Chapter 8 Flynn
FLYNN
We retrieve my car and drive to Jimmy’s. I sit at his breakfast bar, quizzing him on his flashcards while he cooks. I’m impressed; he can cook cheese sauce from scratch, although I’ll withhold full judgment until I’ve tasted it. The sizzling bacon smells good, though.
I learnt to cook when I was living at Jimmy and Billy’s.
It was one of the ways I could help out and say thank you to their parents for letting me stay so often.
Once I turned sixteen and Billy and I were a couple, I moved in.
It was my home for five years, sort of seven.
I miss it. I miss their parents. Mr and Mrs Reynolds were kind and welcomed me as part of the family.
I wished that they’d been my parents instead of the ones I’d been born to.
Even after Billy and I split up, and I moved out, Mrs Reynolds would drop by Grandma’s to check on me.
“This is helping, thanks,” he says.
“The flashcards?”
“Yeah, but I meant your system. I think I’m recalling more than I was this morning.”
“You are, yes. See? You know this stuff.”
“Yeah, I just had to pull it out of my grey matter.”
I laugh. “Exactly. You’ll do well in your exam.”
He crosses his fingers. “I need to have done well in the others, too. Although, to be fair, I don’t need a degree to work in a gym.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But what you’ve learnt will be invaluable. Besides, you had fun, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, lots of fun. It’s been a great three years.”
“And your gap year, before that?”
“Oh, yeah, that was amazing.”
“Tell me about it?”
He serves up the mac and cheese with bacon and sits beside me. The breakfast bar isn’t very long, and his muscles make him pretty wide, so we end up brushing upper arms. My pulse picks up. I focus on my food, rather than on how nice the light touch is.
“I travelled as cheaply as I could—coaches, hitching rides, and staying in hostels, or on campsites—and carried as little as possible. I did odd jobs here and there. I even did some farm work.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, nothing major. Just fruit picking in the autumn. But a couple of weeks of that helped my finances. Are you going to eat? I promise my cooking won’t give you food poisoning.”
“Uh, sorry.” I’d been captivated by his tale. I try the mac and cheese. “It’s good!”
“No need to sound so shocked.”
My cheeks flood with heat. I dip my chin. “Sorry.”
“No worries. If you can only cook one meal, learn to cook it well, right?”
I chuckle. “Right.”
“Maybe you could double my repertoire.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Teach me how to cook your favourite meal.”
I widen my eyes. My pulse is even faster now.
“If I recall, you love ham, egg, and chips, with a runny yolk.”
He remembered? Just like he remembered that I like drinking warm milk, and how milky I take my coffee.
“Yeah, but that’s easy to cook,” I say, in an attempt to brush off my surprise.
“Then it won’t take me long to perfect it.”
“Where did you go?”
Jimmy gives me a blank look.
“When you were travelling.”
“Oh, we’re back to that conversation! All over. I visited various places in the UK, then bought a cheap European train ticket. I went from France, through Belgium, into the Netherlands, and then Germany.”
“Wow.”
I’ve never even left the UK. The Reynoldses offered to take me on holiday with them, but I always declined, not wanting them to foot the bill for a third kid who wasn’t even theirs.
“And then I ran out of time. I needed to come back to the country to make sure I was ready for uni.”
“It sounds like an adventure. What was your favourite place?”
“Oh, Amsterdam, for sure. I loved the canals and the nightlife. It was amazing.”
“You’d go back?”
“For a holiday? In a heartbeat.”
I’ve seen pictures of Amsterdam, so it’s easy to imagine Jimmy wandering along the canals, sightseeing.
Of course, he was there before he started weightlifting, so I should remember him as he was.
Except my brain doesn’t want to do that.
It only wants to picture Jimmy as he is now.
Strong, buff, and sexy. I need to think about something else. Washing up. That’s safe.
I reach for Jimmy’s bowl to stack it with my own. So does he. Our hands touch. My face flushes with heat. Neither of us pulls away.
“You cooked, so I’ll wash up.”
“To be honest, I was just going to toss everything in the sink and worry about it tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m a student, remember?”
I laugh and shake my head. “Let me wash up. It’s the least I can do.”
“You’ve been helping me revise all day.”
“Not all day.”
“For a good chunk of it. Forget the washing up.”
His hand is still touching mine, as we refuse to relinquish our grasp on his bowl. And now our stares are locked.
“And do what?” My voice is light and airy.
“I dunno. Watch a film.” His eyes light up. “I have a subscription to an anime site. We could binge a series.”
“You’re still into anime.” My voice rings with fondness.
“Yeah. It’s awesome.”
“Sounds good.” I’d watch anything if it meant spending a bit more time with him. Today has been better than I could have dreamt. “You’ll have to choose something, though. I haven’t watched anime since—” I snap my mouth shut, look away, and release the bowl as if it was molten lava.
Since everything turned sour between Jimmy and me.
He touches my shoulder. “Hey. We’re friends now, aren’t we?”
I look at him, blinking. “Yeah?” My question is quivering and tentative.
“Yes. I’ve had a great time with you today.”
I smile. “Yeah, same.”
“Let’s not worry about the past anymore, okay?”
I swallow and nod. Can we? Probably not forever, but at least we can ignore it—and the Billy shaped elephant in the room—for now.
He collects the bowls and dumps them in the sink, along with the pots, pans, and utensils he used to cook with.
We go to the sitting room. The last time I was in this room, we fucked on that sofa.
I can’t help but glance around the room at all the places my clothes ended up.
The light shade. The TV. At the time, it felt like the worst mistake in the world.
But now I can’t get Jimmy’s profile picture out of my head.
That chest. Those abs. I almost melted when he flexed his arm muscles earlier, on the tow path.
I shouldn’t be having these thoughts. Not about Jimmy. We’ve only just reconnected and things are precarious between us. Besides, part of me is still in love with Billy.
“Armchair?” Jimmy suggests.
Can he guess what I’m thinking? Maybe not all of it. My thoughts are far too chaotic and messy for that. But some of it.
“The sofa’s fine.” What an idiotic thing to say, but I can’t take it back. “It has the best view of the TV.”
“That’s by design.”
“Oh?”
“In case any of us wanted to Netflix and chill.” He winks, but then winces. “Sorry. I’m not suggesting we should.”
“Anime,” I say, as if that’s going to sweep the awkwardness away.
“Right. Anime. Not Netflix.”
Not that what’s on the TV makes any difference to that saying.
He grabs the remote, and we sit, not close enough to touch. He suggests a handful of short series. The kind of thing we could watch in less than three hours. He also shows me the blurbs for some films, but I have no idea what is and isn’t good, and he's already seen them all.
“You choose,” I say. “Show me your favourite.”
He rubs his hands together. “How do you feel about swimmers? It’s not a boy love series, but the sexual chemistry is there.”
“If you like, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.”
“All right. Series one. Let’s go.”
He navigates to the right series, presses play, puts the remote down, and makes himself comfy on the sofa.
He man-spreads, and I can’t say I mind, even if the closeness of his knee to mine makes my breath catch.
He loops his arms over the back of the sofa, his hand achingly close to my shoulder.
It would be so easy for him to move his arm a fraction and end up hugging me, but he doesn’t, and there’s no way I can vocalise that I wouldn’t mind if he did.
How can I want something and still be so messed up and guilty about it?
The series is fun. It uses flashbacks to introduce us to all the main characters, including the guy who was their bestie and teammate, and is now their rival.
It doesn’t take many episodes for me to agree with Jimmy: the sexual tension between the characters is off the charts.
It’s disappointing that it’s not a boy-love series.
There’ll be no kissing. No payoff for the tension.
I laugh, and I sit on the edge of my seat during the competitions.
The best part? Stealing glances at Jimmy and seeing the pure joy on his face as he mouths the dialogue.
It’s a series he's watched several times and loves. By the time the end credits roll on the last episode of season one, I’m eager to see more, only it’s late, and I have to be awake and up early to milk the cows.
“Well, what did you think?” Jimmy asks.
“It was good.”
“There are two more seasons and several movies. You’re welcome to come over whenever you want to see the rest.”
“You have it all?”
“A lot of it is on the streaming channel. I managed to track down anything that isn’t on DVD. I did have to fork out for a multiregional DVD player, though.”
I stare at him. “I have no idea what that means. I’ve never owned a DVD player,” I add.
He laughs. “DVDs have different encoding in different areas. So you can’t buy an American DVD and play it here, or a Japanese one, and vice versa. But, with a multiregional DVD player, that’s not a problem anymore.”
My head is spinning. “Okay, I’ll take your word for it.”
“Come over again? To watch more of this.” He gestures to the TV.
“You have exams.”
He raises his finger. “I have one exam on Tuesday. And then I’m free as a bird. Other than finding a job and somewhere to live come September.”
I gnaw my lower lip. I want to come over again. I want to spend more time with Jimmy without the weird awkwardness we slip into every so often.
“Wednesday is my day off.”
“It’s a date.” He raises his eyebrows and spreads his fingers wide. “Uh, not as in a date date. But, you know…”
“Two friends hanging out, watching anime?”
“Yes. That kind of date. A platonic date. Hey, you could text me everything we need for ham, egg, and chips, and we could cook after. Or before. However the timing works out.”
“That would be fun.”
“You bet it would. So… Wednesday?” He sticks his hand out.
I stare at it for a few moments, wondering what he’s expecting me to do. Shake it? That must be it.
I take his hand and shake it. “Wednesday.”
He grins. We should let go of each other’s hands, but we don’t. I want him to pull me into his arms, but he doesn’t.
His cheeks pink, he clears his throat, and he lets go. “I’m not kicking you out.”
“It’s getting late. I should go.”
“Right.” He wipes his hands over his thighs and stands.
I hurry to my feet. This is where I leave.
He shows me to the door, where we stand in self-conscious silence.
We said all the usual pre-goodbye stuff in the lounge.
The ‘we had fun’ and ‘let’s do it again’ stuff.
All that’s left to say is ‘bye’, except my mouth isn’t working, and my feet aren’t carrying me over the threshold into the street.
“Thanks for today,” he says in a soft voice.
My insides quiver. “Thanks for saving me from a day of solo tourism.”
“I spent a whole year being a solo tourist. It can be fun.”
“If you say so.”
“But having company is better.”
“Especially good company.”
He smiles. “I’m good company, am I?”
“Yes.” The best.
He pulls me into a hug. I gasp, unsure what to do. It takes me far too long to reciprocate, by which point it’s over, and we’re both blushing, and my head is spinning, and I’m tingling and desperate for more.
“Bye,” I say.
“Bye.”
I turn and almost fall over myself in my hurry to reach my car.
I get in, put on my seatbelt, and turn on the engine.
I glance back at the house. The yellow door is still open.
Jimmy is standing in the doorway, watching me, grinning.
I wave, check my mirrors, and then pull away.
When I glance in my mirrors again, he’s still there.