Friends With Benefits

by Lisa Swift

  He ran a hand over the curve of her breast and down to her hip. ‘I bet there were, lucky sods. Did the bullying stop then?’

  ‘Mostly, except for this one group of girls. They hated me when they thought I was ugly, and then they seemed to hate me even more when they thought I wasn’t. This bunch of well-off Pony Club types who looked down on me because my family lived on a council estate. Honestly, they made my life miserable for so long.’ She sighed. ‘Some kids just can’t accept anyone different, and the only response they have is cruelty. It makes me worry for Connor if he decides he wants to come out at school. Not that he shouldn’t feel he can, but let’s face it, teens can be dicks.’

  ‘I don’t think things are anywhere near as bad as in our day when it comes to homophobia in schools. Times have changed, thank Christ. I’m sure there’ll already be kids at his school who identify as something other than straight.’

  ‘But there’ll still be a few twats, I bet. As long as there are bigoted parents, there’ll be bigoted kids. His mates JJ and Crucial are hardly bastions of tolerance, for a start.’

  ‘Connor’ll be OK in the end.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because he’s got you for a mum,’ Theo said, giving her a squeeze. ‘When he realised he was bi he never let it faze him, did he? Because you’d been telling him since he was little that whatever he discovered about himself, it’d be no big deal. You never assumed his sexuality so he never felt it wasn’t OK to question what it was. I bet he wouldn’t have had nearly such a healthy reaction if Daryl had brought him up alone.’

  She smiled and leaned over to kiss him.

  ‘Thanks, Theo,’ she whispered. ‘I needed to hear that.’

  He lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Rings’re gone, I see.’

  ‘Yeah. After you pointed it out, it made me think, why am I still wearing them? They’re hidden away in the drawer now, out of sight and out of mind, like the husband who gave them to me.’ She rolled onto her side to face him. ‘So, your turn.’

  ‘My turn to what?’

  ‘I told you my most humiliating secret. Now it’s your go.’

  ‘Well…’ He grimaced. ‘Really, my most humiliating secret?’

  ‘Only fair, Teddy.’

  ‘OK, but first you have to swear this is governed by the sacred rules of pillow talk and will go no further than these four walls.’

  ‘All right, I swear. Go on.’

  ‘What’s my name?’

  ‘Er, Theo,’ she said, frowning. ‘Why, did you forget? Or is this a kinky “say my name, bitch” type thing?’

  ‘No, I mean, what’s my name short for?’

  ‘Well, Theodore. Isn’t it?’

  He shook his head. ‘Oh God, it’s so much worse than Theodore. That lass who had it tattooed on her arse doesn’t realise what a lucky escape she had.’

  ‘Nothing else goes with Theo though, does it?’

  ‘One thing does,’ he muttered darkly. ‘Did I ever tell you my dad was a history professor?’

  ‘You mentioned it. Wasn’t your mum one of his students?’

  ‘No, she was working at the university, but she was the same age as his students. I guess that’d appeal to the dirty old bugger – since she wasn’t one of the undergrads, he could sleep with her without risking his job. Anyway, not content with knocking her up when she was twenty and then sashaying out of both our lives and back to his wife shortly after I was born – abandoning me like the mid-life-crisis baby I so obviously was – he thought he’d add insult to injury and name me after some obscure Byzantine emperor he’d written a thesis on.’

  ‘So what is your name short for?’

  He grimaced. ‘Theophilos.’

  Her eyes widened, and she clamped a hand to her mouth. ‘No way!’

  ‘If you dare tell anyone that then I love you, Lex, but you’re dead meat.’

  She tried to restrain herself but she couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.

  He poked her. ‘You’re rotten, you are.’

  With a Herculean effort, she managed to suppress the gales of laughter. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. That is fucking hilarious though. I’m so calling you that forever, Theophilos Blake.’

  ‘You just dare.’

  ‘What’s your middle name, have you got one?’

  ‘Timothy.’

  ‘Oh man, what! Seriously, this is the best day of my entire life.’ She forced her face into a sober expression. ‘You know, you’re actually my first Theophilos.’

  ‘I’m warning you, Lex. One more and you’re in for a truly merciless tickling.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’ She snorted. ‘I just can’t believe I’m actually shagging a Theophilos. A Theophilos Timothy at that. I mean, talk about one for the bucket list.’

  ‘Right, that’s it.’ He rolled over her and she squeaked as he pinned her arms with one hand so he could tickle her.

  ‘Geroff, Theo!’

  ‘Nope. Not until you scream for clemency and then some.’

  Their play was interrupted by the shrill ring of the landline phone in the hall. Theo rolled off her.

  ‘Who’s ringing you at this time?’

  ‘Ugh. Daryl,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘He’s the only one who ever calls on that phone. Ignore it.’

  ‘Connor won’t get it, will he?’

  ‘Not when he knows it’s likely to be his dad. Anyway, he regards the landline with the same suspicion he would a fax machine/Betamax combo plugged into a dial-up modem.’

  They waited for the phone to stop ringing. No sooner had the noise ceased, however, than Lexie’s mobile started buzzing.

  ‘Him again?’ Theo asked as she glanced at the screen.

  She nodded. ‘Suppose I’d better get it. It must be urgent if he’s calling me on the roaming rate.’

  Lexie swiped to answer.

  ‘What is it?’ She cast a look at Theo. ‘I was just in the middle of something.’

  ‘What the hell’s this about Connor getting suspended?’ her husband demanded.

  She frowned. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I got a letter from his head of year. I am his father, in case you’d forgotten. Were you planning to tell me or what?’

  ‘I tried to. I sent you a message asking you to ring me weeks ago.’

  ‘I’ve been busy with work stuff. Why didn’t you just email?’

  ‘Because I wanted to talk before you started on Connor about it. Anyway, it’s fine, Daz. I dealt with it.’

  ‘What the fuck are you playing at, Lexie?’ he exploded. ‘You know stuff like that goes on his permanent record, right?’

  ‘What am I playing it? I didn’t put him up to it.’

  ‘You’re clearly doing a pretty poor job of keeping him out of trouble. This could affect his chances of getting into a decent uni, Lex! Did you even think about that?’

  ‘It wasn’t the first thing on my mind, no. I was more concerned with making sure he was OK.’

  Daryl ignored her. ‘I let him stay with you because you convinced me it was a bad idea to pull him out of school, but you know, I’m really starting to wonder if I made the right call.’

  ‘You let him stay because you didn’t want him with you,’ Lexie snapped. ‘He could sense it, even when he was a little boy, the way you wished him out of your life.’

  ‘You’re not his mother, Lexie. Who the hell are you to tell me how I ought to bring up my son?’

  ‘The person who actually did bring up your son,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘You had no right to keep something like this from me. I should have been told as soon as it happened. What did he get suspended for anyway?’

  She took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down and not throw the phone at the wall.

  ‘Fighting,’ she said. ‘Just kids letting off steam that ended up going a bit too far, that’s all. Not exactly laudable, but I doubt it’ll affect his life chances significantly.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, that’s not so bad.
Did he win?’

  She shook her head. ‘Did he win? Seriously?’

  She felt Theo’s hand slip into hers and squeezed it gratefully.

  ‘He gave the other lad a black eye,’ she said. ‘That’s certainly not something you ought to be proud of him for, Daryl. Anyway, he was going through some difficult stuff at the time, and he’s been punished for it and apologised to the boy involved, so there’s no need to make a fuss. We’ve all moved on.’

  ‘Stuff? What sort of stuff?’

  ‘Well, that’s not for me to say. It’s personal.’

  ‘Personal!’ Daryl snapped. ‘Christ, Lexie! You’ve actually managed to forget whose son he is, haven’t you?’

  ‘He might be your son, mate, but he’s his own person. It’s up to him if he chooses to tell you what’s happening in his life. Perhaps if you rang him more than once a month, you might find out the sort of young man your son is becoming.’

  ‘You think I don’t care about him?’

  She willed herself calmer.

  ‘No, of course I don’t think that,’ she said in a softer tone. ‘I know why it’s hard for you, Daz, and I understand, I do, but if you don’t make more of an effort to be part of his life then you’re going to wake up one day and find your son’s grown up into a stranger who doesn’t want to know you. Can you at least try to build a better relationship with him? For his sake and your own.’

  ‘All right, put him on now then.’

  She shook her head. ‘Daryl, it’s midnight. He’s got school in the morning. Did you forget we’re in a different time zone again?’

  ‘OK, then I’ll call tomorrow. Five o’clock your time.’

  ‘Right, good. I’ll make sure he’s in for you.’

  ‘I’m warning you though, Lex. If you can’t demonstrate you can take proper care of him, I will bring him out here where I can look after him myself.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare,’ she said in a low voice.

  ‘I would, and I have every right to. He’s my son – don’t you ever forget that. Goodbye.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Lexie slammed the phone down, swore loudly at it then burst into tears.

  ‘Hey.’ Theo drew her to him and hushed her gently. ‘Don’t let him get to you, love. You know what he’s like when he throws one of his temper tantrums. There’s no reasoning with him.’

  ‘I just can’t believe he’s got the nerve to play the concerned father card, after everything he’s done. Honestly, Theo, you don’t know how lucky you were growing up without a dad. Better none at all than one like Daryl.’

  She felt him tense, and looked up into his face.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said gently. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I guess it must’ve been tough.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t… look, never mind about me. Here, lie down and have a cuddle.’

  They sank back into bed and he wrapped his body around hers. She burrowed into his arms and let out a deep sigh.

  ‘Could you hear what he was saying?’ she asked.

  ‘I heard him say he’d take Connor.’

  ‘He couldn’t really do it, could he? I never legally adopted Con. I’m not sure what my rights would be if Daryl tried it.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Theo said firmly. ‘You were right; he’s been wishing his son away ever since he lost Elise. He was just angry and set on hurting you – all talk, no substance.’

  She gave him a squeeze. ‘Did you miss having a dad very much when you were a kid?’

  He shrugged. ‘I tried to convince myself I didn’t. I did secretly envy those of my mates whose dads took them out to the football and played games with them or whatever, but there were just as many with dads who were proper arseholes. From everything my mum told me about him, mine definitely fell into the latter category. He wasn’t worth my tears.’

  ‘What’s your mum like?’

  ‘Oh, she’s very sweet. Sort of childlike. I wasn’t all that old when I started feeling as if I was the one who needed to look after her, you know?’ He smiled. ‘But she loved me to bits, and she worked hard to give me everything she thought I needed. Best mum in the world, even if she wasn’t doing it by the book.’

  Lexie smiled too. ‘That sounds familiar. I mean the not doing it by the book part, not the best mum in the world part.’

  ‘I reckon Connor would agree with both parts.’ He looked down at her. ‘I’ll have to take you to meet her sometime.’

  ‘Seriously, meeting the parents?’ she said, laughing.

  ‘Not like that. I just think you’d be interested to get to know her. She lives with my stepdad over in Hebden Bridge.’

  ‘Are you close to your stepdad?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’d grown up and left home by the time they met. We get on well, but we’re more like mates than family.’

  ‘So you never had any sort of man in your life when you were a kid?’

  ‘There was this one guy,’ he said, his eyes growing distant. ‘Matt. He went out with my mum for a while. She had a lot of boyfriends – she was a romantic at heart, always hoping she’d meet The One, but she wasn’t mature enough really to make a go of a relationship. Matt lasted a bit longer than the others though – I think he might have really loved her. For her sake he made a real effort with me, finding out what I was into, who my mates were, taking me out on my bike and for kickabouts in the park. God, I thought he was the mutt’s nuts, that guy. I’d never had that kind of attention before.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘But then him and Mum broke up, and that was the last I ever saw of Matt. I didn’t let myself get too close to her lovers after that. I knew they wouldn’t be around long, and it’d only end up with me getting hurt as well as her.’

  ‘Poor little boy.’ The maternal part of Lexie’s heart ached for him, and she lifted his hand to her lips. ‘That’s the reason I don’t want to date while Con’s at home. I do believe lads his age benefit from having a man they can respect and learn from in their world, but it needs to be someone who’s a fixture, not a flash in the pan.’ She smiled. ‘Thank goodness he’s got such a bloody awesome godfather, eh?’

  ‘I’ll never let him down, Lex. If I can promise you one thing, it’s that.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Theo’s alarm went off at the ungodly hour of five a.m., giving him plenty of time to clear out of the house before Connor got up for school. He yawned and swung his legs out of bed to begin the hunt for his clothes.

  ‘Fetch us up a coffee before you go, would you?’ Lexie mumbled. ‘I can’t function on four hours’ sleep unless someone pours caffeine into me.’

  ‘What if Con catches me?’

  ‘At five a.m., are you kidding? He can’t even think about dragging himself out of bed until he’s hit snooze on his alarm at least six times and had me threatening to batter the door down if he doesn’t emerge from his pit within the next ten minutes. Connor doesn’t know there is a five o’clock this side of the day.’

  Theo smiled. ‘All right, since I do feel responsible for keeping you up all night. Back in five.’

  He pulled on her dressing gown – a short, fluffy thing with Minions on it that Connor had got her as a gag gift – and crept downstairs to the kitchen. He was just about to flick on the kettle when he heard a noise on the stairs.

  Connor! Shit. Trust this to be the day the kid decided to experiment with early rising. Theo glanced around for an escape route but the back door was locked, with the key nowhere in evidence. Seeing only one other option, he dived into the pantry and pulled the door closed.

  Oh, well this was nice and snug. The tiny pantry was definitely not designed to accommodate a six-foot-two man in a Minions dressing gown who, he now realised as a shelf of tins wedged itself intimately up against his bare backside, had forgotten to pull on a pair of pants before coming down. He held his breath, trying not to make a sound as Connor came in.

  God, please say he’d just come to get a snack he could take up to his room…

  Theo watched the boy through the crack of
the door. For one horrible moment he thought Connor was going to come into the pantry, but while he seemed to hover in front of the door for what felt like a mini lifetime, Connor eventually changed his mind and opened one of the cupboards to get a cereal bar.

  Theo crossed his fingers, toes and other extremities, hoping Connor would take the snack upstairs, but no. Instead the boy sat down at the table, produced his phone and started tapping away while he ate his cereal bar at a very leisurely pace. Theo was sure his bum was starting to get a Heinz-beans-shaped bruise across one cheek.

  Finally Connor finished his snack and stood up. He turned towards the pantry.

  ‘You know, you can come out if you want, Theo.’

  Theo blinked and opened the door.

  ‘All right, smartarse, did you know I was in there this whole time?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you say anything?’

  Connor grinned. ‘Well, it was funny, wasn’t it? Why’re you wearing Lexie’s dressing gown?’

  ‘I, er… I just popped over to… borrow… some…’ His eyes roved wildly around the kitchen.

  ‘Some clothes?’ Connor nodded to the dressing gown. ‘I can see all your junk, you know.’

  ‘Shit.’ Theo hastily readjusted the thing. It really didn’t fit him.

  ‘It’s fine, Theo. I know already.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘About you and Lexie.’ Connor sat back down and started scrolling through his phone again.

  ‘What about me and Lexie?’

  ‘Theo, come on. I just caught you with your dick hanging out, hiding in the pantry wearing my stepmum’s dressing gown. I’m fourteen, not thick.’

  Theo sighed and sat down too. ‘All right, it’s a fair cop. How long have you known then?’

  ‘Er, since the beginning, obviously.’

  Theo frowned. ‘You what?’

  ‘You guys are crap at keeping things secret. I can hear you tripping over stuff when you sneak in.’

  Theo flinched. ‘Bollocks. You’re not going to beat me up, are you? I understand you’ve got quite an impressive right hook.’