Chapter 11 #2
He cracks open a window, but it’s too late to avoid our room now looking like the set of an eighties rock video. I’m half expecting Jon Bon Jovi to stride out of the murk.
He fiddles with his phone. “Just got to find the music.”
“What music? We can’t have a fucking rave in here, Xavi. Jez is only next door.”
He rolls his eyes. “He’s out scoring with his birds. The poor women of Cirencester don’t know what’s about to hit them. Anyway, I think we can safely say the walls are thick, because otherwise we might have had far more awkward conversations this weekend.”
“Oh, my god.” I sink onto the bed like my strings have been cut. “What the fuck are we doing?”
“Having fun,” he says briskly. “Something you wouldn’t know about if it came up and punched you in the face.”
“I spend time with you instead. It gives me the same feeling.” He laughs. “Hang on. I have plenty of fun,” I say indignantly.
He directs a level gaze at me. “Oh yes. How on earth do you fit it in around the bouts of PTSD and dealing with the adult baby next door?”
“Don’t say that.”
He pats my face. “Okay. Because you said so.” He sets his phone down, obviously forgetting about the need for music which I suppose I should be thankful about.
I watch, my mouth twitching as he opens the bedside table drawer.
He’s endlessly curious which I find strangely charming.
He’s like a magpie flying around from nest to nest gathering information.
I stare at him when he goes completely still.
“You okay?”
“I’m not sure,” he says in a funny voice. He pulls something out and I go still when I see it’s the caricature he drew for me. I’d folded it carefully and put it in the drawer and I don’t want to count how many times I’ve taken it out and looked at it with a smile on my face. “You kept it?”
“Yes, of course. Thank you for the very charming caricature of me.”
He brightens. “You liked it?”
“I’m pretty sure my nose isn’t that big, and I am never that grumpy.”
His eyes twinkle. “My art never lies.”
“It was brilliant,” I say simply.
His face is full of a soft, startled pleasure as if he never gets compliments. That can’t be true. He’s too bright and clever to go unnoticed.
“I have a place at art college,” he mutters.
I smile at him. “That’s perfect.”
He shrugs, and it’s an awkward gesture for such a graceful young man. “We’ll see,” he says rather enigmatically and then pats my cheek. “Get ready. We are about to rave. Silent rave,” he stresses.
I blink. “Why?”
“We can’t have the music on loud, so I used my superior brain power to come up with the solution.” He edges nearer. “To be honest, I think my decisions tonight might have been powered by smoking Liam Sander’s grass that he gave me to hold on to last week.”
“And did hold on to mean smoking it?”
“Probably not, but that is future Xavier’s problem.” He shrugs. “I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
“How very Scarlett O’Hara of you.”
“Is she one of your colleagues? I’m sure I’ve seen her on the telly with a flak jacket on.” He laughs at the look I send him. “Relax. I read it when I was a teenager.”
“Aren’t you still that?” I ask just to get a glare. He immediately obliges, and I stare at him. “You’ve read Gone with the Wind? Even I haven’t read that.”
He smirks. “I forced my way into your room, disabled the smoke alarm, set up a dry ice machine, and this is what you choose to be astonished about? I like reading, and when our small local library ran out of murder mysteries for me, I found other books.”
I bite my lip, confounded and not knowing why. He has a way of breaking free of any box I put him in. “Really?” I finally say.
He snorts. “Yes. Scarlett was pretty cool. I liked her.”
“I bet you did. You’re kindred souls.”
He snorts. “Anyway, then I got a Kindle and branched out. You should see some of the shit I’ve got on there now.”
“No, thank you. It might send me grey.”
“Grey-er.” I glare at him, and he laughs. “I like reading. Why is that so astonishing?”
“You don’t seem like you do.” I pause because, actually, he really does seem like he reads. His conversation is peppered with literary references if you know how to listen for them. They’re just usually covered by a boatload of snark.
“Well, you know me. I’m an enigma to many.”
“You’re a shit-stirring pisstaker.”
“Thank you. That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
You should write the verses on cards.” He grimaces.
“I think it’s probably best you don’t, though.
They’d be full of doom and gloom.” He pauses and adds in a dramatically doomed voice, “Happy Birthday, Karen. Make the most of it because it could be your last.”
I start to laugh, but stop when he reaches into another bag and pulls out two sets of Bose headphones.
“I half-inched Jez’s card details and bought these.
Thank you for this stupendous gift, Father,” he proclaims piously, clutching them to his chest. He winks at me.
“I’m totally keeping them afterwards. Please don’t judge me. ”
“I’m trying not to, but the shorts are making it difficult.”
“Shut up. It’s harder work to cut denim with a steak knife than you’d think.” He turns and wiggles his arse. “How about the back view of them?”
I swallow. The cut is uneven and shows the lower part of one globe of his arse. The skin is golden and fuzzy like a peach. “Yeah,” I say honestly. “That has definitely improved my opinion.”
“This must be what winning an Oscar feels like.”
I snort, and he takes that moment to lower the headphones over my ears. He sets up his own and then presses a button on his phone.
Instantly, ‘Insomnia’ by Faithless pounds out. I stare at him and lift the headphones off my ears.
“Is that the right choice of music?” he asks in an earnest manner that immediately makes me want to laugh. “I researched pre-Jurassic music on Spotify.”
“You are such a little shit,” I say, giving up and starting to laugh. He moves away and extracts some bottles from another bag. I look and then look again. “Oh, my god. Is that a Coral?”
“Well, I want to say yes, but actually no. The company went out of business in the early nineties, apparently.”
“Probably because they packaged their hideously expensive alcoholic drinks to look like they were children’s pop.”
He shrugs. “You might have a point. My grandma once bought me a bottle when I was six and told me to amuse myself in a pub garden. I don’t think an alcoholic coma was the vibe she was going for. When they came back, I was prostrate over the see-saw singing about goblins.”
I laugh, and he winks at me. “I did research, and the barman made up something approaching the original drink. I just drew the label.”
I can’t believe he did all this research and went to this much trouble … for me. The feeling warms a spot in me that’s been cold for a very long time.
After unscrewing the top of the bottles, he hands one to me and taps his own. “Bottoms up,” he says and throws it back. I watch him and then do the same, hissing as the burn fills my chest.
“Wow,” he croaks. “Good stuff, eh? Did you all want to be embalmed while still alive in the nineties?”
“Don’t knock it. It was a way to survive acid-washed jeans and neon windbreakers.”
He laughs, and I take the next bottle he offers me.
By the time we’ve finished those, I’m feeling very loose.
He snaps the headphones over my ears and drags me into the centre of the room where he starts to dance, jumping up and down, and what should be awkward becomes suddenly …
fun. I let him drag me close, feeling the drink warm me, and the music seems to beat through my body.
He slots his legs between mine and grinds against me, and I immediately forget everything.
I forget my reservations, my concerns, and my fears over what’s ahead of us, and instead I fall into the music. And him.
I lower my hands, grabbing his arse and pulling him closer.
His eyes close and his lips part as he feels my cock against his, and when he opens them, they’re half-lidded and hungry.
I lean lower and he rises higher, the movement as seamless as if we’ve been doing it for years, and then we’re kissing.
The music throbs in my ears, combining with the smoke and the flashing lights.
It’s like he’s woven a spell over me, making everything feel like it’s dusted with happiness.
The shiny, freshness of it all makes me recognise this has been missing from my life for far too long.
Maybe I’ve never had this. Is it wrong to grab onto it with both hands?
I already know the answer, so I pull him close, fitting my mouth to his. There is no spell. Just a boy full of sunshine and an older man who should know better.