Tessa in Love by Kate Le Vann Read Free Book Online Page B

much emphasis on everyone being constantly available and in touch in the modern world, and everyone’s getting brain tumours, kidding themselves that they’re more important than they actually are.’
    ‘Oh,’ Matty said. ‘He’s a real cheery bunny. He must be an amazing kisser.’
    ‘I . . . ’ I paused. I wasn’t much of an expert. I’d been a bit worried that my own technique was lacking, to be honest.
    ‘Well is he?’ Matty said. ‘On a scale of John Cheeseman to how you think Tobey Maguire kisses?’
    ‘Spider-Man! Not Cheese-Man!’
    ‘It’s OK if he isn’t perfect. It’s one of the things you can change about them, as long as he shows some initial promise.’
    ‘Matty, my knees went weak. My head started spinning . . .’
    ‘Are you sure he didn’t spike your Tizer with gin?‘
    ‘Stop it, you! There was no Tizer, no gin, just a perrrrfect kiss.’
    ‘I remember my first kiss with Lee,’ Matty said. ‘He was still a smoker at the time, and his mouth tasted all bitter. . .’
    ‘Eurgh,’ I said. ‘Why would you want to snog him again?’
    ‘Because even with the fags, it was . . . oh . . . just so nice. And I knew I’d be able to stop him smoking, and I did – making them give up fags is one of the ways you can change them.’
    ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to change anything about Wolfie.’
    Matty smiled at me as if she knew something I didn’t.
    ‘I’m not going to change my mind!’ I said.
    ‘I didn’t say anything,’ she said.
    We read my reply to his e-mail, and Matty said it was OK – I hadn’t given too much away. But Matty thought it was important to play hard to get and I didn’t see any point in me doing that when a) I was not hard to get, and b) I didn’t want there to be any reason Wolfie might change his mind about me. Matty said I didn’t understand – the only way of testing whether boys were worth it was making them do a bit of work to get you, and that way you avoided getting hurt. I wanted to tell her that I could just tell Wolfie was a nice guy, and that he might not fancy me enough, or he might stop fancying me, but I couldn’t imagine him ever treating anyone badly. I knew Matty would just say I didn’t know as much about boys as her.
    ‘Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ I said. ‘It’s all too early. I should shut up.’
    ‘This is the first boy you’ve been really interested in in ages,’ Matty said softly. ‘And you’ve snogged him. I think it’s not so bad to mention it . . . after all, you tried to keep fancying him a secret from me.’
    ‘I did not!’
    ‘Well, how come I had to ask you about him?’ Matty said.
    I blushed. ‘Well . . . I just didn’t want to make a fool of myself.’
    ‘Are you sure it wasn’t because Lee . . . said stuff about him?’
    ‘No. I mean, yes, I’m sure.’
    ‘Lee’s just different, you know? They’re really different people.’
    ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘And Wolfie is a bit scruffy. It’s not like he said anything mean.’
    ‘The scruffy thing? You’ll be able to change that,’ Matty said, with a sly smile.
    ‘I don’t want to!’ I said, and we both started giggling.
    I thought Matty was almost trying too hard to tell me that when it came to boyfriends, she’d seen it, done it, and bought the soundtrack. I was scared it was because I’d been so one-track all day. I hadn’t had a chance to see Wolfie around, because Matty and I had spent all of lunch-break helping the librarian sort through returned books in her stock cupboard. I’d spent the whole time talking about me and Wolfie, and I was afraid that either it sounded like boasting, or that Matty might think I hadn’t known him long enough to be so sure he really liked me. It was hard to find the right balance. Matty was the one who had new romances and I was the one who got excited for her and made jokes about being perpetually single; this way around it was all new territory. But, if we both