Caramel Sundae

Eight

~EIGHT~

"What'll we do now?" Shay asked.

I knew this had been a bad idea; it wasn't mine, anyway. Keelan, Katie and Melody (who was, typically, always up for a bit of matchmaking) had organised for us to go into town for the morning.

Which would've been great... Except that, along with Evie and myself, they also invited Jordan, Fred, his friend Nate and, inevitably, Shay. Of course, as soon as I heard Shay was coming, I knew this was all a scheme of theirs to get us together.

Honestly, though, I don't know what they really expected to happen. I mean, we just all sauntered aimlessly around town in our little gang, talking over each other, shouting, all trying to get a word in. There was only so much we could do, really, to accommodate both the boys and the girls.

Melody had insisted that the boys wouldn't mind if we went clothes shopping; they'd be happy to stand outside and enjoy the sun while we browsed the clothes rails, she said. I asked if she thought that these boys were dogs, waiting outside a shop for their owner.

And while Jordan begged Katie to go down to the football pitch and have a match, boys versus girls, that wasn't going to work out either. For one thing, we had no ball, never mind the fact that the boys would undoubtedly win, being stronger and generally more practised than us.

So there was little left to offer; clearly, we couldn't go shoe shopping, and Melody refused to step foot inside of a sports shop. Besides, it was too warm to spend the time inside, so that ruled out the easy option of the cinema.

We'd spent most of the morning in the playground, pushing each other down the slide and trying to climb across the monkey bars, a feat that turned out to be very hard considering our feet touched the ground. I wondered if Keelan and Katie were hoping for a romantic, heartfelt talk when they scarpered, leaving Shay and I alone on the swings while they sprinted for the bench on the other side of the yard, cackling like hyenas.

Well, whatever they were hoping for, it didn't work out, because Shay and I had a light, friendly conversation before going to join the others. Then we'd left the playground because of all the looks the parents were shooting us, as if we were dangerous vandals or kidnappers instead of a bunch of teenagers with nothing to do.

We'd all wandered around town and were now sharing a large tub of raspberry bonbons and a bag of strawberry laces from the sweet shop and pondering over the question Shay had just asked.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I need a drink," Nate announced, and there was a general murmur of agreement.

"Yeah, it's just too warm for anything else," Evie decided. "Let's go and find a cafe."

"Oh, let's go to The Dutchess Teashop!" Melody gushed. Freddy laughed and wrapped an arm around her waist, while we all rolled her eyes. When she mentioned 'tea shop', frills, lace tablecloths and fancy cakes with generous dollops of cream immediately came to mind.

"I know!" Shay said quickly, "how about that new cafe? Chase works there- you know the one, Jordan. Have you been there, Zara?"

I fought down the instinct to blush and shrugged. "Once or twice, yeah."

"Wait a minute," Keelan butted in, her eyebrows furrowed. "Who's Chase?"

"Oh, he's a friend of ours, he's new in town," Nate told her offhandedly.

We headed up to the Main Street to the little blue cafe, which was actually beginning to become familiar to me; this was the third time I'd been here in the space of one week. We trooped through the door, and Katie and Melody started gushing about how cute the place was, while Jordan, Nate and Keelan's eyes all trained on the cakes and pastries behind the glass of the counter.