably get no use.

We arrive home and I help carry the huge Christmas tree inside. It’s massive and makes me wonder how it’s actually fit in the house.

“Oh my god” Mum gasps as she walks into the living room.

“Nice isn’t it?” I smile proudly at it.

“It’s big!” she laughs and I nod. After carrying everything we bought inside the house, we start to put up all the decorations around the house. My room has a small, fake tree in it that lights up and has fairy lights around the room. I also have some Christmas pillows on my bed too. And big candles that smell of... Christmas?

It gets to 6pm and Mum forces me to give the decorating a rest and actually eat my tea.

“So what’s this about Eleanor coming over?” I say casually.

“Oh yeah! I’m surprised she hasn’t texted you” she raises her eyebrow and I shrug. I got a bit carried away with going shopping that I haven’t been on my phone all day... “She’s coming round when you break up from school and is staying the whole holiday I think”

“No way!” I gasp and she nods.

“We’ve done it every year so we’re not going to let a bit of distance stop us from doing it this year” she smiles. Mum, you are a legend. I start squealing and smiling to myself like an idiot. I need to get my phone and call her up about this. I’m way too excited.

I finish my pizza and run upstairs to get my phone. Wow. I have 3 missed calls from Conor, 10 from Eleanor and loads of texts from the rest of the group. I should be ringing Eleanor first but I find myself calling Conor back.

“Hello?” he answers dully.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Oh hey! Where have you been all day?” his mood lightens a bit.

“I went to get Christmas decorations with my Dad”

“Oh right. Are you busy then?”

“Not really. I’m going to decorate the tree” I shrug, sitting down on my bed.

“Cool” he mumbles. He’s just saying that to please me. I can tell he’s mad about something.

“What’s wrong?” I frown.

“Nothing” he lets out a big sigh.

“How about you come over now?”

“Yeah, sure”

“You don’t have to. I’m just offering” I say, not wanting him to come over just because I want him to.

“No, I want to” he laughs. “I’ll see you in five minutes or something”

“Ok, see you”

“Bye” he ends the call. What’s up with him today?

I run downstairs and tell my parents about Conor coming over now.

“Lucy, the house is a tip because of your decorations. No one’s coming round until it’s clean” she frowns but the doorbell interrupts me from even thinking of how to reply to her. I smirk slightly before running off to answer it, only to see Conor at my door.

“Hey!” I smile, giving him a hug.

“Hey” he laughs. “Wow, what happened in here?” he gasps, looking around the hallway.

“I decorated” I pout.

“Looks good” he lies.

“It’s not finished yet” I pout and he nudges me slightly. It will look nice when I’ve cleared everything off the floor...

“I could do better” he shrugs.

“Alright then, you can help me”

“What? No, I was joking” he forces a laugh.

“Tough” I push him into the living room. My Dad’s sat watching some driving show on TV and my Mum’s on the laptop.

“Hi Conor, you alright?” Mum smiles at him.

“I’m good thank you, how are you?” he smiles.

“I’m good” she nods.

“Hi Conor” Dad nods at him.

“Hello” Conor does the same.

“Dad, where are all the tree decorations?” I ask.

“In the office” he tells me. I nip into the office room and get out the box of all the decorations we bought.

“Fuck, there’s loads” Conor gasps.

“We are decorating a tree, Conor” I laugh. “It’ll take like, ten minutes. You’ll love it”

He rolls his eyes and walks back into the living room. We start by wrapping the tinsel and lights around the tree which Conor found really amusing. He wrapped more around my head than he did on the tree.

“Now baubles” I point to the box full of multicoloured baubles.

“Oh my god” he moans. “It looks fine like that”

“No, it looks boring”

“I don’t see the point in Christmas tree’s” he says while putting on a bauble.

“You put presents under them, they put you in a Christmas spirit and they make your house smell like Christmas” I explain, counting my fingers.

“How can something smell like Christmas?” he frowns.

“I don’t know, it just does” I shrug.

“What does Christmas smell like then?”

“Like a tree. Smell it” I nod at the tree and he frowns before leaning in and smelling it.

“That’s disgusting” he pulls a face and I gasp. “Look at the mess they make on the floor!” he points to the floor with loads of needles from the tree covering it.

“Well aren’t you a little Scrooge” I roll my eyes and he laughs.

“I prefer the holiday we get rather than actual Christmas”

“So you don’t enjoy opening everything you could possibly ask for in a day? And all the food you eat and shit?” I frown.

“Yeah, I do but I get more excited about having three weeks off school. I kind of forget it’s Christmas” he shrugs.

“But when you’re walking past decorated houses and walking through town when it’s decorated, and decorating this tree, does it not make you feel Christmassy?”

“A little bit” he shrugs and I start smiling.

“I’m going to make you like it this year” I nod, tying a red polka dot bauble around a branch.

“You can try” he shrugs.

I gasp, “Guess what?”

“What?”

“Eleanor’s coming round for Christmas!” I squeal and his eyes go wide.

“Really!?”

“Yeah!”

“We’ll have to get Alex round” he winks and I gasp.

“I didn’t even think of that, oh my god” I laugh and he does the same.

We finally finish decorating the tree and cleaning up all the rubbish I left around the house, which Conor actually liked helping out with, and we go upstairs into my room. I quickly call Eleanor and we practically scream down the phone to each other about how excited we are about Christmas, while Conor just stares at me and gives me dirty looks...

-

The following Monday, I start to make my way into my IT class. I love IT. I sit next to Lois and Leila – the only people I know in this class – which is always a laugh. This lesson is always a doss.

The teacher starts handing out a sheet of paper giving us instructions of a new project we have. I fucking hate these projects. They take so much time and you always get paired up with your worst enemy.

“So be having a read through what I just gave you. You’ll be paired up with the people sat mirrored to you” Sir explains.

I sit third into the row so I look at the opposite side of the room and look 3 seats in to see some guy I don’t even recognise. I don’t pay that much attention to my classmates except people I actually know. He looks pretty hot though, not gonna lie. He has dark brown hair in a quiff and is pretty tall. He has chocolate brown eyes and the smirk he’s looking at me with right now is highly distracting.

“Who’s that?” I whisper to Lois, nodding at the opposite side of the room.

“Fuck, you’re paired with James” she gasps.

“Who?”

“James Sampson. He’s fucking gorgeous” she practically drools and I start laughing. “You’re well lucky, I’m paired with that twat”

I look over to the opposite side of the room and see a small boy with really curly hair. He looks like the type of person that get’s bullied... He’s sat awkwardly biting his nails as he flashes a small smile at me. I politely smile widely back at him and he quickly looks away.

“He’s not that bad” I roll my eyes at Lois.

“Let’s swap then” she gasps.

My eyes practically bulge out of my head, “I’m fine, thanks”

“Okay so when you’re ready, sit with your partner and discuss what you’re going to do. This project should take no longer than two weeks” the teacher explains, sitting down at his desk and typing stuff into his laptop.

Before I can even look at James, he’s already pulled a chair up towards me and is sat there grinning at me. Erm...

“Hi, I’m James” he smirks, holding out his hand. I smile politely and shake it.

“I’m Lu-“

“Lucy, I know” he interrupts me.

“What?” I frown.

“You’re Lucy” he nods. I just shake it off. “So what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know” I shrug. “I haven’t read the sheet yet”

He chuckles, “We basically have to design a shop that would need internet connection. Like a library or something but it has to look appealing so we get customers”

“Right” I nod. “How about a cafe? Where people can go on the internet while having a coffee”

“That’s actually a pretty good idea” he nods. “So shall we start doing the basics to this?”

“Yeah, ok” I nod. We start writing out the prices to how much the internet will cost, and what type of network we’ll use and everything. He keeps joking around with me while we do this so it isn’t too boring. I was expecting this whole thing to be awkward but he’s actually alright. He’s a great laugh.

“Right, everyone start packing up now. We’ll continue the course next lesson. Keep in mind that we only have four lessons left of this” the teacher announces. I stand up and start packing everything I got out this lesson back into my bag.

-

I make my way to my second IT lesson being paired with James. I don’t know why but I’m really excited. I love this lesson with him.

I haven’t told Conor about any of this because he knows me too well. He’ll notice that I like being paired up with James and he’ll flip. It’s best if he doesn’t know. We’ll only be paired together for 3 more lessons anyway.

I take my seat at the back of the class next to James and we immediately start getting on with the course. We spend an entire lesson designing our cafe on a website, putting loads of computers in it and planning some other stuff I didn’t understand. I trust James in knowing what he’s doing.

“So I was thinking, how about we get on with some extra work outside of class?” he asks.

“What like, during lunch?” I raise an eyebrow and he chuckles lightly.

“No, at home. We could maybe, meet up?” he smirks, looking down at my lips. If he is trying to seduce me, it isn’t working.

“I don’t know” I trail off, looking away from him.

“Why?” he snaps.

“I have a boyfriend” I tell him and instantly regret it. I’m probably taking his offer the wrong way here.

He shakes his head, “I don’t mean it light that! I know you’re Conor’s girlfriend, I wouldn’t do that no matter how much I wanted to”

“What?” I gasp.

“I’m not going to lie to you Lucy but your boyfriend’s an absolute twat, as well as his brother” he laughs falsely.

“What’s he ever done to you?” I frown.

“We’ve been in fights before” he shrugs and I nod slightly, still pissed off at what he’s just called my boyfriend. I wonder why they have fought before... “So are you up for it? I’m just trying to get us a good grade”

“Yeah, ok” I nod. What’s the worst that could happen? He starts doing that creepy smirk again and it’s making me double think about why I agreed to meeting up with him outside of school. I used to find it attractive but now it just creeps me out.

“Great, so come to mine tomorrow?”

“A Friday night?” I moan.

“Unless you have any other plans?”

“Nope, tomorrow’s fine” I shake my head, not wanting to let him down. Conor’s going to kill me... He doesn’t need to know.

“Great!” he smiles, a genuine smile. “Give me your number and I’ll text you the address tomorrow”

After exchanging numbers, I leave the classroom without mentioning a word to anyone about mine and James’s plans. I don’t want anyone knowing that I’m going to his to do an IT project. They word will get to Conor and then all hell will break loose. James seems alright though so it’s fine, although I somehow feel guilty about not telling Conor about any of this...