I pulled a bean bag chair up to the window to sketch. I was on a new tablet: a used iPad I’d bought off Amy. I knew she could use the money, and I needed something more sustainable than pencil and paper to use for my course. But sat there, I struggled to find inspiration in the overly manicured neighbourhood; it was like all the soul had been sucked from the landscape when it had been developed. I imagined it as it might have been before, still full of the oak and maple and chestnut trees we’d seen at the festival ground. And that’s how I found my muse.
I started sketching out the landscape; it was flat now, but I could tell from the way the trees leaned around the borders that there would have been a shallow gully at one point. So I recreated it as best as I could imagine, with a little stream running through the middle. Then I started to add a Tudor-style cottage beside it, just big enough for two.
Just as I was finishing the shape of the house, I saw movement from the corner of my eye. I looked down and saw Morgan in the driveway, doing the running man with her phone in one hand.
I smiled and watched her until she stopped and brought the phone back to her ear, and wondered who she was talking to that had her so excited. My heart sank when I realised it was probably related to the job; she’d probably got an offer. But on a Saturday? No, something wasn’t quite adding up…
“Dinner!” Phil yelled, and I headed back downstairs, reaching the kitchen just as Morgan came through the front door. She had a huge smile plastered on her face, and she searched around, locking eyes with me and opening her mouth as if she were going to share whatever her news was.
But then she clearly thought better of it, or maybe remembered that I wasn’t supposed to be that person for her anymore. So instead she frowned and clamped her mouth shut, filing in line behind me as we queued for dinner.
* * *
I didn’t quite havethe stomach for combat once it was full of spaghetti bolognese, but I knew how much Fatima had been pouring into planning tonight’s session – it was “the big one”, apparently – so I made myself a cup of tea and soldiered on. And I wasn’t alone; the kettle took so long to boil on the hob that by the time it was done there was a queue behind me, including Fatima and Grey, who were still wearing their swimsuits.
“Let’s aim for eight maybe for our session?” Fatima asked the group as she dropped teabags into a line of mugs one after the other. That gave us about forty-five minutes.
“Finally time to see Ser Prize in action!” Grey said, smiling at me.
“I need a disco nap,” Chloe said with a yawn, which set the rest of us off.
“Eight sounds good,” Phil said. “Just enough time to mend Jack’s trousers and my undershirt before tomorrow.”
I headed downstairs to grab said trousers, then followed Phil to his room on the top floor. He had me put them on since the rip was in the pocket, not wanting to get the angles wrong and have it lie funny. I told him it didn’t matter, but he insisted, so I used his bathroom to strip off my joggers and put my trousers back on. Phil squatted down to pin them in place, shoving his hand down through the waistband of the trousers so far that, had I not known him all my life, I might have been filing a complaint.
Just as he was finishing the pinning, there was a knock at the door.
“What do you want me to do with the leftovers?” Chloe’s voice asked from the other side.
“Hang on,” Phil called, then looked up at me. “If you put these on the bed, I can get them mended. Just be careful taking them off.”
“Aye, aye,” I said with a little salute.
Once Phil left the room, I unfastened the trousers and slipped them off carefully, just grazing my upper thigh with one of the pins. Then, when I was folding them to set them on the bed, I managed to plunge one of them deep into my finger. When I pulled it back, it instantly started dripping blood, and a few droplets got on my white t-shirt.
“Shit,” I said, pulling it off immediately. I ducked back into the bathroom and started filling up the sink with water, dunking the entire shirt into it and scratching at the red spot with my finger. I’d seen Mum do this before when she’d cut herself cooking, saying the sooner she got the towel into the water, the less likely it would be to stain.
I turned off the water once the sink was full and kept scratching at the fabric; I was pretty sure it was working, but there was one stubborn spot right by the hem.
I reached for the plug to drain the sink so I could fill it with clean water, but just as my hand came in contact with metal, the door on the other side of the bathroom opened, and Morgan stepped in, her eyes going wide when she saw me.
“What the fuck?!” she shouted. “What the hell are you doing?” Her eyes looked from me – mostly naked – to the sink full of slightly pink water and back again. “Are you cleaning up a crime scene? Is Phil in there with fabric scissors sticking out of his chest?”
I laughed, half in surprise and half at her joke. It came out like a bark. “Just trying to get blood out of my top,” I said.
“That’s not really helping your case,” she said, then reached out towards the sink. “Here, you need to get some clean water running over it.”
I smiled. “Thanks,” I said. “Good idea.”
Once I’d refilled the sink, I stood up straight and suddenly realised just how small the bathroom was. Or maybe Morgan was just standing closer than necessary to me. Either way, I didn’t step away, and neither did she. I looked at her in the mirror, trying to catch her gaze, but I couldn’t, because it was too busy running over my form. I tried not to flex or reposition, which I knew would give away that I’d seen her, so I just watched her check me out for a solid five seconds before she realised what she was doing. I took advantage of the moment to admire her in return, from the unkempt, very grabbable array of hair falling over her shoulders to the almost-too-short t-shirt dress she wore. I could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath.
When she saw me watching her watch me, she looked away, her cheeks flushing pink. But she still didn’t move away.
“Jack,” she said quietly, and now I turned to face her, my chest just inches from her. She still didn’t step away. “I’m so sorry about earlier. What I said was over the line.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. I brought my hand up under her chin without even thinking about it, tilting it up so I could see her face. It still took her a moment to meet my gaze, but when she did, the mix of emotions I saw there sent shivers up my spine. “No, it wasn’t out of line at all. It was exactly right. You were right. This whole time.”
I watched her eyes as she listened to me, my pulse quickening as I saw relief flash across them. Then I dropped my hand, because it wasn’t my place to touch her like that anymore; and because if I didn’t, I was going to kiss her.
