Page 39 of Electric Boy

“See? That’s what I’m talking about,” Julian protested, taking the mug from Rahul and putting it in the sink before it spilled all over the place. “You’re the two most important people in my life right now and you can’t stand each other. It’s just like you and Aisling all over again. I feel like I’m strung between you two like a clothesline with all this dirty washing on it. I honestly think if either of you took the time to get to know each other, you’d really like each other. I mean, you’ve got so much in common.”

“Do we? Like what?”

Julian pulled a face. “Well, you both like me. For a start.”

“I’ll pass.”

“No, come on! Don’t you want to make an effort? A little, teensy effort? For me?”

“Look, Jules. You know I love you. You’ve been my best friend since we were kids. But Michael is a pompous twat and I am never going to like him and you need to start coming to terms with that.”

Chapter Twenty: Bigmouth Strikes Again

Michael wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up agreeing to have a drink with Rahul. He had no direct memory of agreeing to such a meeting. Michael had been spotting Julian as he attempted -- poorly -- to do a set of sit-ups at Michael’s insistence that they exercise together as a way to offset Julian’s unhealthy lifestyle. Julian had been trying to convince him, through labored breathing and pained groans, that it might be a good idea for Michael and Rahul to spend some time together alone, put their differences aside long enough to find some common ground.

Aroused by his flushed cheeks and sweat-glistened body, Michael had shut him up with a series of sloppy kisses that led to sloppy lovemaking on his living room floor. Julian must have, at some point, performed a kind of hypnotism on him because, when Michael finally regained his senses, Julian had been prattling on about how happy he was that the two people he cared most about would finally get to know each other.

“Once Rahul knows you like I know you,” he’d said, “he won’t be able to stop himself from adoring you like I do.”

Sitting across a table from Rahul at The Barber & Pony with Rahul’s dark eyes glaring daggers at him over a pint, Michael quite doubted they would be leaving this encounter as newfound bosom buddies. Still, never let it be said that Michael Howard Chapel was a quitter. He’d been set this challenge and he would rise to the occasion; if not for the boy he was dating, then for his own peace of mind.

“I hear you and Julian have been friends since school,” Michael offered by way of an olive branch.

“Yep,” Rahul replied impassively. The stone heads of Easter Island were more forthcoming.

“I never made many lasting friends at school myself,” Michael said, trying not to fidget with the slender stalk of his wine glass.

“How did you say you and Jules met, again?” Rahul shot out the non sequitur, eyes narrowed into black slits.

“Here,” Michael answered with a composure he didn’t necessarily feel. “After Julian had had one too many.” Somehow he felt that to mimic Rahul and use the diminutive “Jules” would be a mistake. Rahul was staking claim over Julian when he used it. He was a tomcat pissing on the brick wall, saying “this is mine, I was here first.”

“Right. And you rescued him?”

“Julian, poor thing, he’d gotten himself into a bit of a state and he’d run off at the mouth to some man who hadn’t taken kindly to it. When he’d gone outside, this ‘gentleman’ had tried to take a swing at him. If I hadn’t stepped in, well, he’d probably have laid our Julian out flat.”

A muscle in Rahul’s jaw ticked when Michael said “our Julian.” Good. He was staking his claim, too.

“See, I find that interesting because Julian’s never gotten himself into a drunken fight. He’s a happy drunk. A randy drunk, even. He’d never pick a fight with some stranger.”

“You weren’t there, were you?” Michael said, politeness a thin veneer over his confrontational words. “He was in a state over his girlfriend and you left him. He was bound to get in a dark way, and there was no one around to stop him or keep him safe. Quite frankly, we’re lucky I was there. Who knows what could have happened to him if it not for me.” He let that hang heavily in the air between them.

“Lucky,” Rahul repeated after a beat. “That’s interesting, that. You do have a way of finding yourself at the right place at just the right time.”

“Do I?” Michael asked, not knowing where Rahul was headed with this and not at all enjoying it.

“I’d say so, considering you just so happened to turn up at Julian’s flat when Aisling had gone round to pick up her things.”

The grey, watery afternoon light that filtered through the pub made Rahul’s warm copper skin appear sallow and stony. With the bristly black moustache and thick black hair greying prematurely at the temples, he rather resembled a fading portrait of some stoic dictator. Replace his threadbare cable knit jumper with a military tunic and he’d be the spitting image of a sour-faced Asian general.

Michael tried to remind himself that this was not some military mastermind but was, in fact, a state school graduate and failed actor who worked in a barely profitable record shop in a rough neighbourhood. Michael had attended Eton, for Christ’s sake. He could take on one Northern half-wit.

“I’m sorry, and who’s Aisling?” he asked, the very picture of innocence.

Rahul was not moved. “Oh, you know, the woman you threatened outside of your boyfriend’s flat. I’m sure that must ring at least one bell. Unless you’ve threatened so many women you simply can’t keep them straight anymore.”

“I never threatened anyone.” He could hear his tone growing harsh and reminded himself sternly to even it out. A middle-class upbringing prevented him from caving to such taunts, even while his heart yearned to give the man a verbal lashing. “Whoever this Aisling person is, she must have misunderstood me, if it really was me she spoke with.”

“I see,” he said with a smile like a freezing gale. “So you’re going to deny being a stalker then, are you?”