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Petite, blonde and blue-eyed, Alex’s mum—Lizzie—was as foxy as I remembered from the café. This evening, she had dolled herself up for a night out, in a figure-hugging red dress and high-heeled boots. Alex had inherited his handsome facial features from her, but his rugby bulk was all his dad’s doing. Mr“call-me-Richard”Valentine swallowed my hand in his as he gave it a vigorous shake, his pleasure in meeting one of his son’s new school friends evident on his chiselled dark and rugged face. From the kitchen set-up, him and his wife had been sharing cooking duties; each had a glass of red wine at their elbow, and jazz or some such shit warbled in the background. Whatever was on the menu smelled unbelievably good.
“So, this is the maths genius.” Mr Valentine—sorry,Richard, threw me a friendly grin, displaying his own two rows of sparkling white teeth. The whole family were like a fucking Colgate advert. “Alex never stops talking about you! I believe you’re responsible for his sudden interest in…what’s it called? Gungy music, too.”
A burst of sunshine thrummed in my chest. Alex listened to my music recommendations! He talked about me!
Alex groaned. “God, Dad, shut up. It’s grunge music. You are sooo embarrassing.” He turned to me. “Okay, so I might have mentioned you’d helped me a couple of times. And I’ve always liked Nirvana. My dad’s exaggerating, as usual.”
“How did the match go, darling?” his mum asked, as she selected an array of cutlery from a drawer under the counter. A pile of flowery linen napkins also emerged. People used them in films, and we offered paper ones in the café, but it hadn’t occurred to me that some folk bothered with them at home.
Alex outlined his afternoon of rugby, and his parents listened attentively, interjecting with caring, interested questions. This birds-eye view of normal family life fascinated me, much as it did whenever Phil’s parents were around, although the Valentine’s unforced display reached a whole new level. I absorbed the spacious kitchen as they waffled on, taking in the glossy units, the huge, stainless-steel fridge, and acres of work surfaces, polished to a shine. I focussed on memorising every detail, every speck of furniture; the criss-crossed wine rack stacked with bottles, the squat candles nestled in cute glass jars, rows of pale oils, a spice rack holder thingy…
“Matt!”
All eyes were on me, albeit in a friendly fashion. “Yeah, sorry. Miles away.”
“I said, we’ll go up to my room until dinner’s ready. I need to shower and change out of this clobber.”
Low down in my belly, a thousand butterflies unfurled their wings. Shit, how had I missedthatinvitation? No way would I be allowed to follow him up to his bedroom if any of them had an inkling of my wrongness. Dragging my gaze from his rear view, I focused instead on the framed photos lining the staircase—a chronological history of Alex and his sister’s idyllic childhood, from snaps of chubby babies smiling gummily up from pushchairs at the bottom, to stilted poses in stiff school uniforms as we approached the top.
“Your sister’s fit.” I peered at a photo of her and her netball team. To be fair, the girls were almost indistinguishable from each other—all groomed, blonde, swishy-haired sleekness. I’d hidden my true self behind comments such as this for the last couple of years, as they seemed to go down well amongst my peers. Vaguely amusing and an opportunity to reinforce my heterosexuality in one simple, misogynistic sentence. Alex was no different.
“God, all my friends say that,” he grumbled as we turned on the landing. “When she’s here with her mates from university, I tend to become very popular all of a sudden.”
I couldn’t give a shit whether his sister lived at uni, at home, or had dug herself an igloo in the Arctic Circle, because we’d entered Alex Valentine’s bedroom, aka seventh heaven. And Alex Valentine was divesting himself of his tracksuit top.
“Stick some music on, Matt, while I grab a quick shower.”
He pointed to an expensive-looking ghetto blaster/CD player thingy perched halfway up his bookcase. I turned towards it gratefully, as the twin thuds of Alex kicking off trainers followed by slithery undressing noises went on behind me. My dick made a heroic bid for freedom from my jeans in response. Once his bedroom door closed behind him and hot water pipes began reverberating from the bathroom, I gave myself a quick rub.
My Pogues album held pride of place on top of his music player, the pirated CD sitting inside its protective case. Trust Alex to not leave it lying around to get scratched—in fact, all his CDs were stored securely. After scanning his collection with mounting concern, I decided they could all bloody stay there. Christ, he had a lot to learn. Where the fuck did he get off on Bryan Adams? Whitney Houston? Boyz II Men? Phil and Brenner would have died of laughter if they could have seen me trying to choose between Billy Ray Cyrus and Ace of Base.
To avoid having it nicked, I’d automatically brought my rucksack in from the car. Old habits die hard; I hadn’t known he lived in a road where the biggest crime was forgetting to attend the monthly Neighbourhood Watch meeting. Rescuing myself from musical purgatory, I retrieved The Smiths compilation cassette that Denise had made for me after nicking the original CD from HMV a couple of weeks earlier. I slotted it into the ghetto blaster and as the opening notes ofThe Boy with the Thorn in His Sidebegan playing, I hummed along to its haunting, melancholic beauty. It was a shame not to be putting a proper CD through its paces, for the full effect of Alex’s cool speakers, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. A tinny cassette version of Morrissey was infinitely preferable to all the crap Alex had lined up. Me and my crush needed to have a serious talk.
The shower still whined next door and so I poked around his room, revelling in the thrill at having been invited into his personal space. His scent pervaded every corner, and I breathed it all in, inhaling the faint tang of the lemony aftershave he favoured, blended with the unmistakable musky aroma of teenage boy. Which did my half-plumped dick no favours whatsoever. I debated having a quick wank, but him coming back to find me pulling one off the wrist while ogling the photo of him captaining the first eleven was a sure-fire route to never receiving a return invite.
Posters of sports stars decorated the walls—Blu-tacked, not sticky-taped, obviously. Most were rugby players and cricketers, but a few footballers were thrown in too. Rugby tended to be the preserve of the middle classes, although even I recognised the smug gurning of Will Carling, the England captain. A smoking hot, dark-skinned chap cradled a rugby ball next to him—Jeremy Guscott. Nice muscles. Mmm. I approved, and at least Alex didn’t have Bond girls or glamour models draped across the walls, so a boy could fantasise a little longer.
My attention turned to Alex’s desk, a teacher’s wet dream. His neat rows of alphabetically lined-up folders provided a masterclass in how to organise schoolwork. I’d met swotty girls with fewer pots of highlighter pens and sticky post-it notes. Hurriedly, I drew a fat, luminous-pink cock and hairy balls on the uppermost sheet of his notepad, then rearranged his folders before diving onto his bed and assuming a relaxed pose, my hands clasped behind my head. The shower had turned off.
“Don’t judge me, Matt,” he began awkwardly as he stepped into the room. “And honestly, the CDs are mostly my sister’s.”
A selection of withering comments dissolved on my tongue. Thank Christ I was already lying down.
As he sauntered into the middle of his bedroom, Alex treated his hair to a vigorous rub with a charcoal-grey towel. A matching towel hung from his waist and, as if tempting my gaze lower, rivulets of water, like precious jewels, trickled down the valley of his breastbone. My mouth watered. His torso boasted that perfect vee that only came from a combination of youth, sport, and a heathy diet. How would it feel to kneel before him and press my lips against the band of tender flesh above the edge of that towel? To tug on the towel with my teeth, so it dropped to the floor? To run my fingers up the backs of his damp legs, to clasp my hands around his meaty thighs and…shit, I needed to get a grip.
A flush of heat surged through my groin, stoking an already simmering fire, and I casually rolled onto my front. If he loosened the towel to pull on his underwear, right in front of me, I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions, likely to involve uncontrollable duvet-humping. In the background, The Smiths suggested that if there was something he’d like to try, all he had to do was ask; pretty much a precise summing-up of my thoughts. Morrissey could always be relied upon for perfect comic timing.
“Hey, this is The Smiths, isn’t it?”
His obvious thrill in recognising the voice of one of my musical heroes had the corners of my mouth turning up in a smile. What planet did he live on? Even Brenner’s kid sister knew The Smiths.
“Go to the top of the class, Mr Valentine.”
I risked a glance at him. His back was turned—miles of smooth skin, as he pulled clothes out of a drawer. He preserved my sanity a little longer as he began to dress, modestly hitching up a white pair of boxers underneath the towel before allowing it to fall to the floor. A further exercise in self-control ensued as he threw on jeans and a sweatshirt.
“You can keep the tape if you like,” I offered magnanimously. “It’s only a copy. I’ve got most of the tracks on other albums anyway.” I jerked my head towards his rack of CDs. “And your need is greater than mine.”
He grinned his thanks at me. My gesture wasn’t entirely altruistic. I liked the idea of him lying where I was now, his blond curls fanned out on the same pillow, listening to music I’d selected for him. Maybe thinking of me. Perhaps I’d make him a few more compilations. It would give us another reason, beyond maths, to keep meeting up.
