Chapter 1 #2
He recovers his dignity by examining the tote bag situation with renewed commitment.
I let him have the moment. We shuffle forward in the queue.
Somewhere to my left, a girl is crying into her phone in what sounds like Mandarin, and a bloke in a high-vis jacket is explaining enrolment to a woman who clearly does not work here.
After a minute, Femi says, low, ‘He said might see you at the SU thing tonight.’
‘When.’
‘This morning. When you were in the loo at the café. Half eleven. He was two tables away. I thought he was looking at his laptop.’
‘You’ve had this information for three hours and you’ve been sat on it like a hen.’
‘I was processing.’
He huffs out a laugh despite himself. The brick-wall colour fades to rose, to warmth. For a second, I glimpse what Femi’s going to look like in ten years if things go right: someone at peace.
‘Right,’ I say, because Femi looking like that is more than I can handle while my skin’s still humming from a half-second in a lecture theatre. ‘Let’s get your stupid tote bag and then let’s go to the SU and let that lad happen to you.’
‘You’ll come with me?’
‘Femi. I’m always coming with you.’
He grins, small, grateful, knowing he’s about to talk about this lad in a green polo for weeks, and we move up one place in the queue.
The mirror in the halls bathroom is cracked across the bottom left corner: face or jeans, never both. Schrodinger’s fit. I might look devastating, or I might look like a Lewisham bin bag with cheekbones.
The jeans are the good ones. Black, tight where it counts, and if I lift my arms, the t-shirt rides up enough to show the strip of stomach above the waistband. The chain sits right. Eyeliner: smudged on with my index finger, not too much, enough to make the eyes do that thing.
I check the bag. Condoms, lube, back pocket, same compartment as always. Hasn’t changed since sixth form and prepared, not optimistic.
A Boy Scout if the Scouts had been honest about what camping is for.
Femi knocks. ‘Ready?’
He’s wearing a shirt—an actual shirt, with buttons, like he’s going for a job interview at a nightclub.
‘You look like a supply teacher,’ I tell him.
‘You look like you’re going to get arrested,’ he says, which is fair. Then, trying not to look like he’s trying: ‘Have I got too many buttons done up?’
‘Femi, you’ve ironed this shirt. That’s two more steps than the situation requires.’
‘I just want to look good.’
‘You look like you want to be liked. It’s actually your best weapon. Leave it.’
He fiddles with the top button anyway. Undoes it, redoes it. Looks at himself in my cracked mirror from the worst possible angle.
‘Ewan.’
‘What.’
‘What if he doesn’t come.’
‘Then he doesn’t come and you wear the shirt for yourself. That’s how this works.’
‘You’re being suspiciously supportive.’
‘I’ve used my daily quota of cynicism. You’re getting the leftover decency.’
The Students’ Union smells of Red Bull and wet coats. The bass is loud enough to feel in the teeth. Freshers everywhere: drinking too fast, dancing badly, pretending they didn’t leave their parents three days ago. Someone’s already crying by the toilets, and it’s not yet half ten.
I like it. The noise fills the gaps—specifically, the gap where a lecture theatre keeps replaying.
Think about the drink, the music. Anything else.
Forearms.
Fuck off.
Femi clutches a drink and that expression where he’s trying to seem relaxed while he scans the room like CCTV. I’ve seen him at house parties in Lewisham: same face. The boy is incapable of pretending he’s not nervous.
‘Stop scanning,’ I say. ‘You look like you’re about to arrest someone.’
‘I’m not scanning.’
‘You’ve done a full 360 since we got here. He might show up. That’s what might means. It’s not a contract.’
‘He said tonight.’
‘He said might be there tonight. Which is three words away from a maybe. Drink your drink.’
He opens his mouth to argue, and then the lad appears.
A bloke who introduces himself to strangers because he wants to meet them.
Mental. And, oh. I clock him a second before Femi does: same wide grin, same loose confidence, no coursebook this time.
This is him. This is the might see you there, cashing in.
‘Hey,’ the lad says, to Femi specifically. ‘I know now. Economics lecture. Yeah?’
Femi goes still. Not the bad kind, the kind where his whole body forgets what to do.
‘I—yeah. That’s me.’ Femi’s got his drink clutched like a life raft.
The lad grins wider. ‘I’m Allan.’
‘Femi. I’m Femi.’
They shake hands. They actually shake hands, like it’s a fucking board meeting. Allan holds on a beat too long, and Femi goes this shade of red.
Christ, the lad’s blushing too—ears, neck, everything.
The options: wingman, offer a line, open a lane. But watching Femi try to function around a fit bloke is the best entertainment I’ve had since Manchester started.
Allan’s talking to him. Femi’s nodding too much.
Allan scribbles his number on a napkin. A napkin. Like it’s 1990. Hands it over. Femi takes it with both hands as if it’s a birth certificate.
‘Text me,’ Allan says. ‘We should get coffee.’
Coffee. A napkin and coffee, my arse.
Femi watches him disappear into the crowd and then turns to me. Devastated.
‘Did that just happen?’
‘It happened.’
‘He gave me his number.’
‘He did.’
‘On a napkin.’
‘Femi. I was there.’
He stares at the napkin. Folds it. Puts it in the pocket over his heart. I want to take the piss so badly it nearly kills me, but the vulnerability stops me.
‘Follow him,’ I say. ‘Talk to him again. He’s at the bar.’
Femi looks at the bar, then at me, then at the bar. ‘What would I say?’
‘Literally anything. He already likes you. You could recite bus routes and he’d find it fascinating.’
He doesn’t go. He stays next to me, clutching the napkin pocket like it might evaporate, and watches Allan across the room. Just watches. The hope is naked, raw, all of him on display.
I finish my drink. Watch a girl near the speakers trip over nothing. Watch two lads argue about football. Watch Femi watch Allan.
I’ve never looked at anyone like that. My version is faster: see, want, take, leave. No napkins, no shirt pockets, no coffee dates.
The afterparty’s at some flat in Fallowfield. Someone’s kitchen, lights off, music too loud from a Bluetooth speaker that cost twelve quid. Vodka in plastic cups. Eighteen years old and adulthood still a rumour.
I clock him in the kitchen—blond, short hair.
Eye contact, hold it. Smile slightly, look away first, always.
He comes over, of course, he does.
‘You’re from London, yeah?’
‘How’d you guess.’
‘The way you stand. Like you think you’re better than everyone here.’
I nearly laugh. ‘Only most of them.’
His name doesn’t matter—third year, engineering, nice smile, hands that know where to go, five minutes of conversation on autopilot, same ending we both know.
The bathroom door shut. Lock that’s weak.
He pushes me against the wall, and I let him. Parameters. Normal.
‘Yeah?’ he says against my ear.
‘Yeah.’ I pull him closer. Not a question anymore.
His teeth on my neck. Good, he’s not gentle about it. Gentleness would ruin this. Velocity is what I want.
I get his jeans open, grip his cock, thick, curves right, already leaking. Angle right, twist at the top, and feel him groan into my shoulder. He fumbles with mine, gets there. His palm is rough and slightly too dry, but the friction works, the angle’s right.
He knows what to do, and it’s fast—his breath hot on my neck, mine caught somewhere between my teeth, my elbow cracking the soap dispenser, his knee between my legs pinning me harder against the tile.
Flash.
Hands on a whiteboard, sleeves rolled up. Tendons.
I close my eyes, and it’s not the blond lad.
Shoulders. The shirt was across his back. His hip against the lectern, weight shifted, that posture.
I come so hard my knees nearly give out. Back against the wall, teeth in my own lip, grip still firm around the lad who finishes a few seconds later with a grunt and a shudder.
‘Fuck,’ the lad says, cleans up with a tissue, efficient. ‘That was intense.’
‘Yeah.’ I’m already pulling up my jeans. ‘See you around.’
My eyes stay forward, never back.
Except.
The orgasm is still in my legs, the adrenaline, and it wasn’t for him.
I’ve wanted bodies before. Lots of them. I’ve never wanted a body with a name attached to it and a voice in my head saying that name in the Lancashire way.
That’s—new.