Chapter 33
Aiden
The entrance sign for the campsite reads Sunnywell Holiday Park.
I only know this because Eggo showed me the website before we left and told me the address so I could put it into Google Maps.
The sign itself isn’t visible. Rain lashes so ferociously against the windscreen that I only catch glimpses of it between wiper swishes.
Which, if the weather continues in this fashion, we won’t see anyway.
Logan waits in the car with me while Eggo runs into the check-in building to pick up our keys.
“Are you a shark?” Logan asks.
“No. You already asked me that one,” I reply.
We’ve been playing “what animal am I?” for the last fifteen minutes. I don’t know what’s taking Eggs so long, but so far I’ve been a koala, a kangaroo, and a quokka, since Logan has limited me to Australian animals only. Unsurprisingly, he has chosen three types of spider.
“Do you live in England?” he asks.
“Obviously not.”
“South America?”
“Did you forget the rules you imposed on me?”
“So you live in Australia?”
“Yes, I’m native to Australia.”
“What does native mean?”
“It means I originate from there.”
“What does originate mean?”
I close my eyes. I am a beacon of patience. There’s no such thing as a stupid question. I can handle this almost-eight-year-old child.
“It means that’s where they’re originally from.”
“Oh.” Logan thinks a bit. “What does impose mean?”
Save me, Eggo!
“Your dad sure is taking a long time.”
“Can you fly?”
“Yes!” I shout, excited that we might finally be getting somewhere.
“Are you a bird?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“So, you’re a bird, and you’re a flying bird, and you live in Australia and not England . . . Are you . . .” Logan wipes the condensation off the window with his sleeve. “Nah, I give up.”
“You can’t give up. You almost had it.”
Logan simply shrugs. “Can you open this? I’m hot.”
“No, I can’t control it from this side. Anyway, I was a bin chicken.”
“A bin chicken?!” he yells. “What’s a bin chicken?”
The driver’s door opens, and Eggo hops in, ringing wet and holding a soggy folder in his hands. He shakes his head like a dog, sending beads of rain water everywhere.
Logan screams with laughter. “Dad, what’s a bin chicken?”
“Nothing. What’s a bin chicken with you?” Eggo replies.
Logan groans. “Bruh, you always say whatsasomethingwithyou!”
The caravan is super cute. It has a wraparound deck and an open-plan kitchen-dining-living area with a little corner sofa and pouffe and a TV built into the room divider.
There are two bedrooms. Logan’s, which has tiny twin beds running parallel against the walls, and the master bedroom.
Unfortunately, those rooms are next to one another, and the metal walls are about as thick and soundproof as toilet paper.
I look at Eggo. He glances around the space, evidently arriving at the same conclusion as me. His face crumbles in heartbreak.
We’ve enjoyed two blissful weeks in Newquay while his mum and stepdad were on holiday, but since they’d returned, we’ve had no other option but to resume our sneaking about, stealing moments here and there so we don’t make too much noise.
We haven’t had sex since then, and I was kinda hoping this weekend would break our dry spell, but I guess we’ll have to wait until we arrive back in Bath for that.
Eggo checks his watch. “Right, it’s almost teatime. Shall we mooch to the clubhouse and get some scran? I would say we could go exploring, but it’s not the weather for that.”
Rain crackles against the metal roof of the caravan and gushes down the windows. None of us have brollies. Only Logan—well, Jody—had the sense to pack wellies and a raincoat.
“Ahh, come on, we can’t let England spoil our holiday. Let’s see what’s here,” I say.
Eggo and I are soaked to the bone in mere seconds.
We walk to the edge of the campsite, but despite Logan’s persistent nagging, we don’t go down the little path to the beach.
He wants to swim in the ocean, but we mollify him by ordering pizzas and Cokes from the onsite restaurant and letting him loose in the soft play while the grown-ups hit the beers.
Three pints in and Eggo decides it’ll be a fun and financially judicious idea to visit the arcade.
In all fairness, it is fun. We race each other on the F1 game, we blast dinosaurs and aliens and zombies, we turn our fingertips black with the penny pushers, and we smash fifty quid into the claw machines, or as Eggo and Logan call them, “the teddy grabbers.”
We suck at winning any prizes until one of the metal claws becomes stuck on a toy’s paper tag, and through fluke alone, we score a Squishmallow of a shark nomming on half a leg.
It’s still pissing down as we make our way back to the caravan.
The rain is warm, and Logan insists on taking off his raincoat because he’s too hot.
Eggo lets him. We dress Sharky in his coat instead, sing Natasha Beddingfield’s “Unwritten” at the top of our lungs, and dance in the middle of the holiday park streets.
My feet slide around in my thongs, and it’s a sensory nightmare, but the joy on Eggo’s and Logan’s faces more than makes up for it.
In the caravan, we change into dry trackies, and Logan puts his pyjamas on.
Then, because he’s not the least bit tired, or so he claims, we whack Shrek 2 on the TV—one of the caravan’s minimal DVD offerings.
Without saying anything, Logan wedges his pointer finger knuckle into his mouth and snuggles under my arm.
Eggo’s jaw hangs open. “He never does that,” he whispers.
It feels as though I’ve been hand selected by a great deity to watch over this precious cargo. I finger comb his blonde curls and smile at Eggo.
At ten o’clock, before the movie’s even over, we carry a sleeping Logan into his room and tuck him and Sharky into the bed farthest from our shared wall.
“Good night, Spider-Man,” Eggo says, bestowing a forehead kiss upon his kid. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” Logan replies, proving my earlier suspicions that all children, no matter where they’re from or what decade they grew up in, will pretend to be asleep just to be carried around.
Eggo checks his watch, and we shuffle into the master bedroom. The bed is small. Wider than the replacement bed we bought for Leoni’s room, but shorter, and my buddy here is going to have a good half a foot of his body dangling off the end.
“Which side do you want?” he asks me in a whisper.
I shrug. Don’t actually answer his question. “Did it ever seem weird to you how, when we got to your parents’ house in Newquay, we both just took Leoni’s old bed, even though there’s a bed in your old room?”
“No, because that bed was designed for kids and I weigh eighteen stone,” he replies.
“But there are sofas. And I’m sure you mentioned an air bed at one point. Your folks went away for two weeks, so one of us could’ve slept in their room.”
“Barf-o-rama,” he says.
“You know what I mean.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” he whispers. “Don’t hate me, yeah, but I told my mum to throw the air bed away because I thought you might ask to sleep in Logan’s room, and . . . if you’d really wanted to, I would have bought another air bed for you, but . . . you never asked.”
It takes a few second for my brain to process. “That’s what I mean. It never occurred to me until just then, but I got to your parents’ house and it didn’t seem weird that we’d be sharing a bed for a few weeks, when we don’t even share hotel beds.”
“Huh,” he says.
I don’t give him any time to consider this further, as another thought pops into my head. “What do your mum and Stu think about . . . our relationship? Do they think we’re dating?”
He shrugs, barks out a laugh, then slaps a hand over his mouth because we are trying to be quiet for Logan. “I never asked them.” He’s lying. I can see in his eyes there’s something he’s not telling me, and I know they already assume we’re a couple.
My mind instantly plays back brain-videos of our interactions.
Eggo, Kelly, Stu, and me in the tiny dining room eating our breakfast. Ordering takeaway every Saturday.
Watching their TV. Chatting about everything from getting tattooed to festivals in the nineties to Mr Bean.
Since the schools had broken up for summer at the end of last month, Kelly had been accompanying us on day trips with and without Logan.
We’d been to country estates, castles, museums, beaches, fun parks, places that couples and families go to, but she’d never asked us, “So, what’s the deal with you two?” Now I’m wondering if she should have asked.
Because I want to know.
But I’m also a coward. And if I say, “Eggs, what are we? What am I to you? Do you think there’s ever the possibility that I could be everything to you the way you’re everything to me?” I might scare him away.
This moment, this little pocket of happiness we’re living in right now, might cease to exist. Like a desert mirage.
So I don’t ask him. I can’t. He could tell me all the things I want to hear, but he could also tear my heart out. “We’re just having fun. We’re just having a lark. I’m joy-maxxing, that’s just what I do.”
But I still need to be closer to him, so I close the two-foot gap between us and kiss him.
“Do you want to do anything tonight? Are you in the mood?” I ask, still whispering because of Logan.
“Princess, I’m always in the fucking mood.” He angles my head away from him and trails hot, breathy kisses down my throat.
“We’ll have to be really, really quiet, though.”
“I’ve been getting very good at that,” he says.
“Yes, you have.” I thumb over his nipple, and he emits the tiniest whimper. “What do you want to do, then?”
Eggo cradles my face in his hands and stares into my eyes as he whispers, “Fuck me, Captain. I want you to fuck me. No, wait . . .” His chest rises and falls far too quickly for someone who’s otherwise stationary. “Make love to me.”
“Oh my god.” I’m not sure if I said those words in my head as I intended, or if Eggo heard them too.
“Is . . . that okay?” he asks.
I almost laugh. “Of course.” I want that too. I’ve wanted that for over a year.
“Let me freshen up for you,” he says.
He kisses me and shuts himself inside the bathroom, and I collapse on the bed. It’s creakier than I expected it to be, and every movement I make seems to shake the entire caravan. We’re going to need to be quieter, slower, and more gentle than we’ve ever been.
Oh no, however will I cope?
Eggo steps out of the bathroom exactly twelve minutes later. He’s naked and hard, and his smile is so wide I can see the gap in his gums where his premolar was knocked out during a match against Portsmouth last year.
“Behold my massive erection,” he stage whispers. He drags the dressing table stool in front of the door and climbs onto the bed with me. “Why the fuck do you still have clothes on?”
It takes me less than ten seconds to strip bare, and Eggo does that thing he always does.
The thing that makes me feel like the most desirable creature on the planet.
Like all his birthdays, and all his Christmases, and all his national pasty and cream tea days—St Piran’s—have come at once.
Like I’m a flashing neon sign that says FREE HOT DOGS.
He pauses and looks me up and down. His brow furrows, he shakes his head, he huffs a near silent “Fuck,” and then he’s kissing me.
Hands and fingers brush naked skin. Goosebumps erupt. The quietest, most restrained moans are elicited. We go slow. Painfully slow. Like we have an eternity to enjoy each other.
I turn him over so that his back presses against my front. We both suck in anxious breaths as the movement seems to jostle the caravan. When it’s clear we won’t be interrupted, I lay a kiss behind his ear, feather them down his spine, then up again.
He’d pre-lubed in the bathroom, so I roll on a condom, add a little extra juice, and gently replace his plug with myself.
He whines as I push into him, but stops himself by jamming a fist in his mouth, though in typical Eggo style he cannot seem to help making noise. His next words are whispers. “Oh my god, Pi. I have wanted to do it like this for so long.”
“Me too,” I breathe into his ear. It feels as if I’m admitting something taboo.
“God, I’ve needed this. I’ve needed this so badly. I want you to fuck me so slowly that I start begging and crying. Make it so fucking tender that I weep. Make me ache, princess.”
I move slower than slow. Slower than even I think I can bear. I’m moving so cautiously that I’m able to kiss his shoulders, able to hold his face angled towards me and watch the beautiful agony dance over his features.
His words play on repeat in my head.
I’ve needed this so badly.
I squeeze his hip three times. “Is this okay?”
“It’s so good.”
Every time I increase my pace just the slightest, the bed frame wails, the entire trailer wobbles, and we’re forced to slow down again.
It’s torture. It’s intense. The building pressure is so great, so immense that it’s almost painful. I’m gritting my teeth and holding my breath and I think I might expire any second now.
It’s exquisite.
It aches.
I need to come. I need to fuck him, and feel that sweet release, but I keep things punishingly slow.
Sweat slides between our bodies. His moans fill the small room. His “Oh, fuck, princess” grows louder each time. I swap out the arm under his knee with one of his, and clutch my palm over his mouth, building my speed, and desperately trying not to creak the bed or shake our entire accommodation.
He mumbles through my fingers, so I move my hand off his mouth and wrap them around his throat. “Oh, fuck. Touch me. I can’t go much longer.”
After only a few erratic pumps of my fist, Eggo’s orgasm tears through the room.
The sound echoes, but he flexes his bicep and shunts the pillow over his face to muffle his cries.
Seconds later I let myself tumble over that peak too.
I hold him as tightly as I can, as though I might merge our souls together like riffle shuffling a deck of cards.
Afterwards, I get rid of the condom and grab a towel to clean up the mess, and even though we’ve been sharing a bed for over a month, it’s the first time we ever fall asleep in each other’s arms.