Chapter Nine No Man’s Land
chapter Nine
No Man’s Land
Fifteen years ago…
Nathan pulled his boxers back on, fumbling with the waistband as if it might help settle the churning in his gut. He stepped into his jeans without looking at her, zipping them up fast, hoping speed could erase the last ten minutes.
Behind him, the mattress creaked as Katie sat up, tugging her dress down over her hips and reaching for a cigarette from the bedside table.
The click of her lighter cut through the muffled bass thudding up from downstairs as the pulse of the party still went strong beneath them.
The sound had never stopped. Neither had the jeers.
The slurred chants of the lads, egging him on as if they were all part of the same joke he didn’t quite get .
He scrubbed a hand through his hair and felt nothing but cold under his skin.
“Where you going?” Katie exhaled smoke as if bored with the whole thing already.
It hadn’t been her first time.
“Back to the party.” He yanked his T-shirt over his head.
This was supposed to have meant something.
Hadn’t it? His first time . The sacred thing lads built up with bravado and beers and locker-room legends.
But it hadn’t felt like anything except a dare he hadn’t been brave enough to turn down.
A checkpoint ticked off with fumbling hands and a head full of someone else entirely.
Because when the finish came, yeah, his body had done what it was supposed to. But the rest of him? Numb. Heavy. Hollow.
Even worse that he was in her house. Katie’s mum was down at the community centre with the rest of the footy mums, knocking back box wine and lukewarm lager after the cup match, leaving the place wide open. No supervision. No limits. A house full of half-pissed teenagers with something to prove.
Nathan and his teammates had rolled in, raiding the cupboards, mixing spirits with squash, and turned a half-hearted game of Truth or Dare into something thick with bravado and hormones.
Katie hadn’t even finished sending out her MSN invites before someone had broken out the cheap vodka and the girls started practicing dares on each other in the corner.
Then came Spin the Fucking Bottle.
And just like that, Nathan was upstairs.
In her bedroom. On her bed. Katie’s hands at his belt like some unwritten teenage rite he’d missed the briefing for.
If this were one of those glossy American teen movies, he’d be the star quarterback, and she’d be the blonde cheerleader, all lip gloss and coy smiles.
But this wasn’t Hollywood.
This was Worthbridge. A dull, grey-blown seaside town clinging to the Essex coast, where the sand was more pebble than postcard and nothing ever felt like the movies.
He hadn’t even scored a goal in that match. Katie Brewer couldn’t tell the offside rule if her life depended on it, and he was pretty sure she didn’t even know his last name. Still, this was what you did, right?
What was expected?
Wasn’t it?
He wasn’t sure he’d even said yes. But he hadn’t said no.
And now he was here. Jeans half-fastened, skin still flushed, heart already iced over.
His dick had wilted long before he’d figured out how to fumble the condom on right, and whatever heat had flashed in the moment was gone.
Snuffed out by the cold, creeping certainty that none of it had felt right.
And he’d had to picture someone else just to get hard enough to seal the deal.
He pushed that image away now, though. Shoved it down where it couldn’t touch him.
Surely, he should be punching the air?
Instead, he felt like he’d failed a test no one had explained the rules to.
Raking a hand through his hair, he crouched towards Katie’s vanity mirror and winced. Yeah. He looked exactly like what he’d just done. Guilty. Rumpled, red-faced, hollow-eyed.
He glanced back. Katie was still on the bed, dress wrinkled around her hips, smoke curling from her lips as if this were another Saturday night .
“You coming down?” he asked, reaching for his phone on her nightstand.
“In a minute.”
He flipped it open. Two new messages from Freddie.
Where’d you go?
I’m here. Mum made me pack up another box of her bloody soy candle stock for that street fair tomorrow.
Nathan smiled. Freddie’s mum and her latest harebrained scheme. Candle-making this month. Last month it was resin jewellery. Before that, personalised mugs with cat puns. He gave a fond chuckle, then glanced up to Katie. She arched an eyebrow.
“You, er…” He waved his phone in afterthought. “Want my number?”
Katie laughed. “I’ll get it off Mandy.”
He paused. Eyes narrowing, stomach dropping a little further.
Of course. Mandy. And the girls’ loo whispers about whose turn it was to get him.
Nathan didn’t reply. Didn’t say another word.
He shoved the phone into his back pocket and walked out.
Down the stairs, past the thudding bass and the jeers that somehow sounded louder now.
He felt like a name ticked off a list. A story for Monday. A conquest that meant nothing.
Fuck .
The moment Nathan spotted Freddie, everything else dulled to a blur.
Leaning against the peeling kitchen worktop, he clutched a bottle of WKD as if it might offer him a personality transplant, shoulders hunched, eyes blinking between the floor and the loudest lads in the room, baseball cap shielding those deep, brown eyes. The sight punched Nathan’s chest.
He moved towards him, drawn as if a tide pulled him in. But before he could reach him, the lads pounced .
“Natey boy!”
A chorus of slaps on his back, hands dragging him into the centre of their raucous, drunken orbit.
“What took you so long?”
“Did she scream?”
“Need a fag and a pint after that, mate.”
Nathan didn’t speak. Couldn’t . Not when Freddie’s expression over their shoulders told him everything. Stiff. Guarded. As if he was preparing to duck a punch. So Nathan shoved free of the pack, their laughter echoing behind him, and caught Freddie by the wrist.
“Where we going?” Freddie asked as Nathan dragged him through the house, then hauled open the front door and stepped into the night air. Salt air hit his lungs, and he could finally breathe.
“Away.”
“Shouldn’t you say goodbye to your girlfriend?”
Nathan stopped short, turned to face him. “She ain’t my girlfriend.”
“No?” Freddie’s tone was clipped, acidic. “Oh. ‘Cause I heard that you and she—”
“Can we go?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere. Yours?”
Freddie folded his arms, lips set in a hard line. For a second, Nathan thought he was going to walk away, leave him standing there to stew in it. But then Freddie looked at him properly and the heat behind his eyes softened.
“Fine.” Freddie hurled the bottle into the hedgerow. It landed with a muted fizz, blue liquid bleeding into the undergrowth. “Let’s head down the pier. I don’t fancy going home yet.”
Nathan nodded. He didn’t want to go home either.
Not back to his dad. Not to that cold, boxy room in a house that hadn’t felt like a home in years.
And he sure as fuck didn’t want to be alone right then.
Not with the memory of that bedroom clinging to his skin.
What he’d done sat heavy on his chest. Heavier than regret, and felt more than just a bad decision.
He didn’t trust himself to sit with it. Not yet.
Not if it meant facing the truth that he’d acted like a complete prick.
Yet… he didn’t know how to talk to Freddie about it, either.
He’d understand though, right?
He had to.
By the time they reached the seafront, the world had quieted to a hush.
The pubs were shut, neon lights twinkling in empty windows, and the last of the fish and chip wrappers danced along the pavement in the breeze.
Freddie pulled his jacket tighter as they meandered past shuttered amusements, the tang of brine wafting in the air.
The pier loomed ahead, weather-beaten and grey, its wooden huts creaking faintly in the wind, seagulls roosting in the eaves.
The ocean hissed below, dark and restless.
“So… you gonna talk about it?” Freddie’s voice barely cut above the wind, and his eyes were trained on the horizon.
“About what?”
“You just lost your virginity, right? To Katie Brewer.”
Nathan sighed. “Yeah.”
Freddie shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. “Was it good? You feel like a man now? Did she… suck you off?”
Nathan whipped his head around. “Jesus, Fred.”
“What?” Freddie shrugged, trying for casual. “Only asking.”
“It was shit. ”
Freddie laughed.
Nathan shoved him. “Fuck you.”
“No, ta. Least wipe it first.”
That earned him a look, and for a second, Freddie held it, before glancing away again, back to the surf and sky and safe distance.
Nathan hesitated, then circled back. “Ain’t it meant to feel good?”
Freddie’s reply came quiet, almost thrown to the wind. “Asking the wrong bloke.”
They reached the edge of the pier where Nathan hopped down to the pebble beach, his Nikes crunching on stone.
He clambered over the rocks towards their old hiding spot.
Beneath the pier, shadowed from the world, where the tide rolled in shy of their feet and the rest of Worthbridge faded into wind and sea.
Freddie followed, his worn Converse slipping on the stones, cap pulled low, watching Nathan from the corner of his eye.
“Why’d you do it?” he asked.
Nathan crouched by the driftwood beam. “They egged me on. You weren’t there. She’s been on me for ages. Thought I’d get it over with.”
“Pure fucking golden reasons them.” Freddie rolled his eyes.
“What other reasons are there?”
Freddie held up his fingers to count off. “One, you wanted to. Two, you at least liked her. Three, you were ready to take the next step in your long-term relationship where you’d built up trust and honesty. Oh, wait…”
“Fuck off, Fred.”
Freddie shut up .