How To Stop Smoking

Keeping up appearances and all that

Chapter Four

Olympia

After eating the dinner Rob's mum made, spaghetti Bolognese, Rob and I sat in the living room watching some show about police car chases. There was a knock at the front door and Bounty ran over, going wild barking at it.

Susan answered and in came three of the boys that I often see with Rob at school. Rob stood from the sofa to greet them, they all gave him a one armed hug and then they all took a seat.

The blonde one looked over at me, confused. Rob noticed and pointed to me.

"Guys this is Olympia, Olympia this is Joey," the blonde one nodded, "Dan" a tall boy with light brown hair waved, "and El." The final one had tan skin and dark brown hair that was longer on top that the sides.

"This your girl, Rob?" El joked, the three laughed together but Rob just forced a smile.

I was about to open my mouth when Rob cut me off, "Yeah she is, thought this would be the best time for you to meet her." He smiled at me, urging me to play along so I did. His friends looked as confused as I felt.

Dan coughed awkwardly before suggesting that we play on the Xbox. The others agreed and headed upstairs, I wondered where to considering there hadn't been an Xbox in Rob's room. I followed them up to the second floor and then up another staircase I didn't notice earlier, it was down the hallway from Rob's room and round the corner.

Up in the loft, there was a big flat screen, a jumble of chairs in front of it and an Xbox plugged into the TV. The boys took their seats and Joey and Dan picked up a controller each. Rob stood up and went towards the mini fridge.

He got out four cans of beer and then signalled for me to come over.

"What would you like to drink?" I looked into the fridge, there a few more cans of beer, a few cans of coke and an assortment of chocolate bars. I took a can of diet coke and went to find myself a seat.  There were only four in the whole room, Rob took the last spare one and gave me an apology look.

"Surely you can just sit on his lap, he is your boyfriend after all, Olympia. Don't feel like you two can't be all 'coupley' on our account." El said. Joey and Dan were oblivious to the situation as they continued to play their game quite aggressively.

I looked at Rob who shrugged and went over to sit with him, at first I perched uneasily on the very edge of the seat. Rob sensed my discomfort and pulled me right onto his lap, leaving one arm around my waist as the other still held his drink.

He leaned in to whisper in my ear, "You gotta at least make it believable."

I turned to face him, "Why? Why did you tell them I was your girlfriend?"

"I told you before, I can't tell them about my mum making me quit smoking, it's humiliating."

I sighed, I obviously wasn't gonna be able to get him to admit the truth to them so I gave up, instead settling in his lap and leaning back into him. In all honesty he made quite a nice seat, not that I'd ever tell him that.

Rob drank his beer as we observed his friends playing their Xbox game, Dan had been replaced by El, who was now beating Joey on some war game. Dan made his way over to us, pulling his seat nearer.

"So Olympia, how did you tame our wild Robert?" he teased, reaching out a hand to ruffle Rob's hait, which he studiously avoided. Rob had already told me that he didn't do love, but surely he'd had a girlfriend before, right?

"Hang on, so you've never had a girlfriend?" I asked Rob, the mere thought of it was enough to puzzle me.

"No, I haven't but don't go thinking I'm some never been kissed loser, I've had girls, just not girlfriends."

I raised my eyebrow at him, was I supposed to be impressed? But instead of announcing our sham relationship to his friends, I decided to play him at his own game.

"So Robbie," I said softly, trailing a finger down his neck, shoulder and then down his chest before stopping and looking up at him, "why don't you tell Dan how you asked me to be your girlfriend." Rob got a very worried look on his face.

"It was so romantic." I promised Dan, with the girliest giggle I could muster, then subtly shot a wink to Rob, this ought to be good.

"Well, er, we um, we'd met up a few times, outside of school, been to the cinema, stuff like that." He looked at me for help but I merely batted my eyelashes, keeping up appearances and all that.

Rob's face suddenly morphed into an expression of evil, "It was when we were riding my bike, she held onto me so tight, at first I thought she was scared but she actually just couldn't get enough of me."

He looked so smug when he exchanged a wink with Dan, I was rapidly regretting bring this up, of course he would turn it on me, after knowing him just over 24 hours I could tell he was good at that sort of thing.

With an eye roll from me, he carried on, "so anyway, as she clutched me tight, I could tell she wanted to be my girlfriend. So I drove us to Mc-"

"-Cartney's, McCartney's. A fancy restaurant in the city centre." I interjected, he was not going to spoil my enjoyment of ruining his reputation.

"He'd booked us a table for two with candles and everything, then he ordered us some-"

"Burgers." He said proudly, "She eats like a pig." I slapped him lightly on the shoulder. Dan looked amused, his eyes switched between us while he smirked.

"I knew something was going on between you two, I knew it, I totally called it! Didn't I call it?" Dan shouted over to Joey and El, who agreed distractedly.

Dan stood up and began to do a victory dance while chanting 'I knew it, I knew it, I knew it'

"We get the point Dan." Rob said as he clenched his jaw angrily. I tried to look at him but he wouldn't meet my eye.

Across the room, Joey stood up and jumped up and down, "Oh yeah baby, Joey's number one once again."

El sighed and threw his controller aside, the then stood up too. "I'm off for a smoke, who's coming?"

The rest of the boys left with him, going back downstairs. I felt a little bit proud that Rob hadn't joined them. But we still have a long way to go.

*Edited*