Don't Let Me Fall Again

Chapter Ten - Surprise!

‘I hope this isn’t going to be anything like Scott’s big party,’ I almost groaned, sitting in Ryan’s car as he drove towards Quinn’s house. Scott’s party was the first one I went to with Ryan, the one where I first met all of his other friends and got drunk.

‘Well it certainly won’t be like Halloween, anyway,’ Ryan assured me, taking my hand in his. ‘I’ll be following you absolutely everywhere … but there’s no need to worry – I don’t think Quinn will be inviting anyone out of the other gang, unless he’s crazy, and if one of them manage to slip in we’ll kick them out.’

‘Are there going to be much barely clothed girls?’ I laughed.

Ryan grinned. ‘Nah … I don’t reckon there’ll be as much girls like there was at Scott’s party, because his sister Caroline is in charge of it as well …’

‘Caroline? She’s your first girlfriend, isn’t she?’ I asked, wondering if he would deny it or not. Oh my God, I was getting so pathetic … Why the hell would he deny it? Ryan was my first boyfriend – why the hell would I hide the fact that he’s my first boyfriend? I was really starting to worry about how obsessed I was getting about the fact that he had another girlfriend …

Ryan frowned at me. ‘How did you know that? Who told you?’ he said, sounding surprised.

‘I’ve got my sources,’ I chuckled.

‘My mom?’ Ryan guessed, rolling his eyes. ‘Typical of her to start talking about my ex-girlfriends …’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Is she trying to make me feel jealous?’ I frowned. Ryan’s mam was nice … She wasn’t like that, right?

He shook his head. ‘No, it’s just a kind of mother and daughter-in-law thing to do … Or maybe my mom’s just weird since she’s done the same thing to all of my girlfriends … All of my ex-girlfriends,’ he laughed, making sure to correct himself. ‘But don’t you worry. There’s no need to be jealous over Caroline. Last time I saw her she had braces, a bad skin problem, her hair split down the middle and two pigtails … Oh, and not to mention that I love you more than anything or anyone else in this world. Don’t feel jealous at all, Laura, okay? She’s the one who’ll be feeling jealous over you, anyway.’

I laughed. ‘You’re not a bit cocky, are you?’

‘Oh, I am extremely cocky, thank you very much,’ Ryan winked, parking his car on the side of the street, close to where I presumed Liam and Caroline Quinn lived. ‘Caroline is nice, though, so you should get on well with her. She has been my best friend since I was eight … She was my dancing partner when I did ballroom dancing … But I guess my mom already told you all that, didn’t she?’

I nodded. ‘But we can talk about that later … Time to have a bit of fun,’ I grinned.

After the two of us stepped out of the car, I tried to pull my new dress down towards my knees. Ryan had bought me quite an expensive dress for my birthday, but it was a tad too short, even for short legs like mine. It was like the end of the dress was made of some type of magnetic material that was attracted to my tonsils. Every step I took made it crawl at least once centimetre up my leg, so I was constantly pulling it down.

It wasn’t like I hated the dress, though. It was absolutely beautiful, even on a body like mine. I supposed I’d just have to enjoy dresses while I could still wear them. James’s mam reckoned that it’d be a few more weeks until my bump started to show. As soon as the bump started to show, the more people were going to notice that I was pregnant.

Ryan and I walked along the sidewalk and up to Quinn’s house. There was a group of people gathered around the front door, laughing their heads off about something and then downing their drinks in their red plastic cups. The two of us squeezed our way past them and walked into Quinn’s hallway, where we were immediately greeted by Liam Quinn, and an absolutely stunning Caroline Quinn.