Sarah looked up from the table as she heard voices out in the corridor; the first few guests were arriving to the party she assumed. She quickly established that both low-pitched drones belonged to males and she wished that they would walk through into the kitchen so she could see who they were and be introduced to them.
Katie recognised his voice the moment she heard the front door close; she’d hoped he would be one of the first to arrive so she could spend as long as possible in his company without other people trying to get his, or her attention. She knew she’d have to introduce him to Sarah though and she hoped that Sarah wouldn’t notice him in the same way that she did.
Jake walked through the door and into the kitchen, where he assumed the other guests that had arrived would be. He was already feeling pretty mashed and hoped that it wouldn’t be too much longer until other people were.
Craig followed Jake through the door, knowing how much his friend had already drunk, and how little he normally needed before he would be unaware of what was going on. Craig knew who would be in the kitchen as he looked around at the people who were gathered around the table but for a few seconds longer than he should have, his gaze rested on the face of the girl he did not recognise.
Jake, completely oblivious to most of the people in the room, staggered somewhat over to the chair next to Katie and slumped down. He smiled at her and around at everyone else in greeting.
Katie was completely oblivious to Jake; she had just witnessed the one thing she had hoped would not happen. She had seen straight passed Jake as he had walked through the door at at Craig, he was smiling at her and she smiled back but then his gaze moved around the room; her eyes followed his. Her stomach flipped when her eyes reached Sarah, she was clearly checking him out! Katie’s eyes quickly turned to a hard stare and glared into the face of her friend.
Sarah was disapointed when Jake walked through the door and almost lost interest when somebody else followed him in; someone she felt was definitely worth her interest. She watched as he smiled around the room before resting on her, his eyes locked onto hers and she felt her skin start to warm; then she noticed something else. Katie was glaring at her and too late Sarah had realised who this was; this was the Craig she had been hearing so much about in recent weeks. She had longed to meet him to find out if he was all Katie made him out to be and so far he was beating all descriptions; she looked back at Katie and in an “I-could-care-less” tone asked her what she was looking at her in that way for.
Katie returned Sarah’s question with her classic “You-know-what-I-mean” glance and hoped that Craig hadn’t noticed the brief clash between the two of them.
Craig had heard Sarah’s question of Katie’s look and knew exactly what was going on. A few of Katie’s friends had been slipping somewhat obvious hints into conversations that they had been having with him over past few weeks and what he had just observed proved all speculation. More interesting for him however was the look he had recieved from Sarah, he would have assumed that someone of her physique would have looked him straight over as she had obviously done with Jake, but her eyes had given her away.
Jake paid little attention to what was going on around him, none of these people were his friends he knew them all through Craig and they were obviously more interested in him. Jake reached down into his bag and pulled out another can of Strongbow and began to drink himself further into his own world.
Katie had wished she’d been paying more attention to Jake when he slumped himself down next to her as the only free chair left around the table was next to Sarah and she had no doubt that Craig would take it.
Sarah knew that the evening would only get worse between her and Katie if she made strong moves on Craig so she occupied herself with talking to Jake, who Craig had informed her was a huge fan of wrestling.
Jake was bemused with the idea of someone talking to him, but Sarah was making conversation and amazingly he found that she was as big a fan of wrestling as he was. The conversation continued for a while and he found himself in a more sociable state.
Katie was glad to see that Sarah had decided to talk over her with Jake, and took the opportunity to talk with Craig about how his day had been. She suddenly felt guilty for being so harsh with Sarah, but at the same time felt glad that Sarah had not been overly bothered. Sarah knew that Katie still hadn’t told Craig how she felt and that, in Sarah’s eyes, made him fair game to all involved but fortunately for Katie, Sarah was being the friend she loved.
The evening progressed very quickly from those opening moments and things went from good to worse for Katie. Jake had begun being very flirtatious with a new female arrival and the alcohol that had passed through Sarah had led her to disregard her friendship for the boy on the seat next to her. She let out a slight sigh of relief when Craig got up to talk with some of his friends who had arrived, and a greater sigh when someone had promptly sat in the chair he was in. She felt that things would improve again but she did not expect what happened next.
Sarah was glad when Jake had ended the conversation to talk with another girl, she found him entertaining to talk to but would have prefered to be getting to know Craig. Katie hadn’t done anything about it yet so what was stopping her? She had given her friend plenty of time and knew that if anything was going to happen between the two of them it would have. Sarah knew that was mainly the alcohol talking, but for once she felt like it made more sense than ignoring her own attraction.
Craig was glad that Jake had left Sarah to talk with someone else, he appreciated Katie’s friendship but that where his feelings started and ended with her. There was no attraction for him, as for her friend Sarah he could already sense what lay beneath. While they were talking, he would notice Katie glance over with the look of a lost sheep on her face and he felt a pang of guilt. He found an escape from the situation when a couple of his other friends entered the kitchen cheering and laughing about their journey to the party. After sharing a couple of jokes Craig found himself wanting to return to Sarah, he turned towards the table to find his seat taken but noticed that Sarah was sitting enough to one side of her chair for him to slide up next to her.
Katie was almost devastated by Craig’s next move. He didn’t loiter just between the two girls when he returned to their conversation. but instead slid onto the edge of Sarah’s chair, making some excuse about her obviously stealing his when infact his had been taken by someone else. Katie could see Sarah approve of this and allowed him to get more comfortable.
Sarah was somewhat shocked that Craig sat down next to her on her chair, but was also completely pleased by it. She hadn’t intentionally sat to one side but was completely glad that she had, she felt his leg slide down her’s as he adjusted to get more comfortable and she felt a burst of adrenaline fire through her body.
Katie knew that some how she had to move the two apart for her the sake of her own feelings and for her friendship with Sarah. She quickly grabbed Sarah’s arm and told her that they had to go and get the rest of their alcohol from Katie’s flat, which was just across the road.
Sarah didn’t want to leave but she knew she couldn’t let her friend go alone, and regretfully told Craig she’d catch up with him later and left.
Craig was sligtly annoyed that Katie had dragged Sarah away from him when things were just beginning to get interesting but he convinced himself that things would continue when she returned. He turned to talk to Jake to find his friend was deeply engaged in a conversation with a girl Craig had never met before. He thought of the chances of them both getting lucky in the same night, laughed at the thought of Jake getting more than a phone number and went to explore the rest of the party.
Riddle
