Read Online Trust by Kate Veitch - Free Book Online

slightly squashed, gave them both an offended look.
    ‘No, listen. This would really mess with people’s minds,’ Stella-Jean said, gleefully. ‘You should ask Rory to go to the social with you.’
    ‘Rory?’ He leaned back against the wall, gobsmacked. ‘But … Ror’s been my buddy since we were in kinder. We used to have sleepovers, for god’s sake. Like, little kid sleepovers.’
    ‘So? She can be your buddy and still be your date. Plus she’s stunning-looking.’
    Seb looked startled. ‘Is she?’
    ‘Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed .’ Stella-Jean clicked her tongue slowly, several times. ‘You are hopeless.’
    He pictured walking in to the social with Aurora Feng: her ballet dancer’s body, slender and strong, in some slinky dress instead of school uniform, her long black hair not in a ponytail for once. Yes, when you actually thought about it, she was nice-looking.
    ‘It’d be so cool to go with her. It’d really piss those princesses off,’ said Stella-Jean with relish. ‘They still haven’t forgiven her for having that big scene last year with, you know, that Year Twelve guy who looked like Johnny Depp.’
    ‘You mean Rob de Clario?’ said Seb, his brain popping up an instant picture of the guy in question. He’d known Rob and Rory were an item, but only vaguely. Too focused on the tennis. ‘The girls paid out on her for that?’
    ‘Oh yeah, big-time. He was s’posed to be out of bounds to her, she was only in Year Ten. She’s been getting the big freeze all year – it would be too cool for her to turn up at the social with next year’s Rob de Clario. Ha ha!’
    Seb gave her a questioning look.
    ‘ You , you moron!’ she said. ‘Sheesh! You think Sylvia and Co. are after you for tennis tips? Look in the mirror sometime.’
    Seb pulled his knees in closer to his chest and tried to look blasé. ‘So … how do you know Rory hasn’t got a date already?’
    ‘I have my sources. Go on, Seb, ask her. Hey, I’ll ask her for you, if you want.’
    ‘You stay out of it, face-ache!’ He stared at her shelves, thinking. If Rory was his date … all the questions were answered. Yeah! Good old Rory: she was … safe . He unwrapped his arms from round his legs and sat back, inhaling breezy relief. Except — ‘Let’s be clear: you don’t tell any of the girls this was your idea. Understood?’
    ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Stella-Jean smartly. She dusted her palms together as at a job well done. ‘And now,’ she said, ‘nick off. I’m ready to go to sleep.’
    ‘I’m almost scared to touch you,’ said Seb, but he knuckled her upper arm hard anyway, and leapt off the bed as she yelped and swung at him. ‘Horrible dree -eams,’ he wished her in a syrupy voice as he closed the door.
    ‘Same to you, fuckhead,’ said Stella-Jean, smiling as she switched off her bedside light.

SIX
    ‘See you,’ said Susanna, releasing one hand momentarily from her precariously clutched load of bags and books in order to give Gerry, still halfway through his breakfast, a quick wave.
    ‘You’re off early.’
    ‘Meeting with Belinda before my first class. Oh, honey, it’s your brother’s birthday today. Don’t forget to call him.’
    ‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Gerry, forking up egg and tomato. His brother Ed ran a swimming pool supply shop and still lived in the same Perth suburb where he and Gerry had grown up. They had absolutely nothing in common and would probably never have made contact again after their parents died, if it weren’t for their wives sending Christmas cards and the like. Why do they bother? Gerry wondered. He had Susanna and the kids, he didn’t need any more family than that. ‘Have a good one, Suze.’
    Ten minutes later, about to head off on the six-kilometre run to the office, he just about tripped over Seb, curled lankily in a patch of sunlight on the living room floor, still in his boxer shorts and a raggy outsize T-shirt. He was nose to nose with Tigger, who