Alison

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Sheepishly Tomas removed his hand from inside Alison’s shirt, a smile crossing his lips as he saw the light of the bonfire on top of Bunny Hill, reflected in her eyes. “I’m sorry I just thought. We were. Well! You know?”

“What?” As the flames flickered Tomas could see just enough to know he had made a mistake in letting his hands wander. “Just because we were kissing you thought you had the right to feel me up?”

“No! I mean, well it was getting pretty heated and . . .”

“And what? You thought that gave you the right to slip your hand up my blouse?”

“Well yeah!”

“Why?”

“Well because, I don’t know. You did it with Ian!” Even before the words left his mouth Tomas knew he had said the wrong thing. And watching Alison storm to her feet he wished not for the first time in his life, he’d kept his big mouth shut.

Pulling on her jacket, which even with his limited experience of girls, Tomas knew was now closed for business. Alison glared at him, “do you want to know what really happened between me and Ian?” She asked, “NOTHING!”

Not knowing what to say Tomas stayed where he was looking up at Alison, who after her outburst of anger, now strangely had tears running down her cheek. “Something might have happened between us,” she confided “but he ran away before it did. He made some lame excuse about not being ready and then he stopped calling me.”

Tomas felt like smiling as he thought back to the bravado with which his best friend had described his secret liaisons with the girl stood next to him but seeing the tears on Alison’s cheek wiped the smile from his face. Then in a moment of enlightenment he understood why she was crying and what the tears were for. “I’m sorry,” he told her, “I can leave you if you want me to.”

“Don’t be a muppet all of your life,” Alison laughed as she leant over him. “I’m just telling you I’m not that sort of girl,” she whispered before kissing him tenderly on the lips. “And even if I was Ian would never have been man enough to find out.”

An hour later Tomas rolled from atop of Alison and coming to rest upon his back he looked up at her smiling happily down at him. “I thought you said you weren’t that type of girl,” he joked.

“I’m not, but like my daddy always tells me there’s always a first time for everything.”

That Saturday night as they met for their weekly pool and pot night Ian couldn’t help but notice the smile emblazoned across his best friend’s face. “I’m guessing looking at you, you and Alison got it on last night?”

“Why?” Tomas asked realising for the first time his best friend was not the hero he always thought he was. 

“We spent most of the night talking.”

Shaking his head in disappointment Ian groaned, “I can’t believe you, when I left Bunny Hill you had it on a platter. What went wrong?”

“Nothing I had a great night.”

“But,” Ian couldn’t help but shake his head, “I told you what Alison was like. What went wrong?”

“Nothing. I told you I had good night. We spent most of it talking.”

“Talking! I can’t believe you. You’re such a disappointment.”

Tomas grinned, “funny that. That’s what she said about you.”