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There was no going back now, I would have sex with Callum tonight. I mentally checked when I’d last shaved. I couldn’t cope with the torture of waxing, no man was worth that kind of pain. It meant that I needed to shave and often.
When I looked at him again, he hadn’t moved.
“Did you say yes?”
“I did. Were you bluffing?”
“No,” he said and swooped down to kiss me hard. He’d caught me at the back of my head, pressing his lips hard to mine, I didn’t think he’d let me go. I struggled a little, my nose was pressed against his face, and I was losing oxygen. He walked me back into the kitchen, hoisted me up onto the counter and took his place between my legs. Callum continued to kiss me, probing my lips with his tongue but not entering my mouth. He was teasing me in the best possible way.
“We’re going to do this?” I asked.
“Yes, we’re going to do this, but not until later. Let’s get to your parent’s place. I’m looking forward to meeting them.”
“You may call off the date, once you’ve met them,” I grumbled.
He lifted me off the counter and settled me on my feet. I followed him out of the flat and around the side street to his van. For a carpenter the inside of his van was pristine. Although I could only see the front part. I expected empty wrappers and drink bottles careering around the footwell of the passenger seat. I fastened my seatbelt and gave him directions to their address. I’d never taken a friend to meet my family, I was too ashamed of them. I had no idea what they would make of Callum, but I lay a silent bet they tried to fleece him of cash within five minutes. It would be a test of Callum if he gave in.
All too soon, we pulled up in front of my parent’s house. The front garden was a stone path with four feet of gravel each side. A few empty terracotta plant pots lay on their side with moss growing up the side. Callum came around my side of the van and opened the door. He held out a hand for me to balance as I jumped down from the high step. Callum kissed my lips and then slammed the van door. Taking my hand in his, he strode up the garden path and rapped on the door. I was too nervous to tell him I usually entered the house through the kitchen. He must have picked up on my nervousness and took control.
Callum
Her hand trembled in mine. Something didn’t add up. If she was this scared to see her parents, then why was she here? It was my hope I would find the answers I needed inside the house where she grew up. I had a perverse desire to see her bedroom and make out on the bed. Somehow, I didn’t think Adaline would be up for that. She rapped on the glass of the front door and pushed the handle down to go inside. She didn’t let go of my hand while we entered the house. The smell of freshly baked steak pie hit me square in the face. I hadn’t eaten a pie in a long time. My mouth watered in reaction to the smell of chips too. Someone in the house was eating their lunch, and I wanted to snatch it out of their hands and eat the lot. My dormant fat boy was yearning to escape.
My desire to eat junk food never went away, I’d replaced one habit with another. There were days when it took an iron will not to stuff my face for hours on pure carbohydrates. Fortunately, I had enough discipline not to binge. Instead, I binge exercise instead.
The small hallway had clothes, shoes and debris all along the skirting boards. It looked like the blue jumper, by my feet had been there a while. The thick layer of dust coated the arm that was inside out. Did Adaline have to live like this when she grew up?
“Try not to look at the shit lying around, they live like fucking animals,” Adaline had said before we turned the corner into the living room.
The two people I saw sitting in armchairs were the last people I imagined for Adaline’s parents. Adaline had style, elegance, and standards far higher than the man and woman staring at me dumbfounded. In tandem, they looked from me to Adaline and back again.
“Is this your fella?” The woman said. Her mouth was crammed full of chips, she sprayed half eaten potato all over her top.
“Mum, this is my neighbour Callum, he gave me a lift here,” Adaline said. I wasn’t positive, but there was a weariness to her voice I hadn’t heard from her before. I’d seen her after three hours sleep, four nights in a row and she never sounded this tired.
“Did you bring him here to fix the boiler, like I asked you?” Her dad asked.
He’d finished his fish and chips and was scrunching up the paper into a tight ball. His bulbous nose was dripping, he wiped his nose with the back of his hand and threw the paper at the bin by the TV. He missed and did not try to get up and put it in the bin. Instead, he settled into the back of his armchair and interlinked his fingers over his large belly.
“You didn’t ask me to fix your boiler. If you had, I’d have told you to fix it yourself,” Adaline said and picked up the chip wrapper. Her mum handed Adaline her wrapper too, and she took it. She left me alone with her parents while she dashed out of the room and up the corridor. The atmosphere turned predatory. I was the prey.
Adaline’s dad’s chair was a swivel one, he shifted to face me head on. Adaline had left the room for twenty seconds, but it felt like half an hour. She hadn’t introduced me, I didn’t know what their names were.
“Hi,” I said and walked over to offer my hand. Adaline’s dad didn’t move. He eyed my hand and grunted. I carried on. “My name’s Callum,” I said and left my hand there to be shaken. He eventually shook my hand, his palm rough as sandpaper. Then I remembered, it was the hand that had wiped his dripping nose. Instead of blowing his nose, he kept sniffing.
“I’m Darren, and that’s my wife Clare,” he said thumbing towards Adaline’s mum. “It’s good to meet you, Callum, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a carpenter by trade,” I answered. His smiled turned salacious at my response. My bet was that he’d already mentally made a list of the odd jobs around the house for me to fix. I didn’t know if that was in the rules I could help. If I wasn’t allowed to lend them any money, then I was sure I wasn’t allowed to fix anything.
“Do you know a good timber merchants? We need the floor boards in the bathroom replacing. Clare forgot about the bath running and flooded the place. The floorboards haven’t been right since.”
“Yes, I know a few. I can give you my mate’s phone number,” I said, taking my phone out of my back pocket. I unlocked it and searched through my contacts.
“If I give you the measurements, can you pick up what I need?” Darren asked, hauling himself out of the chair. He staggered to his feet. When Darren was upright, he wasn’t as portly as I thought. His slim legs and arms gave away he was not a well man. He took two steps to the shelf above the fireplace and took a slip of paper out from behind the clock. There were all kinds of envelopes and papers stuffed behind the clock. He handed me a used envelope with the wordsfinal billstamped on the outside. To the left of the red writing were measurements. They didn’t look right for a house of this size.
“Are these measurements, feet and inches or meters?” I asked.
“Meters, I think. Is there something wrong, son?” He peered over to the envelope, with the most innocent face I had ever seen on an adult. I was being played, I knew it, but I took the bait, anyway. These numbers could have been for cake tin sizes and not bathroom flooring.
