He grimaced.
‘Can’t remember. Roughly. On the border.’
‘And was it with Mia?’ Jenna hesitated to bring up the name, but she thought there was no point brushing Jason’s past under the carpet, really. It was part of who he was, when it came down to it.
‘Yeah. Mia. We were at that stage. Little notes to each other, drawn-on tattoos on each other’s arms. Kissing in the kiddie park while all our mates made sick noises.’
‘I can’t see you as a mushy lad,’ said Jenna, wishing – not for the first time – that she could have known Jason earlier, saved him from some of what he had had to go through.
‘Not so much mushy as rampantly horny,’ he said with a cheeky grin. ‘Couldn’t keep my hands off.’
‘Some things don’t change then.’
‘No, and they aren’t about to either.’
He rolled over, pinning her down so suddenly that she squealed.
‘Got it?’ he said, coaxing her into a long, tongue-heavy kiss.
‘I think so,’ she said, emerging blearily. ‘Were you nervous? The first time?’
‘A cross between nervous and raring to go,’ he said. ‘I was worried about hurting her. She was all right though. She was more up for it than I was. She was no shrinking Fanny Harville. She knew what was what, that girl. What about you?’
‘What about me?’
‘Your first time?’
Jenna wished she hadn’t brought up the subject. It all seemed such a long time ago now, and yet, when she shut her eyes, she could be there.
She could be there in the tent, at that little illegal free festival in a field in Lincolnshire, smelling of wood-smoke, hearing the thud and wail of the different sound systems outside.
A little blurred around the edges from cider and the fragrant smoke of the joints Deano’s friends were sharing outside, she lay down on the sleeping bag and let her mind whirl. They would think she was a lightweight. She had wanted to stay up with the others, to prove that she could rave around a campfire all night long, but the truth was, she couldn’t. She’d need to work on her stamina. All that marching through miles of fields with a huge rucksack, followed by dancing like a lunatic and blowing whistles, had broken her.
Or so she thought, until a voice spoke at the flysheet.
‘You aren’t going to sleep already are you, Jen?’
She opened her eyes and smiled. Deano’s hair gel had given up the ghost, and his blond spikes were flopping down. His eyeliner was smudged, but that seemed to suit him, making his unearthly, almost silver-blue eyes gleam more brightly than ever. He was the most gorgeous boy in town, and he wanted her. It was crazy.
‘You feeling OK?’
‘Yeah. Just dog tired. That hike earlier on killed me.’
‘Aw, no,’ he said, in a high, cartoon-character voice, crawling up beside her on the sleeping bag and pawing at her shoulder. ‘Please don’t die, Jenna Wren. What would I do for my smoochies?’
He lay beside her and she let her tired eyes focus on his face, earnest now for a change. He had been manic enough all day.
‘You’d do all right,’ she whispered. ‘Plenty of girls after you.’
‘Not like you,’ he said. ‘You’re special.’
‘So are you.’
He didn’t deny it. He knew it was true – enough people had told him so. But it was the first time Jenna had heard it, and she savoured the exquisite feeling.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘I can show you.’