How To Stop Smoking

My excellent facial hair

Chapter Thirteen

Rob

I don't like this guy.

Despite Olympia's assurances that there was no attraction between them, or that he was more attracted to me than her. I still felt uneasy as I watched them talking, laughing together at private jokes, sharing old stories that I pretended to listen to.

Most of all, I felt out of place. I shouldn't be here, in Olympia's house as she chats to a childhood friend. I was never the type for a girlfriend or a relationship so this, even if it isn't real, is all new to me.

Olympia laughs at something Nico has said, flicking her dark hair over her shoulder effortlessly, something she does quite often. She frequently complains about her hair, how it's too long, there's too much of it, it's always in the way, but she refuses to get it cut short. It's beautiful, a dark, silky curtain between her and the world. I think it's like her security blanket, something she can always hide behind

I just don't understand why she would want to, hide I mean, why should she? Every time I look at her I notice something different, like how her eyelashes are naturally black so she doesn't put any mascara on the bottom ones. Or that she has to brush her hair constantly throughout the day because it gets knotted so easily.

In my pocket my phone starts ringing, the Beatles song that I assigned to my Mum's contact is loud enough to break up Olympia and Nico's conversation, causing them both to look at me. I give Olympia an apologetic smile, one that I hope says 'sorry I'm being rude by taking this call but it's my mum'. I don't look at Nico, he doesn't deserve an apologetic smile, if anything he should apologise to me for interrupting my day with Olympia.

As I step out into the hallway I answer the call, swiping the little green circle across the screen.

"Hi Mum, you alright?" I say cautiously, this wouldn't be the first time that she's called me and demanded to know where I am.

"Hi? Is that all I get? Where are you? When I said you could borrow the car I wasn't expecting for you to have it all day."

"I'm sorry, we went to Asda and I didn't know how much stuff we were getting, and obviously you can't really put shopping on my bike. And I lost track of time, me and Olympia have been watching films and-"

"Olympia? You're with Olympia?"

"Er, yeah, why?"

"Okay that's fine, sweetie, see you later."

"Erm, do you want the car-"

"Use protection!" was the last thing she said before she hung up, I took the phone away from my ear and stared at it. Was that my mum or some kind of alien? Olympia emerged from the kitchen, arms around herself.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I think so, my mum rang me asking about the car but when I told her I was with you she wasn't bothered anymore, just told me to use protection."

Olympia laughed, "Ha, I wish my parents were as cool as your mum, they'd demand that I came home immediatley, though it would probably take a while for them to even notice that I was gone."

I frowned, "What do you mean?"

Olympia just shrugged, "It's nothing," she said, but it didn't seem like nothing to me "let's just go back to Nico, can't be trusted on his own for too long." she joked.

I nodded and followed her back in, but I wasn't going to let this drop, she might not want to open up to me as I had with her about my dad. I still couldn't believe that I'd done that, the only people that knew about it were Joey, El and Dan, because they were friends with me at the time that it happened, there was no way to keep it from them.