remotely romantic going on between us.’
‘That must have made him happy.’ He glared at his tiles.
‘He doesn’t care one way or the other.’ I sighed. ‘Come on, Connor. Are you going to make your move or not?’
Connor looked up from his tiles and met my eyes. The blush was still on his face. For a split second, I tried to imagine how I would feel about him if I didn’t know him so well. He was attractive in a beach bum kind of way – wavy blond hair, smattering of freckles on lightly tanned skin, clear blue eyes – and maybe if he wasn’t so familiar I would have liked him that way. The problem was that I knew Connor. Not just as the good-looking boy in front of me. I knew him as the little boy who had once had an obsessive interest in
‘Eden,’ he said. He opened his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off.
‘I’m going to go and wash my hands before I eat any of that shortbread. If you haven’t made your move on the board before I get back, you’ll have to forfeit your turn.’
I dashed down the stairs and into the tiny bathroom at the back of the kitchen. After bolting the door shut, I filled the basin with cold water and splashed my face. Connor and I were friends. We played Scrabble together. We prepared for our exams together and sometimes went to the cinema. There had never been the hint of anything more from either of us and I probably wouldn’t even be considering it if Ryan hadn’t put the idea in my head.
Ryan hardly knew either of us. I had allowed my imagination to run away with me. Connor wasn’t going to say something embarrassing or try to kiss me. Smiling at my own paranoia, I unlocked the door and headed back up the stairs.
Chapter 5
The bus for the Eden Project was already waiting by the time I got to the school gate. A group of shivering students was milling around and Mrs Link was ticking names on a register. I couldn’t help noticing Chloe Mason was, despite the rain and cold, dressed in very short shorts and a flesh-baring crop top. Her navel was pierced with a fake diamond on a long silver pin.
‘Here he comes,’ I heard Chloe say to her friend.
Ryan was strolling down through the yard towards us. He seemed utterly unselfconscious in a way that I knew I would never be.
‘Wait up, Picasso!’ Ryan called.
He walked straight past Chloe and her entourage and up to me, a huge smile spread across his face.
‘Picasso?’ I said. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s unkind to poke fun at people’s weaknesses?’
‘Picasso drew strange-looking people,’ he said, shrugging.
‘Picasso meant them to look strange.’
He put his arm around my shoulder, sending tingles down my spine. ‘I can’t wait to see how you draw plants,’ he whispered in my ear.
We took a seat towards the back of the bus. As the rest of the art students ambled on the bus and found their seats, several clocked Ryan and me sitting together and I picked up snippets of gossip about the two of us arriving and leaving Amy’s party together.
‘So what weaknesses do you have?’ I asked. ‘You know mine.’
‘None,’ he said, grinning.
‘Everyone has weaknesses.’
He sighed dramatically. ‘Beautiful girls. That’s my weakness.’
‘Well, you seem to be resisting, from what I’ve heard.’
‘Have you been talking about me?’ He smiled at me in a way that made my heart jump.
Predictably, Chloe Mason and her friend Melissa took the seat in front of us. As the bus pulled away, Chloe turned around and stuck her face between the two seat backs.
‘Hey, Ryan,’ she purred. ‘How was your first week at Perran?’
‘Educational,’ he said with a smile.
Chloe frowned, clearly unsure whether he was being sarcastic. ‘I know the Eden Project really well,’ she said. ‘Melissa and I go ice-skating there in the winter and there’s live music in the summer. I could show you around.’
‘That’s nice of you, Chloe,’ Ryan said, ‘but I already have a tour guide.’
Chloe gave me a quick look. ‘Eden won’t mind if you come with us, will you, Eden?’ She didn’t wait for me to respond. ‘You can spend the day with anyone you want; you don’t have to stick to your art partner.’
‘But I want to spend the day with Eden.’
Her smile dropped and she flicked her eyes from Ryan to me and back again. ‘Are you two going out?’
‘No,’ I said quickly.
She pouted at Ryan. ‘If you change your mind, come and find me.’
She turned back to Melissa, leaving Ryan and me alone again.
‘She’s scary,’ Ryan whispered in my ear, close enough that I could smell his warm skin and the odd combination of lemons and metal. ‘Why is her skin so orange? Does she have jaundice?’
‘That’s her make-up,’ I whispered back. ‘And fake tan.’
‘She made it look like that deliberately?’
I nodded.
The bus reached the A30 and picked up speed. Through the windows, green fields and thick grey drizzle sped by in a blur.
‘How was your study session with Connor?’ Ryan asked.
‘It would have been much better if you hadn’t said all those things about Connor liking me. Every time he said something I kept wondering if there was some double meaning.’
Ryan laughed softly. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’
‘But he does like you and he will ask you out.’
I let it go.
We arrived at the Eden Project just after ten. Mrs Link gave us our pads and assignments for the day and told us to be back at the bus for two o’clock.
‘Do you want to eat or drink or go straight to the biomes?’ I asked.
‘The biomes,’ he replied immediately.
‘Which one do you want to visit? We have a choice of the Mediterranean or the tropical. I like the tropical dome because it’s exotic and warm.’
‘Show me the way.’
We strolled through the cafe to the tropical biome. Immediately we were hit with the thick humidity and the rich smell of damp soil.
Ryan shut his eyes and breathed in deeply. ‘Whoa! This place smells amazing!’
I laughed.
He walked ahead of me, up the path, through the lush green foliage and sultry air.
‘Look at that.’ He’d stopped in front of a large plant with thick shiny leaves. He rubbed one of the leaves between his fingers. ‘It’s so glossy.’
‘You’re really into plants, aren’t you?’
He tilted his head towards the roof of the biome. ‘Is that a waterfall up there?’
Without waiting, he strode ahead, along the path that twisted through the steamy jungle up to the canopy- level at the top. I caught up with him by the waterfall which crashed down from the summit of the biome.
‘Let’s start here.’ He pointed to a large-leafed plant. ‘We can sketch this and let the waterfall cool us
