Head Over Heels Âœ“ 14 / wizarding world

august, age 15

Adler hadn’t shown up to school the following week, having been issued a week-long suspension while the school board came to a decision. Armed with Lucas’s recording and his testimony to the headteacher, and his parents’ plea that the school honour their supposed zero-tolerance bullying policy, they seemed to have made their choice very clear when Adler hadn’t returned to the school for the remaining four months of the year.

Though she had claimed it had been her decision to move, Lucas knew better. Audrie had learnt, in a study session with Bryn, that she had been expelled with immediate effect after her suspension was up. Lucas had cried with relief when he had heard the news, his shoulders finally free each morning as he went into school. He no longer dreaded the chance that he might bump into her between lessons, that he would have to steel himself to take whatever insult she threw at him.

She was gone. He couldn’t be happier.

The rest of the year had been something of a dream. Despite the exams that had loomed in the summer and the bucketload of work that every teacher had suddenly poured on them now that they were in Year Ten and it mattered, he had enjoyed the final term.

It did mean, however, that things were about to get a lot more serious with Year Eleven due to start in one week’s time. That was the real deal, the exams that would determine which A-levels he could take, and they would have a place on his university applications.

Lucas wasn’t particularly worried – he hardly ever dropped a mark – but the same couldn’t be said for Asher. Even when he studied, and even with the extra time that his dyslexia afforded him, he struggled to achieve the marks he wanted. All the extra time in the world couldn’t untangle the knots in his brain, the stress that took over as soon as he sat down in an exam hall. He managed to get mostly Bs on his homework with his parents’ help, his father going to great lengths to help him, but he struggled to keep his head above C level in exams.

But there was still a week to go before school started again, a week that both boys planned to spend relaxing before the doldrums of education were thrust onto their shoulders once more. The past five weeks had been perfect. While Lucas had drifted between his parents as he always did during the holidays, he had spent a whole week in Wales with his mother and his stepfather. Although he hated the beach, he had enjoyed relaxing by the seaside with nautical life going on around him.

Home was ordinary in comparison, about as far from the seaside as it was possible to get, but Lucas had enjoyed every moment of the summer with Audrie back home after what had felt like forever at university. Her two month-long holidays at home hadn’t been long enough for Lucas, who was used to having her around every single day, and he had been overjoyed the day that he and his family had driven down to Oxford to help her move back home. It had been a chaotic day, busy and crowded and all the things that ordinarily would have stressed him out but he had pushed past that, overriding it with the relief that he got to see his big sister again.

She would be home for another full month before she was due to start her second year, which meant three weeks of loafing around the house once her siblings had gone back to school. Charlotte would become her responsibility, enabling Sarah to spend a little more time at work, but she would be lying if she said she wasn’t looking forward to that. She loved spending time with her baby sister, sometimes pretending she was her own daughter when they were in town together.

When Lucas woke up on the thirty-first of August, he didn’t feel any different but he had a feeling that fifteen would be a good year. Adler was gone – for good, he hoped – and he couldn’t see any reason that the year would get off to a bad start, as long as his birthday went smoothly. He had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the day, something he had inherited from his mother. He didn’t like surprises and he hated the pressure of receiving and opening presents. It just wasn’t a day that he bought into, despising all of the attention being placed squarely on his shoulders.

For a few minutes after waking up, Lucas didn’t move. He savoured the peace of his own bed, the comfort of the pillows beneath his head and the duvet that snugly tucked him in at night. He kept his eyes closed, not even reaching for his glasses as he allowed himself to wake slowly and naturally. Except that didn’t seem to be his choice, sleep ripped from his fingertips when Felicity bounded into his room and jumped on his bed, pulling back the covers.

“Happy birthday!” she cried out, bouncing around him until she tangled her foot in the duvet and fell onto him with a giggle. “It’s your birthday! Get out of bed!”

Felicity loved birthdays. She had turned five less than a month ago, exactly a week after Liliana had celebrated her eighth birthday alongside Matilda, her best friend and yet another of Lucas’s half-sisters, and she had gone all out with a party for her entire class that weekend. The house had been full of five-year-olds and Lucas had made himself scarce that day, disappearing off to see Asher.

“Ugh.” He groaned when she bounced around him.

“Get up!”

“Hi, Flossie,” he said, sighing as he rolled over and reached for his glasses. Her face came into focus once he planted the lenses on her nose and she beamed down at him, her dark hair falling over her rosy cheeks. It was only eight o’clock, earlier than early when it came to the summer holidays and a birthday lie-in but she didn’t seem to care about that.

“Come downstairs,” she said, tugging his hand when she dropped onto the floor and tried to drag him out of bed. She was surprisingly strong for a little girl. Lucas kept forgetting how old she was getting, how fast time was flying. In just a year, Charlotte would be starting school too. They were lucky to live within fifteen miles of a school well-equipped to accommodate her as her sign language came on in leaps and bounds, and she was even beginning to learn how to read as her parents signed out each word on the page.

“Can’t I have a lie-in?” Lucas asked, reluctant to get out of bed.

“No!” Felicity cried. “Come down.” She gripped his hand in both of hers, trying to pull him to his feet until he gave in and she almost toppled over when he stood. Straightening out his pyjamas and fixing his glasses on his nose, he scuffed his feet into a pair of slippers – he couldn’t bear to be barefoot even around the house – and he let Felicity grab his hand. She was impatient, jogging on the spot as she tried to lure him downstairs.

“Why’re you so desperate?” he asked. “It’s my birthday. What if I want to sleep?”

Felicity scowled up at him, pouting her little mouth. “You can’t,” she said, almost tripping over the long legs of her pyjama bottoms. Lucas gave in trying to have any control, letting his little sister take over. She was a determined little creature and he knew better than to go up against her, dragging himself down the stairs behind her.

As soon as he stepped into the conservatory at Felicity’s direction, he was met with a raucous yell happy birthday from more people than he lived with, frowning for a moment before he registered that the extra bodies belonged to his father and his stepmother, and the two sisters he didn’t see as much. Even lazy Liliana was out of bed, and Audrie was dressed already, holding Charlotte. He was the last one to rise, his entire family waiting to wish him a happy birthday.

They didn’t sing. They knew how much he hated to be sung to – or at, rather – and that would be no way to start his birthday, by setting him on edge. His father pushed through his multitude of siblings and parents to wrap him in a warm hug, almost lifting him off the ground.

“Happy birthday, Lucas. I can’t believe you’re fifteen already. When did you get so big?”

Lucas hugged his father back, overwhelmed to have his whole family in one room. Sarah stepped forward to embrace him when Floyd let go, and she chuckled when Lucas bent down to hug her. After a growth spurt in the last year, he had shot up to five foot seven, leaving her in the dust almost a few inches shorter. Height aside, she still saw him as her little boy, the sensitive creature who still seemed as innocent as he had ten years ago, his own brain protecting him from the way most boys his age acted. He had never sworn, not even in anger, and he still loved nothing more than reading Harry Potter and hanging out with his sisters.

“Happy birthday, baby,” she said, checking her watch. “Actually, you weren’t born until seven fifty-eight, so you’ve got about twelve hours left of fourteen. This time fifteen years ago … I think I was already begging your dad to put me out of my misery.”

Floyd chuckled and nodded. “That you were.”

Lucas wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want to hear any birth stories,” he said, grimacing as he shook his head. Every birthday, his mother recounted the sixteen hours she had spent in labour and the following day and a half that she’d remained in hospital, as much as he hated to hear it. Sarah laughed and hugged him again, rubbing his back. She couldn’t believe how far they had come since then, surrounded by more family than she had ever thought she would have.

She picked up Charlotte when she toddled over, having released herself from Audrie. Lucas smiled at his baby sister, who wasn’t such a baby anymore. She beamed back at him and brushed her hand over her heart twice before she touched her middle finger to chin and then her chest: happy birthday.

“Thanks, Lottie,” he said, fingerspelling her name. She reached out, almost falling, and Sarah gasped as she righted herself and passed Charlotte over to her brother. Lucas took her, cuddling her as though she was still a baby. Sometimes he struggled to see her as anything but when he still coddled her, when they still had to be so aware with her. Even after two years of signing, Lucas still found that he yelled out her name if she ran off in town.

“I was going to come over later, you know,” Lucas said, lifting his eyes to Floyd and Cora as he hugged Isabella and Matilda at once. “You didn’t need to come over so early.”

“We did, actually,” Cora said with a twinkle in her eyes. She glanced at Sarah and Lucas followed her gaze.

“We’ve got a bit of a surprise for you,” Sarah said, grinning. Lucas’s eyebrows shot up, his eyes automatically dropping to his mother’s stomach. The past three times she’d had a surprise, he’d ended up with a new sister.

“Are you pregnant?”

“What?” Sarah spluttered, laughing. “No! Oh my goodness, no, my hands are full enough,” she said, smoothing her top down over her stomach. Four pregnancies had done a number on her body but she struggled to care when she was surrounded by the family she had made. “No, this is a surprise for you, baby.”

He instantly felt a little nervous. He didn’t like surprises, hating to be caught off guard, but he trusted his mother. She was the same way, and he knew she would never let a surprise go ahead unless she had given it the a-ok. “A surprise?” he asked, cautiously. His mother gave him a warm smile, mirrored by everyone in the room. Truman stood behind her with his hand on her waist, grinning at Lucas.

“It’s a good one, I promise,” Audrie piped up, wriggling free of Liliana’s hand to hug her brother. “Happy birthday to my favourite brother.”

Lucas rolled his eyes at her and she grinned, looking past him. He looked over his shoulder to see what she was looking at and his face lit up when he saw Asher in the kitchen, trying to sneak into the conservatory unnoticed: he laughed when he realised he had failed, stepping over a few of Charlotte’s toys to hobble into the room and throw his arms around Lucas, clapping his hand on his back.

“Happy birthday!”

“Hey,” Lucas said. “What’re you doing here?”

“Did you think I was gonna miss your birthday?” Asher dramatically rolled his eyes and turned his nose up as though he was disgusted. “Please.“

“But it’s only eight o’clock?” Lucas was confused, his brow pulling together and pushing a deep line into his forehead. “You’re not even awake by now, usually.”

“Well, I have a surprise,” Asher said, grinning that charming grin that had the power to disarm Lucas. “I know you don’t like surprises but I promise you, this is a good one. It’s been pre-approved by all your parents and at least one of your sisters.”

Audrie chuckled at that, giving Lucas a knowing smile. He tried not to let himself get too stressed: if she was in on it then it really couldn’t be anything that would bother him too much. She wouldn’t let that happen. Not that any of them would, but it settled his mind to know that there had been five stages of approval to whatever Asher’s surprise was. He trusted Asher with his life. After the blip in reliability when he had dated Adler, which Lucas referred to as the unfortunate year (and a bit) in his head, he had gone above and beyond to prove himself. The two of them had spent every lunch time together with Mika and almost every Friday, either Asher had gone home with Lucas or vice versa.

“Ok…” He trailed off, his eyes scanning Asher for any hint. “What is it?”

Asher dropped his bag off his shoulder and crouched down to unzip it, taking out a folder in which there was an envelope kept safe and pristine between two sheets of card. He handed the envelope to Lucas and nodded at him. “Open it.”

Lucas slid his nail under the flap of the envelope, facing Asher so he didn’t get unnerved by his entire family watching him.

“What is it?” Felicity asked, running over to see. She tried to grab the envelope but Lucas was quicker than her, lifting it away from her reach before she could crumple it in her fist.

“Be patient,” he said. “Don’t be rude.”

“That’s Lucas’s present, Flossie,” Truman said, his hand on his daughter’s shoulder to pull her back to him as he watched Lucas open the envelope. He was meticulous in everything he did, not even creasing the paper the tiniest bit.

He pulled out a card that Asher must have had specially made: it was a remake of the cover of the first Harry Potter book with the details changed. Instead of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, it read Lucas Flores and the Birthday Fun; J. K. Rowling had been replaced by A. H. Knight; Bloomsbury publishing had morphed into Chess House. Even Harry was slightly different, his hair darker and his skin tone a little closer to Lucas’s, and the platform was no longer nine and three quarters but the solitary number two. The glasses hadn’t changed a bit: Lucas wore an almost identical pair of circular frames.

“Did you make this?” he asked, staring in admiration at the card. Asher grinned and shrugged.

“Maybe,” he said. “Go on, open it.”

“This is really awesome,” Lucas said, still looking at the card. “Thanks, Asher.”

“Oh my goodness, open the card,” he said, laughing. Lucas did as he was told, casting his eyes over the message on the inside of the card.

“You wrote all this?” Lucas asked, quietly proud of his friend who struggled with words in all their forms, his handwriting suffering especially. The notes he made in lessons were indecipherable, almost a language of his own that he had come up with to deal with his difficulties. But the words in the card were immaculate, each one legible and correctly spelled.

“Yup.” Asher beamed. “Took me about a year. I was going to type it but that seemed a bit … impersonal. Not exactly best friend worthy.”

“Best friend extraordinaire,” Lucas said. Asher laughed.

“Sorry about that,” he said, nodding at the misspelling. “I did so well until that point. Now you’ve got to solve the riddle. I’ve got to admit, Tom gave me a hand.”

Lucas’s face cracked into a grin, a dry laugh escaping him.

“What?”

“Tom Riddle,” he said, chuckling at Asher’s unintended reference. He looked back at the card, tracing his finger over Asher’s handwriting. “These are chapter titles. They’re from the Goblet of Fire.”

Asher’s eyebrows shot up. “Woah. You really know the books.”

Lucas nodded. Not a lot could get past him when it came to Harry Potter. He hadn’t seen the films nearly as much as he had read the books but he could point out every tiny discrepancy; he could recognise every title of every chapter from the entire series. He knew that those three lines were titles from the fourth book; he knew exactly what happened in each of the three chapters. But he didn’t know what the numbers meant.

“But these aren’t the chapter codes.” He pointed at the numbers after each line Asher had written. “Is that what it’s supposed to be? Are these chapter codes?”

Asher gave him an elaborate shrug. “Who knows?”

“Book one, chapter six,” Lucas murmured to himself. “That’s when Harry goes to Hogwarts.” He looked up, having forgotten his family was behind him. They had drifted into their own conversations by now. Liliana, Matilda and Isabella had headed outside to play in the garden while Floyd and Truman sat on the patio to keep an eye on their daughters; Sarah and Cora were chatting on the sofa; Felicity was signing to Charlotte. Audrie had disappeared.

“No internet,” Asher said. “You can use the internet to cheat.”

Lucas stared at the card, his brain working in overdrive. They were chapter titles, he knew that, but he wondered if Asher had used them as something else. A double entendre of sorts. Whatever 1.6 meant, that was the first task. “Hold on a sec.”

Asher watched him, waiting for the penny to drop. He had been determined to make some kind of puzzle for Lucas’s birthday, another chance to prove himself after the fifteen months for which he had let his best friend down. Things were fine between them now, as good as they had been before Adler had stirred them up, but he couldn’t shake the residual guilt after more than a year that he could never get back.

Lucas headed up to his bedroom and Asher followed him, watching as he pulled the first book off the shelf and flipped through to the sixth chapter: The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. When he opened the pages, a small envelope dropped out and he jumped.

“Wait, did you put that there?” he asked, looking up at Asher who just stood with his arms folded and nodded for him to continue. “When did you do that?”

Asher said nothing and Lucas frowned, going to open the envelope before he was stopped.

“Do the rest,” Asher said.

Lucas slowly put the paper down before he took the fourth book from the shelf and flipped to the eleventh chapter: Aboard the Hogwarts Express. Another envelope fell out that he left on the floor in front of him as he found the thirty-fifth chapter of the final book, he read it out loud: “King’s Cross.”

There were now three envelopes on the floor and a grin of anticipation on Asher’s lips.

“Open them,” he said, sitting down next to Lucas to watch as he carefully peeled open the three envelopes in the order that he had found them.

In the first was a train ticket to Watford Junction.

In the second, a ticket for the Harry Potter studio tour.

The last envelope held a printout of a confirmation email from a hotel at King’s Cross.

Lucas looked up at Asher, his eyes wide when he realised what was happening. “Asher,” he said slowly. “What? What is this?”

“Your birthday present,” Asher said, wrapping his arms around his knees. “We’re going to do a tour of the studios, which I know you haven’t done and I don’t know how. It’s supposed to be really awesome. Then we’re going to King’s Cross, where it was set, and we’ve got a hotel near the station.”

“You’re coming too?”

Asher laughed. “Of course. I’m not about to send you to London on your own!”

“Oh my goodness.” Lucas struggled to find his way through the words in his head, the overwhelming rush of realisation and excitement. He threw his arms around Asher, who held him tightly.

“Audrie and Dylan are coming too,” Asher said. “We couldn’t book a hotel as minors and they wanted to come. And don’t worry – you and I have first class tickets for the train so it’ll be quiet and calm, and we’ve got our own reserved table. We’re sharing a room in the hotel and Audrie and Dylan have another one.”

“Thank you,” Lucas said. “I can’t believe you did all this! This is … this is crazy, Asher. Thank you so much.”

“I wanted to do something special,” Asher said, as though it was nothing at all. Lucas knew it was far from nothing. He swallowed down the bubble of nerves that came with the thought of a train journey, putting all his trust in his friend.

“This is more than special,” Lucas said, picking up the ticket for the tour. “So, no adults?”

“Dylan’s twenty,” Asher reminded him, “and Audrie’s nineteen. As far as the world is concerned, they’re adults.”

*

Before Lucas left for the station with Asher, Audrie and Dylan, Sarah handed him a bag she had already packed for him and pressed two twenty-pound notes into his hand, telling him to have a good time. A moment later, Floyd did the same and Lucas laughed. Sometimes it paid to have two families. The morning was a bit of a whirlwind, saying goodbye to his family within twenty minutes of realising he was going away: he hardly had time to feel nervous as Audrie went through a list of everything he might need.

His heart was pounding on the drive to the train station, sitting in the back with his sister. She put her hand on his knee to stop his jittering foot, gently squeezing.

“Excited?” she asked. She had been in on the plan for two months now, ever since Asher had first had the idea that he had put to Lucas’s parents.

Lucas nodded and tore his eyes away from the window to meet Audrie’s gaze, lowering his voice. “This must have been really expensive,” he said, a niggle of worry in his mind. He knew his parents weren’t well off. Although Sarah and Truman both had comfortable jobs that they enjoyed, they weren’t the best paying careers and that was only worsened by having five children. The purse strings had been tightened even more when Audrie had started university and her loan couldn’t cover her accommodation and living costs.

“Don’t worry about it, Lucas.”

He couldn’t do that. He could be old beyond his years sometimes, his frets miles away from the minor worries his friends had. Audrie saw that, sighing.

“Ok,” she whispered, glancing at Dylan and Asher in the front. The two brothers were talking, unaware of the quiet conversation going on behind them. “It’s a present from their parents. Don’t mention it – it’s a treat for all of us. Just enjoy it, ok? Don’t fuss about money – enjoy your birthday.”

Lucas couldn’t believe that Asher’s parents had paid for the whole trip, for four of them to travel down to London for the tour and to stay the night. He knew that couldn’t be cheap and although Ishaana and Bishop were far beyond well-off, modest about their millions, he never would have expected that.

“I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said. Audrie smiled when he changed the topic. Talking about money always made her uncomfortable: she’d had a modest childhood, growing up as an only child with a single father who had worked hard to give her as good a life as he could. He had never talked about money with her, insisting that it wasn’t a child’s job to know that. That was a value she had carried over, refusing to even let Lucas know about the state of her own bank account. She knew he was a worrier, just like his mother, and he didn’t want her to know that she had picked up two part-time jobs to support herself through her degree.

*

The train journey from Farnleigh to Watford Junction was the nicest Lucas had ever been on. He hadn’t taken many trains in his life, tending to avoid public transport like the plague, but first class was a life he could get used to. The journey was almost three hours, sitting opposite Asher at their own little two-person table as they ate the free food and drank the free drinks. Asher had his usual supply of Haribo in his pocket, making his way through three of the miniature bags as well as the sandwich and crisps that came as part of the first-class service.

The shuttle bus from the station to the studio wasn’t quite as fun, holding himself as small as possible to avoid touching anything but the seat for the fifteen-minute journey. His body was cramping by the end of the journey from the effort of hugging his arms to his side and pressing his knees tightly together, sucking in a breath of clean, fresh air when he tipped off the bus with his fingers gripping Asher’s arm. It took a minute to relocate Audrie and Dylan, who had got separated at some point, before they headed inside.

Lucas couldn’t believe his eyes. He felt like a child again as he wandered around the studio with the tour playing in his ears and a souvenir guide book in his hands, as much wonder on his face as the children around him. He filled his phone with photographs of the cupboard under the stairs and the great hall, marvelling at the immense ceiling above himself. The studio had been around for decades, the tour open to the public for more than forty years, and yet Lucas’s nine-year-long obsession with the series had never taken him there before. There had never really been the time when there had always been a baby in the family, someone too young to go along. The time had just never been right and Lucas had given up any hope of going before he left home and could take himself.

But there he was. Asher laughed at the amazement that seemed to double with each corner they turned and he snapped several photos of Lucas’s stunned expression as he gazed at the incredibly precise miniature models of the sets. It took them a good ten minutes to walk down Diagon Alley as Lucas stopped every step to admire the set, taking photos from every single angle.

After making it outside, where Audrie took a photo of the two boys standing outside Privet Drive and on the Knight bus while Dylan found themselves somewhere to sit, the glass of butterbeer was much appreciated. Lucas couldn’t talk. His cheeks were pink with excitement to engross himself in the world that had been his second home for almost a decade, behind the scenes in the lives of the characters that felt like friends. The actors were older than his grandparents now, but they were immortalised in the films he adored almost as much as the books.

“So,” Asher asked, licking his lips after finishing his drink, “how’re you liking it?”

“This is…” Lucas trailed off, shaking his head. “It’s amazing. It’s even better than I thought it would be. The train! And the models, it’s all just so … it makes it feel real.” He had expected the opposite, that seeing the sets and drawings and all the conceptions behind the films would make the series feel less magical somehow, but now it only seemed even more phenomenal.

“So you like it, huh?” Audrie grinned, her chin in her hands. She stole a sip of Dylan’s drink, not prepared to buy her own when it was extortionate and she wasn’t sure how much she would like it. Ishaana had given them her card and told them to just enjoy themselves, no holds barred, but she still hated to spend unnecessarily.

“I love it,” Lucas said. Nothing else needed to be said: his heart was full; his mind was blown.

*

It was getting late when they made it to the hotel, closing in on nine o’clock after wandering around King’s Cross and queueing to take a photograph with the trolley embedded in the wall at platform 9 ¾. The four of them took it in turns, a fifth photo showing Lucas and Asher gripping the bar and jumping together as Audrie snapped a burst of photos that she flicked through like a flipbook.

Lucas was physically and emotionally drained when they made it to their room once Dylan had confidently checked them into their two rooms and they had dragged themselves to the lift to be carried up to their rooms. They were only on the second floor but taking the stairs seemed unnecessary after a day of so much walking. When they made it to rooms 211 and 212, a pair of adjoining twin rooms, Dylan let out a dramatic sigh as he let himself in with the key card.

“I don’t know about you guys,” he said, looking around at the other three, “but I’m absolutely famished.” He beckoned for them to follow him in, he and Audrie each claiming a bed within seconds. She threw herself down on the one against the window while he took the one by the wall, dropping onto the edge. “What d’you say to a spot of room service?”

Lucas looked over at Asher, who glanced at his brother, before he met Dylan’s eye. “Seriously?” he asked. Dylan shrugged.

“When you’re in a hotel, do as you’re supposed to do. And I think we’re supposed to get room service. I mean, they’ve left the menu right here. That’s gotta be a sign, right?” He grinned as he flipped through the menu, using the turning pages to fan his face. “How about some pizzas? Or burgers?”

“We can’t, that’s too much!” Lucas said. Dylan pointed the menu at him.

“My mother expressly told me to point blank ignore you if you said that,” he said, throwing the menu over. Asher caught it when Lucas didn’t even register it flying towards him. “What d’you want? Choose whatever.”

“Ishy’s orders,” Audrie whispered when she hovered over Lucas’s shoulder to read the menu. “Do what you want, Lucas, but I’m definitely having the veggie pizza. Ooh, and curly fries!”

Dylan clicked the hotel pen that came with a little pad by the bed, writing down Audrie’s order. Lucas was reluctant, especially when he saw the prices, and he replayed Audrie’s words in his head. It wasn’t his money to worry about: it was his treat.

“I’ll have the cheeseburger,” he said. “No tomato. And some curly fries.”

“That’s my man,” Dylan said with a grin, writing down the order and adding his own. “Ash? Chicken pizza?”

Asher nodded. “Got it in one. And might as well throw some onion rings in there too.”

While they ordered, Lucas took a moment to reply to his mother’s message. She had texted him half an hour ago to check that everything had gone alright, sending him a picture of batter in a bowl that would be a birthday cake waiting for him when he got home the next day. He responded with a selection of the photos they had taken that day, including one of him and Asher grinning.

All day, he felt like they had been closer than ever before. It had been his favourite birthday in every way, waking up to his family and getting to spend a whole day with his best friend, indulging in his favourite universe. And now he was about to have room service for the first time in his life.

“I’ve never done this before,” he said when the food came, once Dylan and Audrie had pushed the beds together so the four of them could sprawl out and binge on far too much food. The two of them had taken a beer each from the mini-fridge. Lucas had taken a sip of his sister’s and turned his nose up at the taste. He didn’t really have a tongue for alcohol.

“What, room service?” Asher asked through a mouthful of pizza, holding his hand up to block any unsightly views or sprays.

“Well, yeah,” Lucas said, “but the whole hotel thing. I’ve never been to a hotel before.”

Asher twitched his head to the side, looking up at Lucas who had a tissue tucked into the neck of his top, using a knife and fork to eat his burger bit by bit. “Seriously? You’ve never been to a hotel?” He looked at Audrie. “Have you?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, “but only a few times before our parents met and a couple of times since I started uni.”

“How have you never been?” Asher asked, incredulous. Lucas pursed his lips and crossed his legs.

“We always stay in houses when we go on holiday,” he said. “And Mum and I never really went on holiday before she married my stepdad.”

“That’s crazy,” Asher said. He had found his way to several hotels over the years, occasionally tagging along if his mother had to go away for work while he was on holiday. She regularly popped down to London; a few times she had headed over to Paris or Berlin and allowed him to hop along with her. “Well, here’s to a big day of firsts.” He raised his Coke, clinking it with Lucas’s bottle of water. “Next on the list: first night in a hotel. Oh! First night without adults, probably.”

Lucas nodded. He spent his life switching between four houses: his mother’s, his father’s, his grandparents’, and Asher’s. He hadn’t spent a single night without adults around. Audrie and Dylan didn’t count when they were just siblings, who were often more childish than him. They were on the cusp of a food fight after Dylan dribbled ketchup down his shirt and Audrie used a curly fry to swipe it up.

“This has been really fun,” Lucas said quietly as he came to the end of his burger, managing not to drop a single piece on himself or even smudge sauce around his mouth. Somehow, the unexpected had happened: he had forgotten his nerves. There had been so much going on around him and inside his head that he had let go of the fears that usually gripped him. The crowds that usually brought on a panic weren’t so bad with Asher by his side, his camera shyness not so pronounced when they were in it together.

“It’s been awesome,” Asher said. “Happy birthday, Lucas. To you.” He raised his can, Audrie and Dylan following suit.

“To you,” they chorused before taking a synchronised sip.

“How tired are you?” Audrie asked. She knew her brother well, aware that he didn’t stay up late on a regular day, let alone a day that had involved so much walking and wonderment.

“Shattered,” he admitted, clearing his plate onto the desk and getting rid of the odd stray crumb that had somehow made it onto the duvet. Asher did the same.

“Me too,” he said. “Wanna head to bed?”

“Yeah.” Lucas yawned as though to prove his tiredness, stretching out his back and his jaw. “Thanks for today. It’s been amazing.”

“You’re telling me!” Dylan said. “Benji’s totally jealous. I sent him some of the pics and learnt that apparently, he’s a bit of a Potterhead. Something tells me I’ll be back there soon.”

“Yeah, Cooper was so envious I was doing this,” Audrie said. She had become fast friends with Cooper during her first year: their rooms were a couple of doors apart, sharing a kitchen and a bathroom, and a course. When he wasn’t in her room, she was in his as they studied together, working hard to ace their exams. It had worked: both of them had achieved firsts at the end of first year. “He’s a bit of a fanboy.”

Dylan grinned. “Let me know when you guys hook up and we’ll have a double date.”

Lucas and Asher bid the two goodnight and left them to bicker and banter with each other, slipping into the room next door. When Asher shamelessly changed out of his clothes and into a towel to shower, Lucas turned his back to get into his pyjamas. He would shower in the morning to feel fresh for the day, his body too exhausted to stand for another minute. He crawled under the duvet, not bothering to fully untuck it from the mattress when he quite liked how tightly they pinned him to the bed. It reminded him of how his mother used to tuck him in, tucking in the duvet around his body.

“You look cosy,” Asher said with a laugh when he came out of the shower with his towel around his waist. Lucas struggled to tear his eyes from his body: he hadn’t really noticed it before but somehow, at some point, Asher had shed his baby fat and now, just a few months away from sixteen, he was looking remarkably toned. Lucas watched droplets drip down his stomach from his hair, tracing over his torso, and he tried to drown the butterflies that buzzed up in the pit of his belly. His attraction had never really been physical before, just something that had grown and evolved over the past ten years, but now he felt as though a light had been turned on inside him. He rolled onto his stomach beneath the stiff sheets.

“I am,” he said, hoping his cheeks weren’t too pink, that it wasn’t too obvious he had been staring. Asher didn’t seem to have noticed, too busy drying his hair with a hand towel. He made no effort to hide himself when he draped the towel over the back of his chair and pulled out a soft t-shirt and a loose pair of shorts to sleep in. “How was your shower?”

“Good. Hot,” Asher said. Lucas pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and bit it, closing his eyes to stop himself from staring at his best friend. Asher eventually got into his bed when he had changed and run the towel over his hair once more.

“Thanks for today. This has really been my best birthday ever.”

“Ever?”

He nodded. It was true. He had enjoyed birthdays in the past; he had hated some. This was probably the first, he thought, that he had truly loved from start to finish.

“That’s awesome,” Asher said with a grin. “I’m so glad you enjoyed it. I was getting kinda nervous that it was a bad idea, even when your parents and Audrie said it’d be ok. I didn’t want to stress you out by coming to London, especially when it’s so busy.”

“It was good,” Lucas said. “It was really good.”

Asher’s lips pulled into a lazy smile, his eyes fixed on Lucas’s. Their beds weren’t far apart, only a couple of feet between their faces and even in the low light, Lucas was sure he saw a twinkle in his eye. It was the kind of glimmer that could melt hearts as easily as it could break them, the easy smile of someone who had even more charm than they realised, and Lucas knew he was in deep. That twinkle would always sweep him off his feet, for better or for worse, and he had fallen head over heels.

+ – + – +

I hope you liked this chapter: it’s about time we had something a little lighter! If you didn’t see already, I have posted a guide to Farnleigh in “Behind the Screens,” something I will also do for Stowe-on-Sea before I write Little Spoon. It’s just a little something to give you a clearer idea of the geography of Farnleigh (where it is in relation to other places) and where the various characters live in relation to each other.

ALSO I have been shamefully quiet with my marketing but I am taking part in the Wattpad Block Party again with my post going live on the 6th of August and I can’t wait to share it with you guys! Make sure to keep an eye on the #wattpadblockparty hosted by kellyanneblount to check out all the exciting writers and posts that will be up in August, and to see when the giveaways go live! My giveaway will be:

[for one winner, aged 18+, any country]: a signed paperback copy of the night train
[for five winners]: a character named after you

It is also about time I posted Charlotte’s cast pic!