Chapter Four The Boys
Chapter Four
The Boys
‘. . . fine,’ I say out loud, to the completely empty room.
I then rub my fingers into my eyes, trying and failing to shift the memory of the crash.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, you see. And I’d rather not think about it anymore, if I’m being honest.
But I will, because my brain currently has nothing else to do. Or nothing else it wants to do, anyway. It is bored.
I am bored.
Because even though I arranged that lovely holiday for Conrad and Eloise to make up for my hideous error at their party, the damage was well and truly done once it got out onto the socials. Work has dried up faster than a slug in a heatwave.
I can’t say I’m surprised.
If someone can’t get the gender of a baby right, what chance do they have with other details?
Who are you going to employ to design and run your event for you?
Someone who can tell the difference between a boy and a girl, or someone who can’t?
I guess I’m fine if the Royal Society for the Protection of the Androgynous comes calling at my door, but other than that, I’m in more than a little trouble with my career, it seems.
I have no work. I have no purpose. I have no idea what to do about it.
This all means that I am feeling thoroughly depressed, and sat on my couch at 11.34 on a Wednesday morning. I’m also still in my pyjamas – and constantly thinking about the car crash that caused all of these problems in the first place.
I’d like to just keel over to one side and get a nice relaxing mid-morning sleep, but given that my insomnia only appears to have increased with the added stress of no work coming in, the chances of that are none to even noner.
Bloody hell.
Maybe I should start day drinking?
. . . or at least do something more practical than just sit here, staring at the wall. The dishes could do with loading into the dishwasher, for starters. The garden outside the front of my flat could do with a cut as well.
I slowly turn my head in the direction of the bay window to look out at it, in order to make a full assessment of the situation, and nearly have a full-blown heart attack.
‘Morning, Charlie,’ Jack mouths silently from beyond the bay-window glass. He then grins and points down at my crotch. ‘I can nearly see your cock,’ he mouths – which, believe me, looks about as disconcerting as it sounds.
The sleep shorts are quite loose, though, I have to admit. I should have got dressed by now.
But then I wasn’t really expecting my best friend to appear at my lounge window, having trampled his way across my decidedly uncut grass.
Slowly, Leo’s head then appears beside Jack, from below the window frame, homing into view like a rising sun. He is trying very hard not to giggle.
Jack put him up to this. I have no doubt about that. Leo is not the type to stomp across someone else’s garden for the sake of a terrible sight gag. Jack very much is, though.
As if to highlight this, Jack then starts to slowly drop below the window frame as Leo achieves his full height.
Both of them continue to have enormous grins on their faces as this goes on, because of course they do.
I stare at them with a look of the utmost derision on my face as they continue to perform this strange up-and-down motion for another two full cycles.
I know what they’re doing. And it’s not going to work.
Both of them then disappear below the window and a few more moments pass, before they reappear at the same time, having swapped sides. Leo has also put on Jack’s battered old leather jacket, and Jack is wearing Leo’s vastly expensive padded Barbour coat.
Leo is attempting to recreate Jack’s near permanent look of good-natured scorn, while Jack is making a pretty good job of aping Leo’s consistent gentle expression. He only looks ever so slightly like he needs professional help.
A traitorous burst of laughter erupts from deep in my chest.
Damn it.
They got me.
Jack laughs in triumph and points at me. ‘Now let us in!’ he roars, before dragging Leo away from the window and towards the front door.
I could just leave them out there. It looks like it could rain at any moment.
They’ll piss off eventually.
I heave a sigh.
No, they bloody won’t . . .
I get up from my sofa, and slouch my way out of the lounge and towards the front door. The Nirvana t-shirt I’m wearing only has three stains down the front of it, so that should be fine for my mates.
‘Morning, dickheads,’ I say as I open the door and allow them ingress.
Jack flicks a finger towards my genitals as he passes by me, making me recoil. Leo merely looks a little sheepish.
Both of them disappear into the kitchen to make coffee.
I stare down the hallway for a moment, watching them go immediately to work, bustling around the kitchen as if they own the place, and making the mess in there even messier.
I then return to the lounge and flop back onto the sofa, awaiting a cup of Jack’s hideously strong coffee.
You never know, though, I guess it might perk me up a bit.
Eventually, both join me in the lounge, Leo perching on the arm of a chair, while Jack crashes down onto the sofa next to me. I have to stick my hand on top of the hideously strong coffee he’s just handed me to stop it spilling everywhere.
‘So, what’s up, misery guts?’ Jack asks, taking a sip of his own disgusting brown concoction.
‘What do you mean?’ I sniff, and then try my hardest not to let my face turn itself inside out as I sip my coffee.
‘We haven’t seen you for weeks, Charlie,’ Leo points out.
‘Been sat here wanking all that time, have you?’ Jack adds, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I thought with Annie being around, your horrifying addiction to horse porn would have calmed itself down a bit, but what do I know, eh?’
I choose to ignore this. It’s always best.
‘I’m . . . fine,’ I say, sounding about as lame as I feel.
‘You’re clearly not,’ Leo argues, drinking from what I have no doubt is a perfectly acceptable cup of coffee that he made himself.
‘Things will pick up,’ Jack says. ‘I told you that. You just need to give all of those idiots a chance to forget about you being an idiot.’ He pats me on the shoulder. ‘It’ll happen, though, I have no doubt.’
‘Maybe,’ I mumble.
Leo gives me a look. ‘This isn’t like you, Charlie. You don’t sit around and wallow.’
‘I do now,’ I say, lip curling.
‘No, you bloody don’t,’ Jack says. ‘That’s not the Charlie King I know and despise.’ He fixes me with a distressing look of purest suspicion. ‘What’s really going on with you?’
‘Nothing,’ I say. Probably a little too quickly.
‘Bollocks,’ Jack rightly counters. ‘There’s been something up with you ever since that weird thing you had at the bowling alley. And young Leo the Lion and I have come here today to find out what it is. Can’t have you sat around here, wanking to horse porn all day. Not healthy for you.’
‘There’s nothing up with me,’ I protest, cheeks flaming.
I have not told my reprobate best friends about the crash. I do not want to discuss why such a simple thing could be causing me such extreme issues.
It’s humiliating.
And Jack Bailey is the type of man to never let me live something like this down.
‘Yes, there is,’ Leo says. ‘Something’s happened to you that’s . . . thrown you off-kilter. Changed you. I can tell.’
My eyes narrow.
Because you’ve had something similar happen, Leo? Is that why you’re so astute about me?
I stare at Jack, who is also looking at Leo with slight suspicion.
I have to lean away a bit when he returns his gaze to me, though. ‘Come on. Out with it.’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ I mutter in a small voice, examining the depths of my coffee cup as I do so.
‘We’re not leaving until you fess up, boyo,’ he tells me. ‘From the looks of things, you don’t have much else to do today. I’m still off thanks to the laboratory refit, and writer boy here can work whenever he wants to, so we literally have nowhere else to be, either.’
As if to underline this, he folds his arms dramatically, and stares at me.
Leo gently moves himself from the arm of the chair, to sit in it properly.
Oh God.
I’m not getting rid of them, am I?
‘I was in a car crash,’ I say in a dull voice, and take another sip of my disgusting coffee.
‘Jesus,’ Jack intones, once I’ve finished my tale of woe.
It actually feels good to have got it off my chest. Which surprises me. I’m still braced for all of Jack’s jokes, and the look of intolerable sympathy on Leo’s face, but I do think opening up to my friends has helped a little.
‘That sounds pretty horrible, Charlie,’ Leo says. ‘I can’t imagine not being able to sleep, and having that kind of thing going around and around in my head all the time. You must be exhausted.’
Yep. There’s the look of sympathy I really didn’t want to see. It makes my toes curl.
‘You really don’t have anything to worry about,’ I tell them. ‘I’m just going through a bit of a rough patch . . .’
Was the panic attack at 4 a.m. you covered up two nights ago so Annie didn’t know about it part of that rough patch? It felt pretty rough at the time. And very lonely.
‘. . . but I’m sure I’ll get over it soon,’ I finish, feeling almost out of breath, for some reason.
‘Hmmm.’ Jack isn’t convinced. Mind you, Jack isn’t convinced about anything, until he’s seen a PowerPoint presentation, and had it independently verified by unbiased experts.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I tell him. I almost wish he would start telling some awful jokes. The careful examination is much more unpleasant.
‘I’m not looking at you like anything,’ Jack retorts as he idly sips his coffee.
‘Oh yes, you are. You both are,’ I tell him.
Leo winces. ‘Well, you do have to admit, you’ve not been acting yourself recently.’
‘It’s not that bad.’