Page 5 of Electric Boy

“Nah, you’re right. It was stupid,” Julian muttered, pushing his fringe restlessly off his forehead. “I’ll just go, shall I?”

Michael snapped out of his dark reverie. “No, no,” he said hastily, touching Julian’s shoulder without thinking. He could hardly feel anything beneath the thick layers of padding, but his heart still contracted at the contact, the pulsing in his veins throbbing all the harder. “I think I’d like that. Why don’t you ring me sometime?”

Michael produced a crimson business card from his trouser pocket. He held it out to Julian between two fingers. The young man looked at it with the same sort of wide-eyed fascination as when Michael had told him he owned the block of flats. It was the look children got when they peered inside toyshop windows. He took it and read over the little golden letters and numbers, mouthing the name “M.H. Chapel” as if practising their shape. When Julian looked up at him again, he beamed bright enough to blind.

“Cheers, Michael.”

Chapter Four: Are “Friends” Electric?

Julian was late for work. Again. In fact, if Julian was ever on time, that’s when Rahul would really start to worry about him. It’d be Invasion of the Body Snatchers if that man was ever on time for a single thing in his entire bloody life. All right. So maybe he was still cross with the little git over last night. It wasn’t often they’d had a row like that.

They’d been best mates since secondary school. Rahul had been tall and awkward even at the tender age of eleven. He’d been new to South London, having just moved down from Leeds with his mum after his parents’ divorce. He’d already been a sensitive, creative lad, then the divorce and the move had made young Rahul quite the shy, anxious boy who was easy to bully. Some older boys had been pushing him about the yard, trying to shake him down for money, and Rahul could recall being on the verge of tears when a little slip of a boy, a mop of unruly blond hair falling into eyes, came out of nowhere and started slagging them off, standing up to them as if he were twice his size. Pomeranian, Rahul had thought.

His mum had had one at home. It had been a wee thing, no bigger than a football, and made entirely out of honey-coloured fluff, but if a stranger came round the house it bared its tiny white teeth and barked with the ferocity of a Doberman. And just like the strangers who came round the house, the bigger boys had shied away from the feral boy, unsure if he was about to leap up and bite their throats out. After they’d gone, the boy had wiped his runny nose with the back of his sleeve and told Rahul his name was Julian. Rahul had learned not to stick his hand out to shake, even though it’s what his father had taught him. Apparently the kids here found it too formal and preferred to kick him in the shin. So instead he’d just mumbled his own name out. And then this fascinating little creature had proclaimed them best friends on the spot.

Fifteen years later, Julian had dyed his hair black, Rahul remained the tallest person in any room -- albeit he now had an added moustache -- and they were still best friends. If it weren’t for Rahul’s flatmate, Kwambe, and Julian’s sister, Mel, (and, Rahul assumed begrudgingly, Julian’s girlfriend) they’d be each other’s only friends. Though they’d had their ups and downs over the years, there didn’t exist two people who understood each other better. Despite their occasional spats, they hardly ever had massive fights. And Rahul definitely considered last night’s debacle a massive fight. Julian had poked him, for crying out loud! In the chest!

“Poke me,” Rahul muttered under his breath as he flipped through a magazine without reading it. “I’ll poke you, sir. I’ll come at you like a beam, like a ray. You won’t see me coming. The Stealthy Poker they call me. I’ll poke you before you even know --”

The chiming of the bell above the door alerted him to the presence of another human being, so he quickly buttoned his lip. He knew from experience that if people caught him muttering to himself, they usually left the shop post-haste. And lord only knew they couldn’t afford to lose any more customers.

“Settle down, it’s only me,” Julian grumbled from behind darkly tinted sunglasses, throwing off his parka and coming round the counter. “No need to stop talking to yourself on my account.”

“I was doing no such thing, sir,” Rahul lied as he watched Julian drop onto the stool beside him and slump forwards onto the counter. Rahul noted how he didn’t remove his sunglasses. “Late night, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“And you deserve half as much for calling me -- what was it? Oh right, a ‘stuck-up ponce with an anaemic caterpillar on his lip.’ Or were you too pissed to remember that?”

Julian groaned and cradled his head in his arms. “Look, I know I was in a state last night. Aisling had gotten me all confused, hadn’t she? Saying that if it weren’t for you we’d be as well as married by now. She got me thinking maybe it was you that was the problem. But I was just taking it out on you really. I know you were only trying to help.”

Julian tilted his head, a flash of his bright blue eyes peeking out above his sunglasses. “You forgive me, don’t you?”

Rahul folded his arms over his chest and huffed, making a show out of it. Of course he forgave him. He’d forgiven him the second he’d opened his mouth. But he couldn’t let him off that easy, or else Julian would never learn his lesson, would he?

“Come on, Rahul,” Julian whined, sitting up and grabbing onto Rahul’s arm.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Don’t be like that.” He pouted exaggeratedly and Rahul knew he was playing with him too now.

Rahul’s lip twitched under his moustache, threatening to turn into a smile. “Don’t be like what? I’m always like this.”

“Are not. You’re a massive teddy bear, you are. A great big Northern softy. I could melt you down and drizzle you over a Victoria sponge.”

“I am not. I’m bitter. Like coffee and whiskey and cigars. I’m like a gentleman’s club from before the war. Old Colonel Bitter, they call me.”

“No one calls you that. Who calls you that?”

“People. No one you know.”

“I know everyone you know and no one calls you Captain Bitter.”

“Colonel Bitter, thank you very much. Don’t demote me.”

By this point, neither could hold back their grins. Just like that, all was forgotten, like it always was between them. They were still the best mates. Rahul and Julian. Julian and Rahul.

Julian winced through a laugh and massaged his temples. Now that he was no longer pretending to be resentful, Rahul could let his concern rise openly to the surface.