Chapter 10
Finn
Megan waits for me on a velvet bucket-style chair in the bar area of the Bath Everyman theatre. There’s a full pint of bitter on the table beside her knees and an almost empty tumbler of rum and Coke next to that. She’s staring down at her phone screen, and she’s frowning.
She never frowns.
I’ve always thought that Megs and I get along so well because we’re both unfrowny people.
Our relationship has lasted as long as it has because we’re the type of humans who seek joy in every moment and who smile more often than we frown.
Like pigs snuffling for truffles, that’s us.
Snuffling around for little moments of happiness.
Life’s too short for scowling, or sulking, or grimacing. There are too many novel, wonderful, exciting, enchanting, and ridiculous things to experience, and how can you ever enjoy them if you spend your days scrunching up your face in distress?
So that makes two of us frowning right now.
Eventually Megan looks up from her phone and glances towards the cinema entrance. She spots me, and her features lift into a smile. Mine stay the same, though I try to straighten my brow.
“What the fuck time d’you call this?” she says with a laugh, getting up from her seat to give me a hug. “The film starts in five minutes. I thought you wanted to get drinks beforehand.”
“Sorry, I . . . the traffic,” I lie pathetically. Can’t tell her I’d been pacing my kitchen for two hours typing and deleting the same text message over and over again.
We need to talk.
“I panicked and already ordered,” she says. “I got you a hot dog and a pint of Guinness, and I just got myself a sundae because I wasn’t feeling anyth—” Megan looks at my face and cuts her sentence short. “Oh my god, what’s wrong?”
I can’t answer. I’m a coward, or I’m blowing this out of proportion. Either way, I’ll find out soon.
“Fuck, babe. What’s happened? Is Logan alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, he’s fine,” I reply.
“Well, what is it?”
We’re both still standing. My eyes flick to the plush chairs, but Megs grabs me by the elbows to keep me from dropping into one. All around us, people file into Theatre One. Megan checks her watch and refocuses on me.
Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. “I kissed a boy.”
“And you liked it,” she sings, giggling.
It’s not unusual for either of us to “prank” the other, so I’m not surprised she thinks I’m taking the piss. Her smile drops a few moments later when I don’t burst into laughter myself.
She laughs once. Her face falls. She laughs again. “You’re being for real, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Megan sits down. I wait for her to speak. She doesn’t, so I sit next to her.
“Who? . . . When? . . . What happened? But most importantly, who?”
“Halloween,” I say.
Megan and I haven’t seen each other since the middle of last month.
She’d gone home to Kent to stay with her mum and sick auntie for a few weeks, and we’ve only spoken a couple of times on the phone during that time.
I’d also avoided any discussion about what went down at The Little Thatch and instead recentred all conversation onto her aunt’s recovery.
“It happened at Halloween. It just sort of happened. I was outside, because my helmet was so sweaty and gross and I needed to cool down, and there was a guy there, he—”
“Who?”
I swallow a mouthful of saliva. “Just some guy.”
“Just some guy?” Megs raises an eyebrow.
“I don’t even know his name.” My words are razor blades in my mouth, but I can’t tell her who it really is, or why we kissed, or that since then I’ve thought of nothing else.
Pi’s kiss stirred something in me. An awakening maybe, I don’t fucking know.
Every day in training and every match we’ve played since then has been .
. . agony. Neither of us has acknowledged what happened, neither of us has spoken any words to each other besides our usual rugby-related shit, but each time I look over at him, it’s as though he’s just that second looked away, and it makes me feel . . . achy.
Yearning. The feeling he stirred was yearning.
Yuck, like a fucking teenager.
“Okay . . .” Megan pushes up from the chair. “I’m going to watch the movie now. I’ve been looking forward to this for months. Are you coming in?”
“Are we breaking up?” I ask in a whisper, standing up.
She looks at me. Bites her lip. Puffs out her chest. “I don’t know.”
“Valid.” I go to sit back down, but she grabs me by my coat sleeve.
“What the fuck are you doing? The film starts like . . . any second now. Get in that theatre. We’re in seats four and five D.” Megan lets me collect the untouched pint, and begins shoving me towards the door marked with a big number one.
“Wicked?” says a purple-haired cinema attendant, and Megan hands her phone over to show our tickets.
It’s already dark, and the trailers have begun, but people are still chatting, and waiters are walking around with drinks and plates of food and desserts.
We take our seat—singular, since it’s more like a small sofa—and drop our bags and coats on the ground by our feet.
“Megs, I’m really sorry it happened,” I say once our bums are on the chair.
“Are you, though?” She puts her hand on my thigh. It’s a loaded question, but I get the weird sense she’s not mad. It’s worse than her being annoyed . . . she’s being rational. “Do you regret kissing him?”
No. That’s the honest answer, but I can’t lie either. Instead, I stare at the screen which is playing an ad about becoming a member of the cinema. Her hand moves from my knee to my arm, pulling it down and removing my thumbnail from between my teeth.
“Would you do it again?”
A sound squeaks out of my throat, and I turn to look at her. What I see elicits another chirrup from me. She’s not wide-eyed, her jaw’s not set, teeth not clenched. Instead, her head’s tilted to the side, and there’s a line between her brows that almost looks sympathetic.
It could be a trap.
“Would you?” Her voice is so quiet. I only hear because I’m staring at her mouth.
“Hot dog and a chocolate fudge sundae?” says a waiter, interrupting the moment and saving me from the trauma of answering.
We pull the side tables out, and he places our food and drinks down in front of us.
A heavy dose of sausage meat and onions hits my nostrils, and my stomach cramps with longing.
I have to be honest with her. She has to know that I can’t keep this part of myself to myself any more. I’m twenty-four, am I just supposed to pretend for the rest of my life that I don’t have a need to explore things further?
I guess it doesn’t have to be with Pi, even though I’ve spent the past three weeks thinking of nothing but his lips, and his moustache tickling my nose, and the hard warm press of his body, and his massive fake tits, and the way he just tucked his cock back into his hot pants afterwards like it was no big deal. I suppose it could be with any dude.
“Would it ruin everything we have if I said yes, I would kiss him again?” My breath stutters as I say this.
“What do you want to happen here?” she whispers. “Do you want me to break up with you, or . . . ?”
“No, I don’t want that. I love you, but you should know the truth, and if you decide to end things, I totally understand. It’s one hundred per cent my fault. I just don’t want you to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you, babe.” Megan looks me right in the eyes as she says this.
“Sshh!” It’s the row behind us. I hadn’t even realised the movie had begun.
“Sorry,” I say, turning around to see a man and a woman on the sofa. “We’ll shut up now, promise.”
“Oh shit, you’re Finn Eggington,” the guy says. He turns to his companion. “That’s Finn Eggington.”
“Ssshh!” This comes from the row behind them.
I face the screen, and Megan lifts my left arm, dropping it over her shoulder, and snuggling up to my chest.
I eat my hot dog, watch Jonathan Bailey, and try—but fail—not to think about my friend and teammate, Aiden Campbell.
The house lights switch on slowly, giving people’s eyes a chance to acclimatise, but most folk are already on their feet, gathering their belongings.
Neither Megan nor I move. I’m desperate for a piss, and I know Megan must be too since she has a bladder the size of a gnat’s pinkie, but we stay still.
As though time has stopped. Maybe if we don’t move, life won’t see us.
Her sundae sits untouched on the fold-down table, looking more like a shake than an ice cream. The guy from the row behind asks me for a selfie. I stand, snap a pic quickly, and sit back down.
“I don’t remember a single thing that happened during that film,” Megan says a few moments later.
“Me neither. I’m sorry, that’s my fault.” I’ve ruined one of her favourite movie franchises.
“It’s . . . fine, actually. I’ll go watch it in a couple of weeks with George.” She grabs my hand with both of hers before speaking her next words. “I don’t want to break up with you.”
“But?” I say, because at this point the “but” is bigger than the rolling credits on the screen.
“Honestly? No buts. I still want to be with you. I’ve been thinking a lot—all the way through the movie in fact—and I think we’ve always had .
. . an unusual relationship. We’re not like regular couples.
You know? Like we could go months without seeing each other, or DMing.
Half the time, neither of us even knows where the other is.
You have a kid. I’ve met him like one time.
He called me Auntie Bum Bum because he couldn’t pronounce Megan.
” She laughs. “What we have works out well . . . for us. We can just keep things casual?” The last part is a question.
“So you don’t want to break up with me?” It’s like she’s saying everything I need to hear, but at the same time, I’m not fully buying it.
“No. For two reasons. One, there ain’t nobody—literally nobody—who gives head like you do.”
I doff my imaginary hat. Gotta learn to take a compliment when one’s thrown at you.