by Tom Ellen
“Will is obviously trying to pump Luke Taylor for information about you,” she boomed.
“Luke Taylor doesn’t know anything about me.”
Frankie ignored this completely. She put her hand to her ear like she was reporting live. “Now Luke is saying, ‘The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was bailing on quidditch. I just couldn’t face Phoebe’s beauty. I was intimidated. I was a pathetic excuse for a man. But now my heart burns for her. It yearns for her. I would literally die for her. She is my first, my last, my everything.’ ”
I stifled a giggle, but Negin frowned. “Bit creepy.”
Frankie squeezed my shoulder hard. “Oh my god, and that hand movement Luke’s doing now, see that? That means, ‘I will fight you to the death for her, Will.’ That basically means, ‘Meet me by the vending machines at dawn, bring a pistol and the victor shall have Phoebe’s heart.’ ”
“What, are they going to eat her?” Negin said.
I was laughing so hard I could barely hold my drink. “Stop!” I yelled. “They’re gonna see us looking.”
Frankie was still in full flow. “Now Luke Taylor is saying that Phoebe makes him insane with love. He is saying he would eat his own face just to be close to her.”
This sobered me up a little. “Funny how he never indicated that all through school, and he probably still has a long-term girlfriend he is madly in love with.”
Frankie unwrapped her arm from my shoulder and looked at me. “If you had to marry Will or Luke Taylor Quidditch Bailer right here, right now, or you’d be put to death, who would you marry?” She held her bottle up to my mouth like a microphone.
“Will,” I said. “Obviously, Will. Because I really like him and he actually fancies me and he is actually really, really nice.”
“Honestly, mate, fucking good effort today,” Will said. “Not that many frosh get straight into first string.”
He handed me a shot, and we clinked glasses and drank.
“Thanks,” I gasped, just about managing to keep the minty vodka down.
I had to to concentrate fairly hard on not throwing up, and my right shoulder was totally heavy with spaghetti, but I still felt amazing. Even Reece hadn’t managed to get straight onto the team at Nottingham.
“Oi, mate!” Will called to the bartender. “Two more, yeah?”
He passed me a beer, and I paid. “So, where are you from, then?” he asked, taking a sip.
“Kingston,” I said. “What about you?”
“London, mate. Fulham. I swear we’re pretty much the only Londoners in this whole university. It’s fucking wall-to-wall northerners up here.”
“Well, we are in the north, to be fair.”
He shrugged, like the idea had just occurred to him. “So, what you studying?”
“English.”
“Oh, mate!” He took a big swig of his beer, landing a massive dollop of spaghetti onto the bar behind him. “Fucking good ratio. So many girls do English. You’ll be totally surrounded by girls in class, trust me.”
“Oh, OK. Right. What are you doing?”
He frowned and wrinkled his brow. “Politics and Economics. My dad’s choice. And he’s paying for all this, so…” He swept his hands about grandly, as if “all this” literally meant the Jutland Bar. “Still,” he carried on, “at least I’ll get a decent job after school. Unlike you, who’ll be stuck in a dumpster, writing poems.”
“That’s the dream,” I sighed. “Although you don’t walk straight into a gig like that. I’ll probably have to intern in the dumpster for a few months.”
He laughed and finished his beer just as Dempers came bustling over, looking even more sweaty and red-faced than usual. He was wearing a pretty horrendous gold T-shirt with a bright-green dollar sign scribbled on it; maybe the only person here who’d made less of an effort than me. A couple of the other juniors from tryouts were with him, and he introduced them as “The Ox” and “Geordie Al.” They were both dressed in tiny black leotards, which was particularly distressing in the case of Geordie Al, whose thick, wiry body hair was poking out from every available corner.
He laid a furry hand on Will’s shoulder. “Mate, when I said we need to find some first years tonight, this wasn’t exactly who I had in mind.”
Will laughed. “Chill out, I was just telling Taylor he made the team.”
Al clinked his beer glass against mine. “Nice one, mate. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to locate some frosh of the opposite gender.”
“As if you’re getting anything tonight dressed like that,” Dempers said, smirking. Al shrugged and smoothed his leotard down. “It’s a conversation starter, innit?”
“You shouldn’t need a conversation starter on the last night of Frosh Week,” Will murmured, scanning the dance floor. “It’s always mayhem.”
Dempers nodded. “If you can’t get some on the last night, you might as well chop it off.”
“Oh, really?” Will pointed his chin toward the dance floor. “On you go, then, Dempsey…”
Dempers rolled his eyes. “All right, watch.” He huffed off, and as we watched him go I spotted Phoebe and her mates by the speakers, all three of them staring straight at us. They saw me looking, and suddenly Phoebe’s tall blond friend was doing a weird kind of robotic chicken move and the other two followed suit, dancing. I decided right then that at some point tonight, I’d finally go over and say sorry to Phoebe. End the awkwardness.
“What you doing this evening, then, Taylor?” Will asked. “Any hotties down your floor?”
“Erm…not really, no.”
“Well, come on, then,” he said, scanning the bar again. “Who d’you want introducing to?”
Geordie Al whacked him on the back, spilling more pasta everywhere. “Barnes has got himself paired off, so now he’s trying to match up everyone else. What a fucking legend. What a gent.”
Will shrugged modestly. “I’m not definitely taken….”
“You’ve got with her pretty much every night this week,” said The Ox, and I suddenly knew who they were talking about.
“She’s hot.” Geordie Al shrugged. “Hair’s a bit crazy, but still. Hot.” I wondered if I should tell them I knew her, too.
“Yeah, well, we’ll see what happens,” said Will. Then he turned back to me. “But come on, Taylor. You’re a first year, for fuck’s sake. You can’t not get laid this week. That’s, like, illegal.”
“Ah yeah. Well, the thing is…I’ve sort of got a girlfriend.”
It came out of nowhere, like a reflex. I wasn’t even sure why I said it. But the thought of Abbey had the instant effect of sobering me up slightly.
Will nodded wisely. “ ‘Sort of’ being the operative phrase, there. Can’t see that lasting long first semester, man, no offense. I had a girl when I started last year, too. That lasted all of about four hours.” He laughed loudly, then finished his beer and slammed it back down onto the bar. “Thanks for the drinks, anyway. We’ll email about initiations and stuff next week.”
Geordie Al leaned into me and started a long monologue about some drinking game he’d just played, as I watched Will walk right onto the dance floor, right over to Phoebe.
Will turned his key in the lock. He pushed open the door and felt for my hand as we walked in.
“OK, there’s no bulb in the hall and a lot of crap, so go slowly.”
I reached my other hand out and tried to feel for the wall but felt bike handlebars instead. The floor felt uneven underneath my feet and I kept stepping on random shoes.
“OK.” He let go of my hand and patted the wall for the switch, and we both blinked as the living room lit up.
On one side it had a depressed-looking little red sofa that was missing one of its cushion covers. Opposite it was a wall with three bik
es stacked up against each other. Various pieces of soccer equipment and some T-shirts randomly hung off them. Behind the bikes, the wall was covered in some sort of fantasy-soccer scoring system that had notes written in green marker with points next to names. Josh and Will were up there and then “Pete” and “Lolly.” I think I had met Lolly—he had a strong Northern Irish accent and had started a conga line around the dance floor earlier. The apartment smelled strongly of rotting fruit.
There had obviously been some pretty heavy drinking going on, as the whole of the living room floor was covered in empty beer cans. There were also four Styrofoam boxes lined up by the sofa, some still with kebab and the remnants of fries. The carpet was covered in so much pasta that it was unbelievable there had been any left for him to wear on his head. He shrugged. “This house is disgusting. My mum won’t even come in. She just waits in the car.” He didn’t seem embarrassed or anything.
“OK.” He smiled at me. “Now I’m going to prove to you that I wasn’t bullshitting about the midnight feast. Do you want a cup of tea?”
I nodded, and he disappeared into the kitchen. Usually, I go for intense, creative types. Well, I think the main reason I liked Adam was ’cause he was in a band for about seven minutes in tenth grade, and Max’s final art piece was a painting of a girl with a tear on her cheek and I thought it meant he was deep and understood women. I suppose Luke Taylor doesn’t really fit the troubled-thinker mold. But then, did I even actually like Luke Taylor, except to look at?
Will was just hot. No one could look at him and say he was unattractive. You could say you weren’t into posh boys with floppy hair and perfect teeth and canvas shoes, but you couldn’t say he wasn’t hot.
The more I got to know him the hotter he was getting, too. Over the course of the week, Will had gone from random hookup to my kind of steady person. It would feel weird now to get with anyone else. We were in a weeklong exclusive thing. Well, in my head we were.
I pushed the various games controllers and some track pants out of the way and sat down on the sofa. The night had passed really quickly. As soon as Will had come over, pasta flying everywhere, everything had gotten more fun. He was one of those people who everyone seemed to know and everyone seemed to love. He didn’t care about making a fool of himself. He danced to cheesy songs, and at the end got in a line with me and Liberty and Frankie and Negin and did the Macarena. And every so often we would make our way to the edge of the dance floor, and he would tuck my hair behind my ears and cup my face in his hands and start kissing me.
At one point, we were by the bar and they played “Jump Around.” He grabbed me and started bouncing me around and then picked me up and kind of carried me to a space so we could keep dancing a weird kind of polka together. And I just couldn’t stop laughing. Boys who make you laugh are everything.
I had made the decision then that I wanted to go home with him. Because why not? I was at college; it was the last night of freshman orientation. I’d never had a one-night stand. And it wouldn’t even be a one-night stand. And who cares if it was anyway? Isn’t the whole point that you’re allowed to do what you want?
Will reappeared, holding a white box in one hand and two mugs in the other. “We’ve got no plates and no cutlery so we’ll just have to eat it with our hands.” He handed me a mug half filled with clear brown liquid. “We’ve got no milk, either—sorry.”
“I actually dread to think what that kitchen looks like,” I said, smiling.
“It’s best that you never, ever go in there. We try to go in there as little as possible, to be honest.”
He sat down next to me, on top of a heap of crap. He rested the box on his lap and started to open the sides gently.
“I feel like there’s a kitten in there or something. You are being really careful.”
He pushed the lid back to reveal four perfectly formed little cakes. There was a fox, a hedgehog, a mouse and a badger, all carved delicately out of marzipan.
“Wow. We can’t eat them, they’re works of art. They don’t even belong in this house, no offense. Did you buy them?”
Will laughed. “Hell no. Josh works at Bettys in town. He gets, like, untold amounts of cake.”
“If this is part of the job, I hope he really can get me in there, like he said he could.”
“Is he actually doing that?”
“Well, he’s landed me a training shift next week, so as long as I don’t suck, hopefully I’ll get it, yeah. Are you sure he won’t mind us eating these?”
Will shook his head. “He’s probably already eaten about twenty-five of them this week.”
I carefully picked up the badger.
“I knew you’d go for the badger.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Because it’s the weirdest one.”
“Oh right. Saying I’m weird, are you?” I leaned sideways and bumped him with my shoulder.
“No, I’m saying you’re awesome.” He smiled at me, and reached down and picked up the hedgehog.
“What does the hedgehog say about you?” I said.
“That I’m a pig. It’s the biggest one.”
“Oh my god, it’s so nice inside—it’s full of cream.”
He nodded, and we both sat, just eating. And then the atmosphere changed that tiny bit. Like we both knew that we couldn’t just sit there eating baked goods forever. They weren’t really the main event; they were the reason we both latched onto so we could come here. Obviously, neither of us thought I was going to get up and leave after tea and cake. But it would feel random to just start kissing on the lumpy sofa. For the first time I felt nervous, because it was almost getting awkward; I just wanted it to be the next bit.
And then it was.
He leaned over and kissed me, and then we were kissing on the sofa for ages.
“OK,” he whispered. “So my bedroom’s through the kitchen. I don’t want you to faint before we get there, so let’s just run through with the lights off.”
I started to laugh, and he jumped up and grabbed my hand and started to actually run, dragging me along with him through the dark kitchen and into his room. We fell with force in a heap on the bed and started kissing again, even though we were both still laughing. But we kissed our way out of the laughter.
I find moving from stage to stage really weird. He was on top of me but we were both still fully dressed. Which one of us was going to instigate getting undressed? I pushed him away gently and took my top off and then reached over and half helped him get his T-shirt off, too. Our skin was against each other. His chest felt kind of hard. More built than anyone I had ever been with, for sure. I knew he wouldn’t be able to take my bra off, so I reached behind my back and unhooked it. We kept kissing and kissing, and then he reached down and tried to unbutton my jeans. I did it for him and wiggled out of them. I was naked except for my underwear. It was pitch-black, so he wouldn’t even see the bright-blue lace set I had worn, just in case.
“Do you want to?” he whispered.
I kissed him and said yes, and he took his jeans off. And then my health teacher, Miss Hay, popped into my head.
I wonder how many people’s heads Miss Hay has popped into just before they have sex. Miss Hay and her penis facts: “Any time you are naked near a penis, sperm can go astray and just get in you and impregnate you.” Any time. It can go on his hands and then on your hands and then just end up in there. It can be on the bed and just swim up you. Miss Hay and her terrifying penis knowledge designed to ambush you just when you were supposed to be focusing on something else.
We started kissing again, and he reached down and put his hand inside my underwear, and then suddenly he just stopped and moved away. Neither of us spoke for about five seconds.
“I’m so sorry,” he said through the darkness.
I wasn’t sure what
was going on. I was glad it was dark because it suddenly felt truly, horribly awkward. “Why?” I whispered.
“I shouldn’t have drunk so much.”
I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, and the silence just permeated the darkness. Did he expect me to say something?
“We might have to wait,” he murmured. “Until I’m a bit less drunk.”
And then I felt awful for not realizing what he had been trying to say. I panicked. I wanted to make it better but I didn’t know what to do. I crept across the bed and put my arms around his neck and kissed it.
“Honestly, it doesn’t matter at all.” I tried to make it sound really offhand, but in the silence it didn’t feel like that.
We lay back on the bed next to each other and I wondered if it was because he had drunk too much. Maybe it was because he wasn’t that hot for me? I pulled the covers up over me. I suddenly felt self-conscious about it. Like I might have caused it. I wanted to text Flora. Or Google it. My phone was in my bag in the living room. I hadn’t even texted the girls to confirm I wasn’t dead. The house still felt empty. We hadn’t heard anyone come in.
I could tell from the way Will’s body relaxed next to me that he had fallen asleep.
Arthur was either out, or passed out. He wasn’t opening his door, anyway. I messaged him and he messaged straight back:
IN TOWN WITH REETS. MY ROOM’S OPEN IF U WANNA PLAY XBOX. HELP YOURSELF TO FRITOS ON THE BED.
I went into the kitchen, where the remains of last night’s emoji pregame cans were still scattered across most surfaces. Rosie, Tom and Nishant were stirring a massive pot on the stove and having a lively conversation about something called “covalent bonding.” They broke off when I came in and smiled at me.
“Hey, Luke,” said Tom.
“Hey. You guys all right?”
“Yeah.”
“What you making?”