‘This Paul. How young is he exactly?’ I asked, worried that if he was her ‘little’ cousin he might not have a licence. Or insurance. Some habits are hard to break, and being sensible hadn’t entirely been flushed out of my system.
‘He’s old enough, Linz,’ she reassured me. ‘Eighteen. Just three years younger than us.’
We walked out of her mum’s front door towards a blue sports car waiting for us. I was trying to keep an open mind, but there was a skinny blond lad resting himself against the driver’s door, smoking. I hated smoking. Absolutely hated it. ‘All right girls?’ he said as we walked over, casually flicking his fag butt away and breathing smoke in our faces.
‘This is my mate, Lindsey,’ said Nicky as we climbed in. Looking back, maybe there should have been a bolt of lightning or a peal of thunder. My future was starting there, that rainy night in Leeds. The reality was that I barely batted an eyelid. I just got in the back, and said ‘Hiya’.
As we drove off, I noticed him having a sly look at me in his rear-view mirror. Actually, when I looked back at him I realized that he was quite good-looking. We caught each other’s eyes in the mirror, noticed each other having a sly look, and he gave me a cheeky smile. I flushed a bit with embarrassment and looked out of the window.
‘So, Lindsey,’ he said – and at that moment I swear I could hear him smiling – ‘Nicky tells me you’re in beauty as well?’ ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I told him. ‘What is it you do for a living?’ He said he was a snooker player. What a ridiculous answer! ‘Snooker?’ I said to him. ‘That’s not a job, that’s a hobby!’ Actually, I knew already what he did as Nicky had told me, but I didn’t want him to think I was bowled over by meeting him – her family all thought he was the bee’s knees, but there was something about his cheeky confidence that made me want him to work a bit harder to impress me. He wasn’t really on my radar, he’d barely registered, and I certainly didn’t want to come across like an adoring fan. I didn’t know anything about snooker anyway, and he seemed too young, too full of himself, too daft if he thought that hitting little balls into pockets with a stick was a real job. I had to stop myself giving him a lecture about setting up a pension early, but as I looked at him in the mirror again I saw that he was still smiling. He gave me a wink, a shrug, and got back to concentrating on the road – after he’d copped another look.
Paul dropped us off at the door of a new club that had just opened and went to park his car. It was loud and hot when we went in, but Nicky immediately spotted the rest of her crew and we went over to sit with them. We got some drinks and had a quick dance, and by the time we got back to the table, Paul was there. ‘Lindsey!’ he called, jokingly, ‘I’ve missed you being so nice to me! Now I’m back, how about you give me a smile?’ An 18-year-old like Paul Hunter just seemed like a kid to me, but I couldn’t help but notice how attractive he was – for a kid.
My ex-boyfriend Dave was about my age, and I’d already decided that my next boyfriend would be older, very sensible, and probably somebody I could settle down with permanently. I wanted a stable relationship because that was what I’d grown up with. Although I enjoyed my nights out with Nicky – enjoyed them a lot – I still thought I’d be happiest sitting on the sofa, eating crisps and watching Saturday night telly. I wanted a boyfriend who would just as happily sit beside me rather than want to go out clubbing.
I had a great time that night. Nicky and I – and everyone else – got completely drunk and I almost forgot that I was dressed in a see-through top. I only remembered every time I caught Paul looking at me. Let him, I thought. He was just a lad, and he was the cousin of my best friend.
I left the club before him. Later that night, back home, I was a bit surprised when I found myself thinking about him. His smile kept popping into my head, and I realized that I was smiling myself when I pictured it.
I told myself it was the drink, tried not to worry about whether he’d driven himself home after all the vodka he’d packed away, and turned off my light.
My first night with Paul Hunter – and I hadn’t a clue where it would all lead …
Nicky and I kept in touch. We’d pop in to see each other at the salons where we worked, and we spoke on the phone most nights and went round to each other’s houses quite often. She was soon planning another big night out, about a fortnight after the last one. This time there was a minibus organized to take a load of us to a club in Leeds and, despite myself, when Nicky said Paul would be there, I was looking forward to seeing him again. Nicky had told me that he often popped into her house as he was so close to her and her family, but so far he hadn’t turned up when I was there. I hadn’t seen him again since the night he had given us a lift into town. I didn’t want to ask about him, as I wouldn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I was a bit intrigued by him. Anyway, that didn’t matter since my plan was to find Mr Sensible, wherever he might be, and Paul obviously wasn’t him.
That night, I gave a bit of thought to how I was dressed. I put on quite a short skirt and a low-cut top. I’d given myself a facial and a manicure, and had taken care with my make-up. Of course, I didn’t consciously do all this for Paul – it just so happened that this was a night when I felt I was looking good.
The minibus turned up at my house and Nicky bounded down the aisle to greet me as I stepped on. As she hugged me in her usual open way, I spotted Paul out of the corner of my eye sitting in an aisle seat. He nodded to me, with a smile on his face as usual, and I gave him a little smile back. It was only when I passed him to get to my seat beside Nicky that I noticed he wasn’t alone. There was a dark-haired girl attached to him and, by the way she clung to his arm, they were obviously an item. It didn’t stop Paul saying, ‘All right, Lindsey?’ as I went by. When I said I was fine, he added, ‘Looking good, looking good!’ It was dark so no one could see me blushing a bit, but I did notice that the girl beside him flashed me a look. Not a very friendly one at that.
‘Who’s that with your little cousin?’ I asked Nicky once I’d sat down, trying to be as casual as possible.
‘That’s Gemma,’ she whispered.
‘Girlfriend?’ I replied, in what I hoped was an offhand manner.
‘Yeah,’ she said, but after a bit of a pause.
I felt that I was on fairly safe ground here if I wanted to ask more questions. This was the sort of thing that came under the topic of us two just having a good old gossip. ‘What’s the story, then?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ said Nicky, getting warmed up straight away, ‘they’ve been together since school, really. She’s a lovely girl, but they argue all the time. They often fall out before Paul goes away to tournaments and by the time he gets back, they’ve forgotten what they’ve argued about and get all loved up again. Paul’s been around a bit but they always end up back together.’
‘She’s very pretty,’ I said, and a voice in the back of my mind told me that if they’d been going out together since school, that wasn’t very long as they were still just kids now.
‘Isn’t she?’ answered Nicky, before going off onto another topic. I could hear her talking but, to my surprise, found that my mind had wandered back to the girl sitting beside Paul. She was kneeling on her seat, talking to someone behind her, and I could see that she really was pretty, with long hair and big brown eyes. She and Paul looked good together.
When we got to the club in town, everyone piled out of the minibus, paid their admission money, and went inside. As usual, Nicky and her friends made themselves at home by pulling lots of tables together and we all settled down in one place. There were long, velour couches against the back wall, with