Chapter Two
CHAPTER TWO
Finn
I was halfway through a sentence when my phone lit up on the desk beside me. Normally, I’d ignore it, but as soon as I glanced at the screen I realised how long it had been since I’d taken a break. I really needed to get better at limiting my recording sessions or at least scheduling in breaks so I didn’t work for nine hours straight.
Pausing the recording, I slid my headphones off and grabbed my phone before the call ended, noticing how numb my butt was from sitting still for so long.
“Hey, Chantelle,” I said, leaning back in my chair and letting myself relax for the first time in hours. A wave of tiredness washed over me, and I knew I wouldn’t be going back to work after this. Perhaps I needed to start setting timers.
“I swear to fucking God, Finn, I swear to. Fucking. God. Why the fuck did I sleep with Ryan?” Chantelle’s bouncing London accent carried the same level of anger it always did when she talked about her ex-boyfriend and father of her child. I assumed Ryan had fucked up royally again and that Chantelle was calling me to vent, because that’s what best friends were for. Her timing couldn’t have been more perfect, though—it was like she magically knew I needed a distraction.
“Because he has a big dick,” I said with a wry chuckle as Chantelle sighed.
“Don’t I fucking know it. I swear, Finn, I’m swearing off men. Well, straight men. They’re all wankers.” I tried not to laugh. Chantelle and I had known each other since the first day of university when we’d moved into the same flat and she’d decided we were going to be friends. I wasn’t sure why she’d picked me, considering I was a quiet, nerdy, anxious mess, and she was loud, fierce, and took no shit, but she had. Ten years later, she was one of the people I was closest to, and I loved her to bits.
“What did Ryan do?”
“Where do I fucking start? Hang on.” I heard her turning away from the phone. I smiled to myself as I listened. “Kelsey, get off the sofa please. I don’t care that your dad lets you jump on his sofa. You’re not jumping on mine. Get down. Thank you.”
“Everything okay?”
“Honestly, don’t get me wrong, I love Kelsey to bits, but she’s doing my fucking head in today. She was at Ryan’s last night, and she’s come back exhausted, hopped up on sugar, and telling me all the shit he lets her do. And he gives zero fucking shits because it’s not his problem!” Chantelle exhaled loudly like she was trying to calm herself down. I wished I could reach through the phone and give her a hug. Being a single mother to a five-year-old sounded exhausting, especially when Kelsey’s dad was more interested in finding his next hook-up than being a parent.
“Oh, and guess fucking what?” Chantelle continued. “Ryan’s gone and knocked Lissa up too. I saw her in Tesco last week while I was getting a cake for my mum’s birthday. She didn’t even fucking know he already has three kids. She knew about Kelsey because she was at Ryan’s when Lissa was round one day, and that’s when I met her, but he’d forgotten to mention Cole and Sierra. And, apparently, he’d fed her the same fucking bullshit he fed me and the others about how he promised to be a good dad, and they’d be a family and all that bollocks. That man needs to be fucking neutered.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, wishing even harder that I could give her that hug. “I can’t imagine how stressful that is. And you’re right, Ryan’s a wanker. If you wanted, I could hold him down and you could remove his testicles with a spoon?”
“It’s not even that I’m pissed for me. It’s so fucking hard to explain to Kels that the reason she doesn’t get to see her dad more is because he’s a dickhead who can’t keep it in his pants. He keeps making her all these bloody promises I know he won’t keep, and it’s going to break her fucking heart when she realises.” I heard the sadness and frustration welling up in her voice. “And work is driving me fucking bonkers, and my mum is too. It’s just all…”
“Shit?”
“Yeah. Exactly. It’s all shit.” She chuckled weakly and sniffed. Chantelle very rarely cried—she had a core of steel—and the fact that she was even considering it showed how much she trusted me. But we’d been that way for years. We didn’t have any secrets anymore.
And that was both a good and bad thing considering what she’d talked me into.
“Why don’t you two come here for a weekend?” I asked, spinning around in my chair and stretching my legs out, rotating my ankles until they popped. “The weather’s a bit rubbish, but we can have a couple of days out. If you don’t mind the wind and rain, we can always venture up to Skegness.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Kelsey will love it, and then I could give you a hug in person.”
“I do miss my Finn hugs,” she said. “I’ll have a look at some trains. Maybe in a couple of weeks? Depends when I can get something cheap.”
“No worries, just let me know. It’s not like I do much with my free time anyway.”
“God, you are such a fucking sweetheart,” Chantelle said with another sniff. “If only you didn’t feel like my fucking brother.” I snorted. We’d tried sleeping together once when we’d been drunk and lonely. We hadn’t gotten far because it had been awkward as all hell, and we’d vowed never to try it again. “How many of your sibs are single?”
“Not many these days,” I said. “They keep pairing off.”
“Bollocks.”
I laughed, and from the other end of the line I heard a crash and then wailing. “I’ll let you go.”
“Yeah.” Chantelle sighed wearily. “Thanks for the vent.”
“Anytime,” I said. “I love you, and give Kelsey a hug from me.”
We hung up, and I stretched again, scrolling through my phone as I spun my chair around slowly. There was a string of messages in the family chat about lunch tomorrow, and my brother Eli had sent me an endless list of TikToks. I had five siblings—four brothers and one sister—who were generally loud, intrusive, and very loving. I counted myself very lucky on the family front, even if I wished that they weren’t quite so overbearing—especially my brother Oscar, who still treated me like I was Kelsey’s age. He’d sent me some pictures from his latest trip, though, and it was nice to see his face against the backdrop of white sand and lush vegetation from whatever beautiful corner of the world he’d been in.
There were also a couple of messages from Gem. I read them as I stood and let myself out of the small, stuffy recording booth my sister, Jules, had built for me a couple of years ago in the second bedroom of the tiny flat I rented.
Gem
Guess who turned up at The Lost World today with his new toy?
Gem
I’ll give you two guesses.
Gem
Fancy pizza and whiskey?
“Bugger,” I muttered to myself as I retrieved a giant hoodie from my bedroom and headed for the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. I wasn’t at all surprised Jesse had dumped Gem for someone else because he’d always given me that sinking feeling. Whenever I looked at him, it always felt like something was off and that it would end badly. I didn’t want to say I’d been right because I’d never mentioned it to Gem out of politeness, but I got the feeling Gem already knew how I felt.
I’d always had a knack for reading people and for being able to see the things they tried to hide. It made me a good judge of character, but I very rarely told people what I thought. Partly because I was far too anxious to interfere and partly because I knew most people didn’t want to hear it. I’d tried once when my oldest brother, Richard, had brought a girlfriend home from university. I was sixteen and had immediately gotten an uncomfortable knot in my stomach, but Richard had said I was imagining things and to stop being silly.
After their incredibly messy breakup two weeks later, when she’d locked him out of his flat and thrown all his possessions out his bedroom window, I’d resisted the urge to say I told you so and instead never mentioned it again.
I flicked the kettle on and leant against the counter as I replied.
Finn
I’m sorry. That’s so rude of him!
Finn
I’ll order pizza, you bring drinks.
Gem was very particular about his whiskey, so it was easier to let him bring what he wanted. Even so, I did have a couple of different bottles in a cupboard in case of emergency. It was another thing I’d never mentioned to him because I thought that might cross a line. Gem and I were just friends, and I didn’t want to make anything complicated. Crushing on him wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
Gem
You’re a legend. Be with you in about an hour.
I smiled to myself and finished making my tea, trying to ignore the little flare in my chest as my brain registered that Gem was single again.
“No,” I said. “I can’t say anything. That would just be rude.”
Jesse might have ghosted him two weeks ago, but the final nail in the coffin hadn’t been until today, and despite the bravado I was sure Gem would put on, he was bound to be hurt. Besides, I couldn’t see him wanting anything with me anyway. I was a nerd’s nerd—the sort of man most people instantly dismissed. It didn’t help that I was rather gangly and awkward, and I was also painfully shy around people I didn’t know.
It made making friends nearly impossible, so finding a partner would be like reaching for the moon. The only reason I knew Gem was because my brother Lewis had introduced us last year, even though he’d practically had to drag me out of my house by the ankles. I was glad he had because Gem was nothing short of amazing. At least in my eyes.
I just wished other men could see what I saw. Gem deserved everything, but he seemed ready to settle for the first man who showed interest. Even if that man was an undeserving prick.
That made me sound very bitter, and perhaps I was. Over the last six months my feelings for Gem had escalated from friendship into unrequited pining without any conscious input on my part, and it was sometimes hard to live with. Mostly because I knew I’d never stand a chance and was doomed to spend all eternity dreaming over him from afar.
Picking up my tea, I headed through to my living room and settled on my sofa. I took out my phone to order us some food, knowing how busy the local Domino’s got on a Saturday night, and once that was done, I began to flick through some of the notifications for my side project.
Writing and narrating audio porn hadn’t been something I’d ever expected to do, but it had come around after a slightly drunken night a couple of years ago. I’d been lonely and horny and had somehow found myself heading down an interesting rabbit hole. Since I’d been drunk, I’d made the mistake of sending a link to Chantelle, who’d immediately jumped on the idea and convinced me to do it alongside my regular voice acting and narration work.
Now, I had a thriving side hustle, but it was one I did more for fun than money.
It was almost funny when I thought about it—around most people I was quieter than a mouse, but put me in a recording studio, and I became a different person. I’d always wanted to be an actor because there was something about inhabiting another character that made everything so much easier, but I struggled with auditions and being in front of humans. One of my teachers at university had suggested narration and voice acting and had gotten me some time in one of the music department’s recording booths. As soon as I’d started, I’d realised I’d found the place I belonged. And while it had taken me a while to get established, I now had a thriving narration career with more projects in my diary than I had hours in the day.
The side hustle was similar but in a totally different world. It allowed me a freedom of expression I never would have thought to explore.
As I looked at my profile, I realised I was due to post something. Luckily there was something already edited and waiting to go on my laptop, it just needed uploading, and I could easily get that done before Gem arrived. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about it, and I could come back to the comments tomorrow.
Taking my tea with me, I headed back to the booth and my computer, leaving the door open this time. The video was ready to go with its simple text background and the nondescript logo of my anonymous persona, and I’d already written a little blurb to go with it. I slipped on my headphones and began to click through things to get the upload going. It didn’t take long. I hit the Play button to double-check the audio quality, the deep, soft voice I used for these projects echoing in my ears.
“Hello, baby. Have you been good for me today?”