the left.
The room must have belonged to Tomâs little sister; everything in sight was pink, except for Louise, who was sitting on the bed on top of a Flower Fairies duvet cover.
âHello, Charlie,â she said. âIâve been waiting for you.â
So that much at least was true. Charlie smiled, or perhaps grimaced, unsure of how to proceed.
âYouâd better shut the door,â she said and patted the bed enticingly.
Charlie sat down.
âYou look exactly like him,â Louise said, staring at Charlie in a way that made him feel even more uncomfortable.
âWeâre identical,â Charlie said awkwardly. He hated it when people commented on how alike he and Whiskey were. He especially didnât want to talk about it with Louise. But Louise continued to study him.
âI think Whiskeyâs a little taller,â she said thoughtfully.
It was true, but Charlie was hardly about to admit it. He wanted to get off the topic of Whiskey altogether.
âClaire said you wanted to talk about something.â
âWell, we can talk anytime. Wouldnât you rather kiss me?â Louise said. And then she leaned forward unexpectedly and pressed her mouth against his. Charlie had a momentâs hesitation. It didnât seem right to start kissing without a little more chitchat. And given that Louise had just broken up with Whiskey, Charlie probably shouldnât be kissing her at all. But she smelt like fruit salad, and her mouth was so warm and soft that Charlie couldnât help himself. He leaned in closer to her, but she pulled away to look at him again.
âItâs so weird kissing you,â she said. âI feel like Iâm still kissing Whiskey.â
There they were, back to Whiskey already. But then Louise pulled his face into hers as though nothing else mattered, and side by side in that pink and sparkly room, they kissed until Charlie couldnât tell where his mouth ended and Louiseâs began. Without knowing how they got there, Charlie found that they were lying down on the bed, and getting to second base happened so quickly he barely had time to take it in. Even the fact that he couldnât undo Louiseâs bra didnât slow them; she sat up and took it off herself, and though she had hardly any breasts to speak of, her perfect pink nipples were as soft as her mouth, and Charlie found that her breast size didnât matter at all. They were pressed thigh to thigh, hip to hip, and Charlie had the biggest erection of his life.
When Louise looked at her watch and said, âImagine if Whiskey knew what we were doing,â Charlie knew something was wrong, but when she undid his belt and put her hand inside his boxer shorts, he didnât care, he didnât care. The feeling of Louiseâs hand wrapped around his penis was so intense, so consuming, that he didnât even care when the door opened and he saw Whiskey standing there, with Claire behind him.
âDonât stop, it doesnât matter,â Charlie groaned, feeling himself only seconds from ejaculating. But as soon as the door was closed, Louise pulled her hand away and, seeing the look on her face, Charlie understood what he had taken part in.
It had all been for Whiskey. Louise wasnât interested in Charlie at all. Now that Whiskey had caught her with Charlie, caught her going farther than she had with him, Charlie might as well have not existed. She didnât even look at him while she put on her bra and straightened her clothes. Charlie didnât care that heâd been set up, that Louise had used him. Those twenty minutes he had spent with her had been the best twenty minutes of his entire life. What he couldnât stand was that this moment, this triumph, was not his own. That even when he had overtaken Whiskey, it was Whiskey who had helped him to do it, so the triumph, as always, was Whiskeyâs.
Echo
In the lead-up to their departure from England,