Beads, Boys and Bangles by Sophia Bennett

when the barman eventually passes me a smoothie. I look at it through my droopy fake eyelashes, confused. The barman grins. ‘Your brother was round earlier. He told me how old you are. And that this is your second favourite drink.’
    ‘Did he tell you how much I loathe every millimetre of him?’
    ‘Yup,’ the barman says, still smiling. ‘He did.’
    ‘Cheers,’ says Alexander, clinking his glass against mine. ‘So. Tell me about school.’
    This quite simply has to be The Worst Date In History. I’m wondering whether to just leave my smoothie andfind my taxi money and go. But luckily Alexander sees the look on my face and leans forward and brushes a lock of hair away from my face.
    ‘Only joking, Boots,’ he says, a bit huskily. ‘I missed you. Tell me all about you .’
    The next hour is nice. We sit and talk. He tells me about performing in Cuba and helping young kids from the streets who might become future stars. I tell him about Crow’s new party dresses and the agonies I went through choosing these shoes (although not the agonies I’m going through now, wearing them). I watch his long fingers playing with the rim of his glass. His sky-blue silk shirt tucked into designer jeans. His blond hair curling slightly over his collar.
    Then we hear the thump thump thump of Harry’s music and go through to a room where you can hardly move for dancing bodies, grooving the night away. Alexander miraculously finds an empty spot and whirls me around, making me look like I’m some sort of trained dancer myself.
    Even in this confined space, he is the best possible dance partner. Totally concentrated, totally cool, totally brilliant at thinking of the perfect move at the perfect time, whisking me out of the way just in time to avoid being whacked by a stray limb from some other dancer who’s not quite so together.
    I completely lose track of how long we dance for. I even forget that I’m wearing impossible shoes and insevere danger of breaking an ankle every time I move. It’s impossible to talk, because the music’s so loud, which means I don’t even have to think of any intelligent conversation. So I’m a bit disappointed when eventually Alexander nods his head towards the seating area at the back of the room.
    I hadn’t really noticed it before. Lots of dark velvet armchairs around low tables with little candles on. Lots of couples sitting around, chatting and . . . snuggling. Etc.
    Quite a lot of etc., actually.
    Alexander finds one empty armchair and guides me towards it. But where’s he going to sit?
    Oh. He flings himself into the armchair in front of me and deftly sits me on his knee, so our faces are level. Then he puts one of his beautiful, long-fingered hands on my thigh. I look at his angular cheekbones. Even in this low light, I can see little beads of sweat forming on his upper lip.
    So there he is, looking at my face. And I’m looking at his. And getting quite obsessed with the little beads of sweat. I get the sense that his upper lip is going to be moving closer to me any time now, so I’ll get to see them from even more close up. I try to find them sexy.
    I don’t.
    My insides are impossibly confused. They’re doing a major finale now, full of arabesques and grand jetés and multiple pirouettes. But they’re also seriously wishing that the upper lip would stay where it is andnot come any closer to mine.
    It does, though.
    At the last moment, I drag my eyes away from it. Alexander kisses me properly. And guess what, the sweat rubs off his upper lip onto mine. NO NO NO NO NO.
    The kiss itself is OK. So-so. I’ve had better practising on the back of my hand, to be honest. And certainly with a French exchange boy last year, and that was in a Eurostar duty-free shop and lasted about three seconds.
    By now, Alexander has started poking the tip of his tongue between my teeth. I can’t help myself. I clamp them shut. YUK! I’m not up for the whole tongue-in-mouth-kissing-in-public