Distracted By You: Book 1 in The Exeter Running Girls Series, стр. 19

“She’s lovely, blunt too,” I smiled, looking down and thinking of how much she could make me laugh. “She’s a little down in the dumps at the moment though.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you,” I looked back up with a shake of my heard.

“Gossip?” The idea lit up his face with humour. “Guys are never told secrets. We miss out on all the good stories. Can’t you just tell me this one?”

“I could tell you a little of it…” I felt myself capitulating, he was too persuasive sat here in my room emanating good looks, and suddenly good humour too. At my words, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees expectantly. “Cara has a crush on a guy she met last term. Someone you know of, I think. She only told me. Two weeks’ later, he had been added to Leonora’s collection.” I waved in the air, emphasising the word collection.

“Collection? Is that how it sounds?”

“Pretty much. Ellie was trying to make you part of hers.”

“Ergh,” he faked a shiver. “No thanks. Ouch, poor Cara. That can’t have been easy to watch,” he sat back and winced. “Can’t imagine what it would be like to see the girl I wanted sleeping with someone else.”

“Most of the time she’s fine. Some days, well, you can see she’s in pain, even when she pretends that she’s not.”

“Am I allowed to have a guess at who the guy is?” He asked with a mischievous glint.

“Nope,” I popped the ‘p’. “That would be revealing too much.”

He laughed again, his voice rumbling deeply through the room.

“Is this your family?” He stood and walked towards the bed where I sat, pointing with the beer at the notice board covered in pictures tacked behind my head.

“Yep,” I swallowed, loudly. So many pictures that told me hundreds of stories. More than one picture held the fake smiles of mum and dad, taken moments after arguments. Others…

“Who’s this?” Tye kicked off his shoes and knelt on the bed beside me to see the picture better. He pointed at one of the pictures as I mimicked his position to see which image he was gesturing to. My heart sank at which one he had chosen.

“My sister,” I tried to smile, but it didn’t work. It was a photo taken eight years ago when I was ten and she was fourteen. “Rosie.” We were at the beach, somewhere in Northumberland on holiday, running up and down the sand in the strong wind. Even though you couldn’t see it in the picture, I knew Rosie had been wearing her ladybug backpack that day.

“Cute picture,” Tye smiled, his lips quirking in humour. “I particularly like the Winnie the Pooh t-shirt.” He pointed at the small ten-year-old me. If I had thought it through, I would have taken the pictures down – both to prevent my embarrassing fashion choices as a child and the question I feared was coming next. Please don’t ask. Please don’t ask. “Where is she now?”

God damnit, he asked. Apparently my mind control skills are still imaginary.

I paused, letting the silence draw out between us as I struggled with what to say. I don’t think a literal answer would have been the right way to go. It would have also been a little too morbid to drop into the conversation.

I was tempted to move away from the bed, stand up and walk away from Tye. Yet at the thought of Rosie, my legs had turned to stone.

“She’s…” I bit my lip.

Tye looked at me with a question in his cocoa eyes.

“She’s… no longer with us.” I hastily drank some cider, needing something to douse the sudden dryness in my throat. “That’s what they say isn’t it? When someone dies.” I was relieved my voice sounded more comfortable than I felt.

Tye’s face fell, the eyes closing, a silent swear falling from his mouth.

“Ivy, I’m so –”

“It’s okay. It’s a lot easier now than it was.” I had been in a good place for such a long time, then my parents announced the divorce.

“How long ago?”

“Six years.” Please don’t ask me how it happened.

“Oh shit. That’s the second time I’ve put my foot in my mouth this evening.” He sat back down on the bed, leaning his back against the wall the bed was pushed against.

“It’s alright,” I worked to release the tension from my body as I sat back, facing Tye. He quirked his eyebrow, disbelieving. “Honestly, it is.” I breathed out, imagining all my tensions leaving my body with it. “If it helps, I think I missed the first time you put your foot in your mouth.”

He laughed, still not believing me.

“Oh? And Mr Rude wasn’t bad?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t bad, just not putting your foot in your mouth. Take a look at the Mr Men book, you did look surprisingly like him.” I made a show of my eyes wandering over him, as if amazed at the similarities. Well, Tye was actually all tall and lean, nothing like the round red blob. Stop ogling.

“Thanks, princess. Let’s pick a new topic.”

A few hours later, we had covered a fair many topics in detail, including my Maths degree which I had chosen with no idea what to do when university finished. Tye was doing Engineering, but his first year had not gone well. Contrary to gossip, that was why he was dropping into so many different modules this year, including my Mechanics module, to retake some exams.

He shared a flat with Sam in the city centre, though Savannah was there so much it felt like he had two roommates. He also had no idea what he wanted to do after uni. His dad was pressuring him to go into his car dealership, alongside his older brother. This went someway to explaining Tye’s