A few seconds later, I get a saluting-face emoji in response. Shortly followed by the emoji of three water droplets splashing. I close my eyes and butt the top of the screen against my forehead to hide my excitement.
“Is the thing you need todotonight a girl?” Abs asks me in a whisper.
I’m a terrible liar. Especially to my best friend, but I can’t tell him the truth. He draws his own conclusion from my awkward silence and high-fives me.
“Get in, mate.”
Eggo doesn’t even have time to knock. I see him walking up the path and I’m already opening the front door. Trekkie’s still snoring and twitching on the sofa.
“Oh my, what a lovely home you have here,” Eggo says, in a poorly thought through and probably mildly offensive Southern US accent. He steps over the threshold and kicks the door closed. “You had me so bricked on the coach, all the way back, just thinking about what I wanted to do with you. Wait, you live alone, right?” He looks around the hall, cranes his neck, attempting to peer into the kitchen.
“Yes, I live alone,” I reply. “Do you not?”
“Nah.” He lets his eyes travel down my body and up again. He wets his lips. I don’t even think he’s aware of what he’s doing, but it’s hot as fuck. “I have a lodger. His name is Sven. He’s Dutch, from Amsterdam, and he’s . . . very unserious. Can I kiss you now?”
“You want a tour first?”
“Sure,” he says, laughing.
Trekkie finally hears an unfamiliar voice and stirs himself awake. He lifts his head from behind the arm of the sofa, not that dissimilar to a velociraptor peering over the top of an industrial kitchen counter. One of his ears is inside out, and his lip is somehow tucked under his teeth. He cocks his head to the side,realises we have a guest, and launches himself from the cushions in an explosion of extra-long legs and barking and fur and tail whipping.
“Oh my god, I forgot you have a dog,” he says, dropping to his knees to greet Trekkie, who runs head first into his chest. His back legs bunch up comically as he’s forced to come to a stop.
“This is Trekkie,” I say as my animal molests Eggo’s face. “He’s a bit overfamiliar sometimes.”
“You’re fucking gorgeous,” Eggo booms to the dog. He continues to roll around in the hallway with him until even Trekkie gives up in exhaustion. “I’m gonna steal you. I’m gonna take you home and feed you roast beef and snuggle you so hard and I’m never ever giving you back.” He kisses him a dozen times on the top of his head, then holds his hands up in the air like he wants me to help him to his feet. “Okay, that’s out of my system now.”
I pull him up, but really it’s any old excuse to touch him.
“My mum’s got two dogs. One’s lovely. Tuna, she’s called. The other is this fucking gnarly bastard that will tear your bollocks off if given half a chance.It’snamed Gristle,” he says, with extra venom injected into the word “it’s.”
“What kind of dogs are they?” I ask, guiding him towards my kitchen.
“Tuna’s a rescue staffie cross, and Gristle’s like this . . .” He shrugs. “Jack Russell terrier mixed with Lucifer himself.”
“Do you want a drink?”
Trekkie follows us, his nails clacking along the wooden floor.
“Lush kitchen,” he says, looking around.
“Thanks. I want to get it remodelled. I like the island there and the dining table, but I was thinking how nice it would be to have the entire back wall switched out for those bifold glass doors to make one massive space for summer, but . . . I dunno. I’m not going to be in England long enough to enjoy it.”
“Why? Where you going?”
I don’t know if he’s being deliberately obtuse or if he genuinely doesn’t understand how these things work.
“I’m on a sports visa?” I say it like a question. “I can only stay here as long as I have a job with a sponsoring organisation like the Cents, but after I retire—and I’m not stupid, that could be any day if I get injured, just look at Owen Bosley—I’ll have to go back to Australia.”
“Bosley was nearly forty when Gadget smashed his leg up. Besides, can’t you apply for an extension? Like if you got a job as a coach or a broadcaster or something, you could stay. There’s such a thing as indefinite leave to remain.”
I’m speechless. Okay, maybe he wasn’t being dim or uninformed. I feel bad for doubting him. Of course everything he’s saying is true. I just never expected that Finn Eggington, the man who dressed like a half-naked Pokémon, would be well versed in green cards.
I can’t tell him I’ve already agonised over every T and every C of my visa and contract, and logically, I know they won’t send me back yet. But that doesn’t stop me from waking up in a sweaty panic that perhaps I’ve misunderstood the entire thing, or that something has changed, or that I’ve missed a line of text that says,“Indefinite leave to remain will never apply to you, Aiden Campbell, known to your friends as Pi, you sad, careless fuck. Also, we’re coming for your dog.”
I simply nod instead. “Wanna drink?”
Eggo stares at me. His expression is unreadable. “No. I don’t want a drink. I want you to finish your house tour, show me your bedroom, take off all your clothes, and let me fuck you with my fingers.”
