Out of Your League

Chapter 14

The difficulty of where to meet up with Ed was solved one day when Will texted our group chat and offered for all of us to go and visit his house for a few nights before  Christmas. This way, Ed's parents couldn't object as technically, he wasn't meeting up with me, he was invited by Will to go to Will's house.

The day we'd been invited for, Daniel drove me to Will's house up his mile long drive surrounded by fields which weren't fenced in so, more than once, we had to stop to wait for a sheep to get off the drive. This frustrated Daniel immensely who was used to driving in the city and when something got in his way, he would bleep his horn and be able to get through. The sheep were the opposite of this, here they had priority and we had to wait for them. Anyway, once we'd finally got up the drive, we discovered that Ed and Belle were already here, George wasn't yet. However, they were standing around outside looking cold when they should have been already inside drinking tea and chatting. Ed grinned at me when he saw I was here and after hugging me, he refrained from kissing to spare Belle the embarrassment of not knowing where to look, he rolled his eyes and said:

'Will forgot he invited us today. He must be out shooting or rowing, but he's not in the house so here we are waiting for him to get back,' I couldn't help but laugh, this was so typical of Will. Belle interrupted, annoyed that I hadn't acknowledged her yet:

'I arrived here ages ago. It's so disrespectful.' Then she shook out her hair and crossed her arms, ready to start an argument with anyone who dared to disagree.

A while later Will clomped into his yard with rosy cheeks under his flat cap and Monty chasing behind him. He stopped still when he saw all of us, then lifted a hand and clearly began counting the days to work out whether this was the day we were supposed to arrive. Finally, he stopped counting through the days on his fingers, realized we were here for when he'd invited us and raised a hand and waved at us slightly sheepishly.

Once we were finally inside, Will immediately brought out a pot of tea and large chocolate cake into his living room where a fire was already blazing. If you thought Ed's house was old and traditional, it was nothing compared to Will's – he didn't even have central heating so as a result, a fire was lit in nearly every room. The chocolate cake was so good – of course Belle gave it a disgusted look and commented something about the high calorie and sugar intake but I tucked in, not at all embarrassed to be seen eating probably far more than my share of a large cake – they all knew that I ate a lot and were used to it. On the rare occasion my mother had a dinner party and invited me, I often got judgy looks from her friends for eating so much, some even commented in a way that seemed polite but there was an undertone that said 'how are you not fat? You eat like a pig.'

The sleeping arrangements were that me and Belle would share a room, George and Ed would share and Will would sleep in his own room. I wished that I could share a room with Ed, but I knew it wasn't fair to expect Belle and George to share a bed.

The next morning, Will burst in way too early with a grin, already dressed. How was he this cheerful this early in the morning? After telling us to get dressed and hurry up, he hurried out unable to keep still for too long. A while later, me and Belle stumbled down the stairs, still bleary eyed with sleep – I'd forgotten to brush my hair and Belle had walked out of our room without her trousers on before I reminded her and she rushed back in embarrassed. It was unusual for Belle to wear trousers of any kind, she was definitely a skirt and dress kind of person but for today, anything other than trousers would be completely unsuitable.

Will had already forced Ed and George up so as we walked into the kitchen, we saw them tucking into breakfast. The breakfast was amazing – a full English with every possible element you could imagine was accompanied by tea, orange juice, water and a large spread of cereals. It was so tasty that it almost made up for the inconsiderate hour we had been woken up at. Will was already up and bounding out the door before any of the rest of us had finished eating, I had no idea where he got his energy. As the rest of us sloped out the door, me still clutching a stack of toast slathered in butter that I was planning to eat as we went, Will beckoned us accompanied by Monty who immediately ran to me and began to give me eyes that begged for a piece of toast.