[Excerpt] Accidentally Perfect

Chapter Three: Lazily Ambling Turtles, Hads!

Unsurprisingly, Roman hadn't been anywhere in sight when I'd left the house that morning. So, I'd had an oddly lonely walk to school.

But, it was surprising just how lonely you could still be even though you were surrounded by people.

And I wasn't even craving anyone particular's company, I just had some moments when I was surrounded by my friends that I still felt alone. It was weird and irrational, so I didn't tell anyone. I just pretended everything was okay. It was like those times when I just felt crappy; sometimes it just was and sometimes it wasn't. When it was, I smiled and laughed and told myself it would pass. Sometimes it passed faster than others. Sometimes it was harder to pretend than others. But, it did always pass.

Anyway, the point of that segue was that Recess on Thursday was one of those times. Term was over the next day and I had two weeks stretching in front of me where I could just have a break from people if I wanted. Because sometimes you needed that. Sometimes, you just needed downtime where you didn't have to pretend everything was okay and it didn't matter if it wasn't.

So, there I was at Recess – already over my surprising but minor disappointment that Roman hadn't been singing at me first thing in the morning – and talking with Hadley and Celeste on the bleachers.

"Mason's coming," Celeste squealed at me and I looked up to see him heading towards us.

Like all things Mason did, he didn't do it by half. He was striding towards us purposefully, his eyes locked on me.

The blonde, semi-bombshell who didn't look orange anymore that was Shayla Green grabbed his arm as he passed. "Hey Mason!" she said, her tone full of meaning.

To Mason's credit, his eyes didn't leave my face as he smiled politely. "Hi, Shayla. How are you?"

"Fine. You coming to the party tomorrow night?"

One of Mason's eyebrows rose in my direction. "Don't know. Depends what Piper's up to."

Shayla threw me a heated glare, flicked her hair and rallied like a pro. "Well if Piper's busy, I'll be around."

Mason nodded. "I'll let Craig know."

He missed Shayla's face turn red as he was still looking at me. He pulled his arm from her hands gently before she had a chance to say anything more and kept walking towards me. He jogged effortlessly up the bleachers and stopped a couple of rows below us, a huge smile on his face.

"Hey," he said suavely and I bit my lip.

"Hi."

"How are you?"

"Fine. You?"

He nodded. "Good."

I looked down to try to hide my shy smile.

"So, about that party tomorrow..." he started and sounded a little awkward.

I looked up and shook my head. "Oh! No, it's fine. Your flight's on Saturday morning, isn't it?"

He looked more relieved than I was sure he needed to as he nodded. "Yeah, nine-ish." He ran a casual hand through his hair and I was sure every girl watching just sighed. "And we still need to get to Adelaide. I don't think my parents will be too keen on me going to a party the night before." He smiled an apology.

I shook my head. "No, that's totally understandable."

Why were we talking like we'd be going together otherwise? Had I missed the part of dating where you don't actually get asked out anymore? Had he asked me out and I'd missed it? Even worse, had I said yes and not just completely missed it but not even realised?