Chapter 3 #2
“Like . . . when did feelings get so . . . so complicated? When I was a kid, I wanted to play rugby, so I played rugby. I wanted to move to England, so I moved to England. I wanted to get a PS Five, so I bought a PS Five. When did the things I want become so . . . riddlesome?”
“Riddlesome?”
“That’s a word. When did all get so . . . difficult?”
“I believe the actual word—words—you’re looking for are ‘growing up.’”
“I’m sorry,” I say for the millionth time, like it’ll make an iota of difference to either of us.
“Aiden Campbell,” she says in her serious tone again.
“I’ve done my crying over you. Months of it, actually.
We should have ended this last April, but .
. .” She kicks my foot once more. “I dunno, I like you. You’re goofy and fun to be around, and you buy me stuff from Charlotte Tilbury, but I think we’d both be happier if we weren’t lying to ourselves any longer. ”
Her statement is so on point, so succinctly made, that I have nothing to say in reply.
Georgia inhales deeply and pushes herself to her feet.
“I won’t be long. Megan’s gonna pick me up in about an hour, and then we’ll be gone.
I’m going travelling next month. Alone. Czechia, Poland, then Estonia and Finland if I don’t run out of money before that.
I’ve already bought my Eurotunnel ticket. ”
I don’t want to leave things like this, don’t want these to be our last moments together, but I definitely, definitely can’t be here when Megan turns up.
Swift action’s required. I stand and unhook Trekkie’s collar from the peg, a deliberate and undoubtedly asshole move on my part since the dog misses none of this and starts howling with excitement.
He won’t quiet down until I take him outside, adding more urgency to me just getting the fuck out of here.
“I still want to be friends,” Georgia says, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling. My dickhead move did not escape her notice, then.
I nod. She hugs me. I hug her in return, breathe in that familiar powdery smell of her perfume, feel her breaths rising and falling against my chest for the last time.
“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling away from her.
“Bro, shut the fuck up.”
A smile tugs at the corners of my lips. “Take as long as you need. I’ll stay the night at . . .” I leave my sentence hanging open.
We both know whose arms I’m running into. There’s no reason for me to say his name out loud again. Especially when his girlfriend is on her way over to help my ex-girlfriend move out.
“Right, Trekkie, come upstairs with me and I’ll grab a few bits.” I’ve done things in the wrong order. Trekkie jumps up and tries to bite the lead from my hand.
“Here,” Georgia says, grabbing my dog’s special skinny-headed collar from me.
Trekkie’s attention, and more upsettingly his loyalty, shift to her.
Traitor. But it gives me a few precious moments to gather some spare clothes, my kit for tomorrow’s media day, and a few overnight bits like my toothbrush.
When I get downstairs Georgia’s waiting for me by the open front door. She’s already secured the dog, his bed, and his favourite penguin toy in the back seat of my Honda Civic, and is holding out his lead and a half-full bag of kibbles for me.
“Send me pictures, yeah? From Prague and Warsaw and wherever else you go,” I say, accepting Trekkie’s things from her.
“Will do.”
I walk through the front door, stop, and step into the house again. “I still love you,” I say, not entirely sure why.
“I know,” Georgia replies. She reaches up and pushes a damp curl off my forehead. “Just not as much as you love him.”
“Right.” My voice is a whisper. “See you around.”
“Maybe.” Georgia smiles softly. “When we’re finished here, we’ll lock up and post the key back through the front door.”
“Okay,” I reply. I don’t have anything else to say. I don’t even know if I should give her another hug, a goodbye kiss? Instead, I simply get into my car.
Neither of us has even a glistening of a visible tear.
Georgia stays just inside my porch. She waves as I turn off my drive onto the street, and as I reach the end of the road I spot Megan’s lime-green Jimny parked up under the trees.
Through the windshield, Megan is doing a very shit job of pretending to be birdwatching and not waiting for me to get the hell out of there.
“Is that all that’s left of my pizza?” I say walking into Eggo’s kitchen and already regretting my decision not to eat before I’d gone home. Two measly slices of anaemic margherita, and impossibly, one burnt crust wait for me on the baking tray.
“Yeah, sorry, mate. Shall I order us a curry?” Eggo says, looking up from his phone and tossing the device onto the dining table.
“I’d fucking love a curry.”
Eggo accepts a slobbery kiss from Trekkie and takes my bag and the dog’s bed from me. “You okay?”
I nod. Then shake my head. “I feel like I don’t know whether I should cry or not. You know?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he wraps his enormous arms around me and just holds me as though he can hug this weird numbness away.
I lose track of how long we’re standing like that in the middle of his kitchen.
“Doesn’t Megan’s mum live in Kent?” I ask eventually.
He still doesn’t let go. “Yeah, Tunbridge Wells.” He pauses. Figures it out. “Was Megan at your house?”
“Not quite. She was parked around the corner from my house, waiting for me to leave.” Thank god.
“Sounds about right.” Eggo pushes a gap between us. “You know . . . we should really work on this ‘how to be good co-captains’ thing.”
I’m not sure if he’s changing the subject for his benefit or mine, but either way I’m grateful for the distraction.
“Agree. We should figure out a way for us to work . . . in harmony with each other.”
Eggo smirks, evidently pleased with his ability to create a smokescreen to cover the mess that is my love life.
But I’m certain I can go one better than him. “Actually, earlier, when I was in your shower . . . I douched.”
Bingo.
The effects are instantaneous. He barely suppresses an animalistic grunt and spins me around, crowding his front against my back and burying his face into the side of my neck, in those curls he’s so obsessed with. “You want me to fuck you right now, right here?”
“Yes.” I loosen my belt buckle, and his hands slip down the seat of my jeans, cupping my ass cheeks. “Fuck me until I forget about her.”
“As your best mate, it’s my duty to do anything I can to help you get over your ex. And I plan to take my duties very, very seriously.” His hand slides around to the front and skims along my thickening cock. “Shit, let me go grab a condom.”
My dog, who’s essentially made up of nothing but the world’s boniest, kickiest, scrankiest limbs, has decided he doesn’t want to sleep on his eighty-pound luxury hypoallergenic dog bed in the kitchen. Nor does he want that same special bed moved to the floor in Eggo’s room.
No, he wants to sleep on top of Eggo’s king-sized mattress between Eggo and me like a pointy, farty crossbar between goal posts.
Georgia always hated it when I let the dog sleep on the bed with us, but my Cornish friend, despite taking several direct hits to the gonads, has yet to voice his objections.
He—Eggo not Trekkie—is lying on his side and facing me. I’m a back sleeper, but I can’t help turning my head to the left so I can see his brow, cheek, and beard silhouetted against the moonlight pouring in through the window.
So far, for all our back and forth and promises of developing a plan for this co-captaincy gig, all we’ve agreed upon is that kitchen counters are the optimum height for getting railed against and that in the future, it’s probably best to move the fruit bowl out of firing range before ejaculating. Thank goodness apples are wipe-clean.
“They’re gonna ask us about becoming skippers tomorrow,” Eggo says.
I see his cheek bunching as he talks. “They’re not supposed to know about it, and we’re not supposed to say anything, but they’re going to ask.
And they’re going to have questions prepared about our clashing styles and how we’re gonna make them fit together.
And we’ll be expected to come up with vague and throwaway yet ultraspecific answers that they can drip feed in their promos and stuff. ”
I puff out a long sigh. “I hate media day.”
“Same, but what should we tell them?”
“We could just tell them the truth?” I say it like a question. The weirdest thing about this entire conversation is that Eggo’s the one worrying and overthinking for a change, not me. Usually he’s more horizontal than . . . something very horizontal.
He props himself up on his elbow. The entire bed wobbles as his weight shifts. “That we’re sweeping each other’s chimneys?”
I bark out a laugh. “I mean, that’s certainly one way to make the whole day about us. And a very effective and public method of breaking up with Megan.”
He groans and lies back down.
“We should just explain that we’ve never been in this position before, and we’re both aware of the personality clashes, but that the team and the game mean the world to us, and we’re going to put everything we have into developing a unified leadership,” I say.
“Have you been practising that?”
“Maybe a little. Did it sound weird?”
“No,” he says. His voice is soft, as though sleep is already stalking him. “It sounded natural, like you know what you’re talking about. I’m glad at least one of us does.”
“Or we could just give them my favourite line . . . ‘We’re not here to fuck spiders.’”
Eggo laughs.
It’s nearly midnight, and although we’ve fucked twice today—I expect to make up for the solid month of not fucking before that—we don’t touch each other. Touching is not something mates do.
It’s strictly for sexy time or rugby time.
But I want to touch him. I want to touch him so badly.
I want to reach across and stroke the arch of his cheek, run my fingertips through his hair, thread them into his beard, press my face against his chest and fall asleep cocooned within his enormity.
“Did you know Georgia’s going travelling in Europe next month?” I say, turning onto my side and pushing my hand under the cool pillow instead of doing all the other things I’m craving.
“No. Megs never said anything. Did George tell you that today?”
“Yeah.” I’m not even sure why I brought it up.
I don’t want to talk about Georgia or Megan, but I’m also not ready for this moment between us to be over.
Eggo and Pi sleepovers outside of hotel rooms aren’t a common occurrence, and I can already feel the heaviness of the day weighing down his speech.
“Are you still going back to Australia for the off season?”
My knee involuntarily jerks upwards. Trekkie takes it as a personal attack and throws a spiky paw in my direction, jabbing me in the belly. “I don’t want to.”
Eggo’s quiet for a few moments. The seconds stretch on, and I think I’ve finally lost him to dreamland, but then he clears his throat. “Come to Cornwall with me instead. Come hang out with me and Logan for the summer.”
“The entire summer?”
“Yeah. Or however long you like.”
A million thoughts run through my head.
Yes, fuck yes, sign me up now.
But also . . .
What if he’s just saying that to be nice?
What if I’m a burden? Six weeks is a long time.
What if Jody doesn’t want me hanging around with her seven-year-old son for that long and sends me packing?
What if Logan decides he hates me?
What if I fall so irreparably head over heels in love with Eggo that there’ll be no going back after it? No normality?
What if our attempts to figure out the co-captaincy fail and cause a rift between us?
What if I can’t get a refund on my flights? What will I do with Trekkie? I can’t take him to Cornwall again. He’d no doubt end up molesting or murdering Eggo’s mum’s dog. Would Abs still look after him?
What if Eggo gets so sick of me we ruin this entire fuck-buddies arrangement?
What if other people find out?
What about Megan? Shit, what the fuck is he going to do about his actual girlfriend?
“Think about it,” he says, obviously sensing my reticence.
“I know Cornwall can be crowded during the summer months, and expensive too, and you can’t find a parking space for love nor fucking money, but it’s also .
. .” He’s quiet for a few more moments. “It’s also home, and . . . I’d really like you to be there.”
I’m so glad it’s too dark for Eggo to see my reaction.