Just Between Us by Hayley Oakes Page A

of me.”
                  He smiled but didn’t look back to me. “I can’t believe you’re letting him define you like this. The Sophie King I knew would never have let this happen, she was strong.”
                  “What?” I was annoyed, and he was enjoying it, looking at me again,               “You’ve turned into a sap. What’s so great about this guy that you can’t get over it?”
                  “I can get over it,” I snapped. “It’ll just take time. We were going to get married, I thought I was safe and that my heart would never break again. You wouldn’t know anything about that.”
                  “Oh I know about heartache,” he laughed lightly, “you’ve taught me all about that.”
                  I didn’t look at him, didn’t dare. I wasn’t sure if he was alluding to our tangled past or my heartache now. “Look,” he said, breaking the sudden awkward silence. “Let’s just hang out, go out, enjoy ourselves, and maybe in a few weeks a few minutes will pass without you thinking about dickhead.” He sighed. “I might seem like I don’t know about this stuff, and I’m not a chick, but I do know that keeping busy and time heal a broken heart. I’m not gonna get mushy, but this is the best decision you could have made.”
                  “You’re right,” I glanced away from him out of the window, “I don’t need any more babying, I need you to say it like it is, and I need to get over this. I’ll focus on enjoying myself.”
                  “Good.” He nodded to himself. “Cos I think we need to start by getting shit faced again tonight.”
                  “What?” I wailed. “I thought you had work to do?”
                  “Well we can get shit faced whilst I do my work and sit on my balcony.”
                  “You’ve got a balcony?” I asked, raising my eyebrows to him.
                  “Yep and with the weather this nice we can eat out there, drink out there, and reminisce with some noughties music.”
                  I smiled; it was wide and genuine. Kyle had a way of taking all the feelings of dread away and replacing them with something to be excited about. Kyle and I had a past, but we could never have a future, and I wondered exactly how much of that past we could appropriately reminisce.  
     
    Old Times
     
    The following morning I woke up in a state of panic, panic that we’d been seen, or that I’d have to confess. I felt dreadful. I was sure our parents would know we had been sneaking out, and I thought my face would give away the guilt I was feeling. Kyle was my step-brother, and this was wrong. He should never have kissed me, and I shouldn’t have kissed him back. I was embarrassed and upset, and as I sat with my packed bags, I was dreading going down to breakfast to face him. It was another glorious morning in Mexico, the sun was hot even first thing, and I was sad it was our last day here before we returned to the cold.
                  When I saw Kyle at breakfast, it was as if the night before had never happened, which suited me fine. He didn’t look at me, there was no change in his behaviour, and I didn’t exist to him once again. I wasn’t bothered, I was relieved and thankful that this worry boiling up inside of me wouldn’t be realised. I just chatted easily to my mum as we walked down to the restaurant that was situated by the huge, blue swimming pool. We took a table outside, and Kyle was his usual aloof self. It was comforting and reminded me that the few nights out we had had didn’t change anything, we were nothing to each other.
                  Mum and Mick got up to go and help themselves to juice. I sat at the table waiting to order coffee as I always did. Kyle was watching me, suddenly his eyes were blazing into me, and I pretended