‘Anyway, I think I might have left it too late to get good grades.’
‘You’re fifteen,’ Jack said. ‘It’s not too late to turn things around. You just need to focus.’
After dinner Nina thanked him for coming over and though she did it nicely it was clear she was asking him to leave.
‘I’ll be off, then. Oh, and, Nina …’ he gave her a smile ‘… you do remember that you agreed to go to the dinner dance tomorrow for the burns unit …?’
‘I didn’t agree,’ Nina said.
‘Well, it’s a bit too late to back out now—I’ve put your name down, bought the tickets …’ Annoyingly he smiled. ‘It’s for a very good cause.’
‘I can babysit,’ Janey chimed in, before Nina could use that as an excuse, but she shook her head.
‘I’m not going out your first Saturday night here and leaving you to babysit.’
‘Why not?’ Jack asked, and she wished he would just butt out. She could hardly stand here and say that she didn’t know if she trusted Janey, but she had no choice but to agree, making it clear that she’d rather he went home now.
‘I’ll pick you up at seven,’ Jack said, and then said goodbye to Blake and Janey.
‘You were mean,’ Blake said accusingly.
‘I wasn’t mean,’ Nina said, but it was said rather forcibly to override her disquiet, because Jack had seemed to genuinely want to be there and yet again it had been a good evening.
‘That’s how I used to feel,’ Blake said when she went in later to kiss him goodnight.
‘When?’
‘At Dianne’s. I always felt that she just wanted to get back to her family.’
‘It’s not like that with Jack.’ Nina did her best to explain what she didn’t herself understand. ‘Jack’s a very good friend.’
‘He’s more than your friend.’
‘Yes,’ Nina said carefully.
‘So why were you mean to him?’
‘I wasn’t mean. The thing is, Jack comes from a very well-to-do family, he’s a very …’ She stopped because it was impossible to explain.
‘You said things like that don’t matter.’
‘They don’t.’ Nina blew out a breath. How could she tell Blake that Jack couldn’t possibly be ready for this ready-made family? That really, as fun as the time had been that they’d had together, it would be marked in days, weeks at best.
There was not just one but three hearts that could be very easily broken here if she wasn’t careful.
‘Let’s just worry about us for now.’ She gave him a kiss goodnight.
‘What are you wearing for the dinner?’ Janey asked when Nina came out from saying goodnight to Blake.
‘I’m not sure yet.’
‘Are you going to buy something?’
Nina shook her head. She was already worrying enough about dropping her hours, without buying a new dress, and anyway nothing she could afford could even begin to match the lavish women that would be there.
No, things like that shouldn’t matter, but it was going to be an embarrassing way to prove a point.
‘There’s a nice retro store I know. They have some top-end stuff,’ Janey suggested. ‘We could go shopping tomorrow.’
And it was the most normal suggestion Janey had made, just two sisters going shopping, and of course Blake would come along too but, yes, the thought of having some quality time with Janey and possibly finding a dress that wasn’t going to make her stand out like a sore thumb worked on so many levels that less than twelve hours later Nina found herself being bullied to try on dresses that were absolutely not her style.
‘It’s nice,’ Nina said, because it was the best of the bunch, ‘but …’ She turned around in the mirror and wasn’t quite so sure. It was a chocolate-brown dress that looked great from the front but from the back showed rather too much of her spine. She thought of the glossed and buffed women who would be attending, women who would have spent ages in preparation, and suddenly Nina felt more than a little nervous. She had no interest in competing with them, but at the same time she didn’t want to embarrass Jack.
‘You’ve got shoes that will go with it,’ Janey reminded her. ‘And I’m also starving.’
‘So am I,’ Blake said, thoroughly bored by the whole shopping expedition. ‘When can we go home?’
‘Okay, okay,’ Nina said, but pleased with her purchase she was actually glad Janey had suggested that they come here, and once home and eating lunch she told her so.
‘I enjoyed it,’ Janey admitted, and then looked at the clock. ‘You’d better start getting ready.’
‘He’s not picking me up till six.’ It had been seven p.m. that Jack was to pick her up but he’d texted that morning with a last-minute change of plans. They were going to stop by and have drinks at his parents’ house and then go to the dinner from there. The thought of meeting his parents was more daunting than what would follow.
‘Which gives you four hours,’ Janey pointed out. ‘You’ve no idea, have you?’ Janey just stared at her older sister. ‘Some of these women will have spent days preparing for this.’
‘Okay, okay.’
‘And you’re going to his posh parents’ house—you’ll have to look nice for that too.’ Janey actually laughed. ‘I can’t believe he’s taking you to meet his family.’
‘It’s nothing like that.’ Oh, she knew better than to read anything into it. The Carters were sociable people and no doubt wanted to briefly meet her before they shared an evening at the same table but, still, it was for that reason that she allowed Janey to paint her finger and toenails and let her do her hair.
‘I don’t want it straightened,’ Nina said as Janey plugged her equipment in.
‘I’m not going to straighten it.’ Janey rolled her eyes at her very out-of-date older sister. ‘I’m going to give you curls.’
Which she did.
Over and over she pulled the straighteners and it was nice to sit in the bedroom as Janey got to work and just chat, to find out that this was the sort of thing Janey liked to get up to with her friends, just spend the evening doing hair and nails and things; that beneath that scowling expression and black eyeliner was actually a very young, very nice young girl. It made her heart thump in her chest to think of what might have happened if Jack hadn’t handled things so well.
‘You should have a few friends over one night,’ Nina suggested as Janey got to work on her make-up.
‘So you can interrogate
