Page 30 of Undefined Terms

‘Think about it how.’

‘Like does it keep you up? Wondering if it set right?’

Nobody asks me this. Dave assumes it’s right because I checked it. Gaz doesn’t know enough to worry. But Celyn asks. And I open my mouth.

‘Sometimes. Yeah. The first night after a big pour. I lie there and I can feel it, the set, the cure, the temperature. If it’s too cold it doesn’t cure right. If it’s too fast it cracks. You want it slow. Slow and even.’

I stop. Celyn’s looking at me.

‘You talk about concrete how I talk about sentences,’ Celyn says.

‘You’ve said that.’

‘It’s still true.’

I drink the pint, Celyn drinks the tea. Tuesday, half-empty. The music’s acoustic, a bloke with a guitar and too many feelings.

‘Come outside,’ Celyn says.

The street. The air’s cold, Manchester cold, the damp kind that doesn’t hit you, just wraps around.

We walk, just walking. The NQ streets, the graffiti, the closed vintage shops, the bins.

Celyn stops by the wall where we kissed last night. Leans against the bricks.

I stand in front, close. The eyes. Looking up.

‘I thought about you today,’ Celyn says. Simple. Like saying the sky’s grey.

‘Yeah.’

‘At the restaurant. Cutting lemons. Thought about your hands.’

I look down again. Scraped knuckles. Concrete dust.

‘These hands.’

‘Those hands.’

I kiss Celyn. Slower than last night. The scratch. The drag across my face and this time I lean into it. My hands on the waist, big, still too big, but Celyn’s body presses into them and the fit is, the fit is right. The mouth opens and the cold air and the warm mouth and I’m against the wall and Celyn’s against me and the flower shirt under the jacket is soft under my fingers.

‘Come home with me,’ Celyn says. ‘My room. I want to show you something.’

Celyn’s room. First time. Small, smaller than my flat, which is saying something. A single bed against the wall. Books. Stacks of them, on the floor, on the desk, on the windowsill. A poster, horror film, teeth and a face. The laptop on a pillow. Clothes on a chair, and there it is. A bra. Black lace, straps thin, draped over the arm of the chair. And next to it, grey boxer shorts, cotton, crumpled. And a pair of tights folded on the seat. And a hoodie on top of the tights. And all of it is one person’s.

A horror writer who sleeps under other people’s nightmares, stacked on the floor.

Celyn makes tea. Two mugs, the kettle on the desk. Passes me one, our fingers touch.

‘Sit.’

The bed, we sit, close. The tea’s too hot. I hold it anyway.

‘The thing I wanted to show you,’ Celyn says. Reaches for the laptop. Opens it. The screen glows.

A page of text. The novel.

‘This bit. I wrote it today. At the restaurant, on my break. On my phone, in the kitchen, standing between the bins and the deep fryer.’