Needless to say, Thomas and I were excused from the rest of the activities on our first day at Sunnybrook Youth Centre, on the grounds that I'd probably gained concussion from my fall into the water, and Thomas might as well keep me company. I had to admit, I was absolutely fine with the set-up, but it was quite boring inside of the old building, and we only spent half an hour in the rec room before growing bored and heading back up to the attic.

That, too, was a situation I was absolutely fine with... until I realised that Thomas and I had three whole hours to kill before there would be even a mention of dinner, or the plans for the evening when the others got back from the afternoon's abseiling activity. This meant that, for those three hours, I would need to make conversation with Thomas. And that was something I was definitely not comfortable with.

"So, are you looking forward to spending the night in bed with me?" Thomas asked, flopping down onto the creaky double and spreading his arms out behind his head with a waggle of his eyebrows.

That was the sort of thing making this whole situation so much more difficult to deal with. How was I supposed to respond to his jokes when I could barely look him in the eye as he was telling them without blushing?

"Oh, of course I am!" I replied, the sarcasm screaming out above everything else. I really wished I wasn't quite so dry, sometimes...

Thomas laughed, however, and sat up on the bed, pressing his back against the headboard and gesturing for me to join him. I sat myself down on the opposite side, facing him, with my legs crossed beneath me. It was silent for a moment, and I tugged at a thread hanging out of the duvet with my fingertips, until Thomas suddenly spoke.

"Of all people," he said, and I looked at him to see that he was shaking his head, smiling. "Of all people the school could have possibly chosen to come here, it just had to be us, didn't it?"

What did he mean by that? I frowned, tilting my head to one side, and asked him. Thomas laughed and rubbed his nose. It looked as though his cheeks coloured up a little as he did so, but I already knew that he was embarrassed: four and a half years of watching him from across classrooms had taught me that him rubbing his nose was a sure sign that he felt uncomfortable for whatever reason. It was cute—one of his characteristics only noticeable to those who really knew him.

"Well," he continued, his blue eyes sparkling as he looked over at me, and then away again (we still hadn't properly mastered that eye-contact technique), "I remember we spoke for a little while, back in year seven. Do you remember how you used to sit next to me in our German class?" When I nodded, secretly impressed that he'd remembered, Thomas smiled some more. "We had a good laugh back then, didn't we? I mean, we were the class rebels, of course..." Thomas winked at this, and I laughed at him, thinking back to how we used to cause havoc for our teacher, Mrs Diefenbaker—a stubby, cross old lady with a moustache, who wore circular glasses and a skirt that never quite fit around her stomach properly.

"That used to be my favourite class," I told him, keeping my head down and my eyes attached to the floral bedspread beneath my legs.

"It was mine, too," Thomas said easily, and I tried desperately hard to hide my excitement, though my mouth creased into a smile ten times wider than any normal one, and my stomach flipped. "But I just think about how fun things used to be, back then...and then we just kinda drifted. I mean, I got my friends and you got yours, so I guess that's why we stopped sitting together. But...we literally did just stop talking, completely. And, after all this time—and we're almost finished with school now, for goodness' sake—don't you find it just a little bit funny that we've ended up together, again?"

I smiled at him. "It is sort of crazy," I agreed. Then, with a wink, I added, "Maybe it's a sign."

Thomas grinned. "Maybe," he answered, though there didn't seem to be much hope in his voice, and, within a moment, he'd turned the conversation right around to Mrs Diefenbaker's moustache. My bubble of excitement deflated completely. The next three hours were spent talking normally, and several times, when he mentioned her name, my jealousy towards Lizzie returned.

It was hardly the sort of romantic afternoon indoors you'd expect to see in a movie, that's for sure. In fact, the conversation got so awkward at some points that it was difficult to know what to say in reply. Then again, what more did I expect? I'd distanced myself from the guy for so long that it felt practically criminal holding down the smallest of conversation with him, let alone when we were sitting together in the same bed. For three hours straight.

But it wasn't all bad. The three hours we spent upstairs soon passed by, and during, I found that I could communicate with Thomas a lot easier. I was definitely starting to see signs that our eye-contact issue was getting better.

At six o'clock, Hayley appeared at our door and told us that dinner was being served in the food hall. She ushered us downstairs and into a large dining room, where several tables and chairs were laid out and a long table lined the back wall, full of different food choices. Thomas and I grabbed a plate each and filled them with what we wanted, before looking around for a seat to take.

We'd just sat down at a table when a hand landed on my shoulder, and seconds later, the chair beside mine was pulled out and a body plopped down into it. "Hey," Ben said, his expression cheery and his voice enthusiastic. "How are you feeling? Did you guys recover well?"

I would have answered sooner, but my attention was immediately drawn to the fact that Lizzie was now seating herself beside Thomas, and he was grinning up at her madly, like some sort of lovesick puppy dog. I cringed. Had the past three hours meant nothing? Was his attention still capable of being stolen by a pair of (not even that big) half-exposed boobs and a face full of heavy makeup? That was so typical...

"I recovered well, thanks," I told Ben, stabbing my fork into a fat sausage on my plate and feeling my muscles immediately relax a little at the satisfying popping sound its skin made. "How was the abseiling activity?"

Ben laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "It was okay, I guess. Nowhere near as exciting at the rafting activity, though." He winked. "There weren't any near-death experiences to keep us entertained this time around."

I smiled as I bit into the sausage, and my eyes swivelled round to check on Miss Perfect and Thomas. Unfortunately for me, just as I was inserting the sausage into my mouth, Thomas' eyes swivelled around, too, and met mine. Realising just how very awkward this whole thing looked, I swiftly removed the sausage from my lips without actually taking a bite, then realised that I looked even more idiotic for doing so and proceeded to turn bright red. All the while, Lizzie, Ben and Thomas watched on with amused expressions.

"Um..." I began to think up words to redeem myself, but Lizzie cut me off by speaking first.

"Trouble fitting it in, Sophie?" she joked, and the boys laughed. I was mortified. My whole body froze up and a hard lump formed in the back of my throat, which I tried desperately to swallow down as I lifted my face into a tight grin.

"There was just too much on my fork!" I said quickly, and the others began to roar with laughter. I faked mine, racking my brains for a better excuse. Thomas' eyes met mine again, and they were glossy from laughing so much. His face was red. So was Ben's.

"You're hilarious," Ben said eventually, calming down enough to place his hand on my arm. I tensed up. I hated people touching me unexpectedly—it was awkward and uncomfortable, especially when I hardly knew him that well. "Anyway," he continued, keeping his hand right there, "Lizzie and I were thinking about maybe getting a group of people together tonight, to have a sort of welcoming party. You know, since it's the first night and all..."

"A welcoming party?" Thomas repeated, leaning forward in his seat, interested suddenly. "What do you mean?"

Ben looked at Lizzie, and she continued the conversation. "Well," she said, turning in her seat to look at Thomas better, "we were thinking a group of us could meet up in the rec room later on, when the staff have gone to bed. I've got loads of snacks and drinks and stuff in my suitcase, so we could spend a couple of hours down here, getting to know each other and playing games and stuff. Nothing too over-the-top, obviously...but it'll be fun, don't you think?"

"I think so," Thomas agreed quickly, turning to me with a sparkle in his eyes. "What do you think, Sophie?"

Oh, God. Say my name again. Please.

"Oh, sure! Sounds like a great plan!" I smiled enthusiastically and Ben's grip on my arm tightened even more.

If you do not remove your hand right now, I swear, I will—

"So, let's say we'll meet at ten o'clock," Ben said, removing his hand from my arm. I let out a sigh of relief. "They told us we needed to be in bed by nine, so that'll give us plenty of time to let everybody else fall asleep."

"Have you invited anyone else yet?" Thomas asked.

Ben shook his head. "Leave that to us," he said, smiling. "We'll try to spread the word as much as possible. We need to keep it on the down-low, though—if Hayley finds out, she'll send us back to school and there'll be no more Sunnybrook Youth Centre for us."

Thomas smiled and looked to me for confirmation. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with us," he said. "We'll meet you here at ten o'clock. Right, Sophie?"

"Right," I replied, smiling back.

"Good," Lizzie replied, and she smiled too. "I can't wait."

We chatted a lot over dinner, and afterwards we were told that we were free to do as we pleased until bedtime. Lizzie, Thomas, Ben and I decided to take a walk around the grounds of Sunnybrook Youth Centre, to get a feel for the place. We managed to take a wrong turning at the entrance to one field, and found ourselves walking along the clifftop path, above the beach. There was a bench at the top of the cliff, and we all squeezed onto it. We sat for half an hour, looking out over the sea as the sun set behind it, and when it eventually turned dusky we began to head back through the muddy fields to the building.

People were beginning to filter off to their bedrooms when we arrived back, and we decided we would do the same—after all, the quicker everybody went to bed, the quicker we could make our escape to the rec room. And, sure enough, within the hour the whole place was in darkness. Thomas and I had been sitting on the creaky double bed, listening out for the staff as they let themselves into their rooms around us and retired to bed for the night. As soon as the last door closed, we jumped up and grabbed our torches, making sure not to make any noise as we slipped out into the corridor and tiptoed down the stairs.

When we arrived at the rec room, the lights were off and the curtains at the windows were drawn. At first, it looked like nobody was in there, but when we moved further into the room it was clear to see the light from a few other torches sitting in one corner of the room. Looking closer, I could see that it was Lizzie and Ben, with another couple of people we hadn't met yet.

"Hey, guys!" Lizzie whispered to us. She gestured for us to join them, and we did. They were sitting around in a circle on the floor, and the torches were in the centre, shining out in different directions.

"We're about to play Seven Minutes in Heaven," Ben said, smiling at us as we sat down. I made sure that Thomas was placed tactfully between us, just to avoid any unwanted physical contact with Ben again...

"Seven Minutes in Heaven?" I asked. "You mean, like, the game where you have to go into a cupboard with someone for seven minutes and kiss?"

Ben nodded, waggling his eyebrows at me. "Yeah!" he enthused. "Have you ever played before? Do you want to take the first turn at spinning the bottle to see who you're going to land with?"

Hopefully it's not you, Ben...

"Yeah, go on!" Lizzie nudged me in the side and I realised that she was pointing at a bottle sitting in the centre of the circle, just waiting to be spun.

Reluctantly, I set my torch down and got to my knees so that I could reach into the circle and spin the bottle on the floor. I watched it as it skidded around on the carpet, the neck spinning past Ben first (thank goodness for that!), then past Thomas, and Lizzie, and the other girl we were sat with, then the other boy, and then back to Ben, getting gradually slower and slower until, finally—and I almost fainted on the spot when it happened—the neck of the bottle halted, pointing right at Thomas Lester.

Thomas looked at me. I looked at Thomas. Ben looked at Thomas. I looked at Ben. Ben looked at me. Lizzie looked at Thomas. Thomas kept looking at me. I looked back to Thomas. Ben looked at Lizzie. I don't know what the other two were doing because the torches weren't shining on their faces—and, besides, I didn't even know their names yet.

But I did know one thing, and that was that I was about to get locked in a cupboard with Thomas Lester for seven whole minutes. Forget the three hours we'd spent together, talking on the creaky double bed in our room in the attic, this was a whole lot more serious. Because everybody knew that Seven Minutes in Heaven resulted in a kiss, one way or another...

Ben stood up and opened the door of a cupboard to our left. He stood with a grim expression on his face as I prised myself up off the floor—still in a state of shock—and walked, with shaky legs, towards it. Thomas followed behind, silent too. I stepped into the cupboard, where it was so dark that I couldn't see before my eyes, and I felt Thomas' body step in behind me.

Ben closed the door.

And the seven minutes began...