More Flirting Games (The Flirting Series - Young Adult) by Stella Wilkinson Page A

was a tradition that their year
put on a play on the last day of term. This was then followed by the Upper School
Dance, which was attended by Years Five, Six and Seven, plus any dates they
wanted to bring.
    After much shouting, joking around and stupid suggestions,
some serious debate took place and the majority of the year eventually agreed
that the play would be Bram Stoker’s Dracula . As one girl put it:
“Vampires are totally hot right now.”
    Lots of people put their names down for acting parts but
also for directing, producing, costumes, lighting and other technical roles,
and all sorts of other areas of the production.
    Rose and Leo exchanged looks across the room, and both
signed up to do set design, knowing it would give them an excuse to spend even
more time in the art room, and perhaps in the attic room above it too.
    The first role to be handed out was that of Director. It was
bedlam as people shouted suggestions, and the drama teacher sat down to wait
until the chaos subsided. In the end it was Grace who sorted it. She handed
everyone a slip of paper, told them all to write down who they thought it
should be and within minutes the hall had gone quiet as everyone thought. She
then had Sophie and Rose collect up all the slips and was completely bowled
over to find that most people had put that it should be Grace herself to direct
the play.
    From that moment on, she was considered in charge of the
whole operation. She collected a list of people interested in assisting her and
said she would speak to each of them individually, then together with those
that were selected she would begin to sort out who else would be doing what. It
was custom that everyone in the whole year should have some role and it would
be a large daunting task, but one that Grace, with her method and
organisational skills, was well equipped to handle.
    Grace
approached Rose a few days later.
    “I’m really
sorry and this might be awkward for you but the only people with any real
talent who signed up for set design are you and Leo Flanagan.”
    “Oh dear.”
Rose tried to look concerned.
    “I thought
maybe you could be assigned totally different sets to do, and each of you could
be in charge of a few people separately, but unfortunately it will mean both of
you being in the art studio quite a bit. Are you going to be ok with that?”
Grace looked very apologetic.
    “It’s fine,
Grace. Leo and I are often the only people in the art room anyway, it’s never
been a problem.” She didn’t mention that in the last few days it had been a
pleasure.
    Keeping the
relationship secret from Grace, Sophie and Alex had turned out to be a lot
easier than Rose had thought. None of them even considered that anything was
going on. Only Alex commented, saying it was good that she was ok with doing
the set design with Leo.
    Sophie and
Grace still occasionally sighed over him. Speculating on why he didn’t have a
girlfriend when he could choose almost anyone. Rose only got tense when they
talked about him and Diana.
    Meeting at
night time was becoming much harder, and they gave up trying to stay up late
enough to do so on a school night, otherwise they were both yawning through
classes the following day, but Rose spent all week looking forward to Friday
night when they had agreed that he would wait in the Common Room until it was
empty and then send her a text so that she could join him for some
uninterrupted time alone.
    It was just
after midnight when he finally texted her and Rose could tell by the breathing
of the other three girls that they were finally all asleep. Sophie had a bad
habit of reading very late on her Kindle, but none of them stirred as she slid
out of bed, put on her dressing gown and slippers and snuck down the stairs to
meet Leo.
    He was
waiting in his favorite chair. Her heart melted at the sight of him. Sat
reading in the soft glow cast by a small lamp, the light danced in his black
hair. She wound her arms round his neck from