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“No.” I smirked. “Who gives a fuck?”
“You will, in about ten years from now, when your teeth start falling out.”
I gave him my best withering look. Keanu’s repertoire of facial expressions didn’t extend to withering, so I’d picked up this little gem from my brother Simon’s girlfriend, Tara, who always stared at me as if I’d shat myself then rolled in it. I bared my quite-decent-thank-you-very-much teeth at Alex Valentine. He huffed and glanced down at his watch before baring his immaculate set of pearly white gnashers back. Wanker.
Cartwright ambled in, seemingly about twenty years older and weighed down under a heap of history books.
“Fun staff meeting, sir?”
I’d scanned the agenda he’d left behind on his desk about forty-five minutes earlier. “Solved the thorny issue of Mr Barton persistently parking on double yellow lines when he drops his darling daughter off? Agreed the health and safety budget for the GCSE Spanish trip to Madrid? They really shouldn’t be allowed more money than Mme Tripot was awarded for that trip to Versailles, you know.” I shook my head with a disapproving tut.
Mr Cartwright returned it with a tired smile. “Between you and me, Matt, some of my colleagues indulge in a hell of a lot of barking without having much to say.” The history books landed on his desk with a loudslap, and he jerked his head towards the door. “Go on, then, off you go. Consider yourselves well and truly detented. Valentine—I don’t expect to see you here again. And you, Leeson? Stop buggering about with my clock.”
If Germany could have held strong for a few more weeks, they’d have won the First World War. For the principal reason that by the end of November all the Brits would have topped themselves, fed up with fighting a relentless war for four years as well as coping with our fucking shite weather. Head down, my eyes following the cracks in the damp pavement, I trudged towards the bus stop. Icy fingers of rain trickled uninvited down the back of my neck. An hour earlier, my hair had framed my face in two satisfyingly symmetrical black curtains; now it stuck flat to my forehead, channelling even more fucking wetness down the slope of my nose.
A powerful car skidded up behind, headlights glaring, tyres whipping up spray, and I feinted to the inside of the pavement. Too slow; my grey Farahs now clung to my shins, and with every step my sodden socks rubbed my heels. I must have pissed God off, big time in a former life. I remembered the documentary I’d watched last night on the telly, about turtles in Hawaii, the size of kids’ paddling pools. Smiley Hawaiians splashed and fooled around in the crystal-clear water above them, almost oblivious, as if tropical seas and sugar-white sands and glorious sunshine and fucking turtles under their feet were an everyday occurrence. Which they were, of course.
Another car, and from the sound of the engine smaller than the last one, came up behind me and I nimbly stepped to the side once more, braced for the rush of freezing water which never came. Instead, the car drew up alongside, hugging the kerb, orange indicator light winking. The driver wound down the window, revealing his wholesome, clean, and dry face.
“Do you need a lift?”
Alex sodding Valentine. His car was a red VW Polo, a newish model. Shiny and clean, just like him. I gritted my teeth, pissed off that he’d caught me like this, a drenched dishevelled mess. The real, golden-limbed Matt Leeson was shacked up in Hawaii, sunning himself on Oahu beach and sipping a strawberry margarita as a bronzed god rubbed suntan lotion into the skin of his sculpted inner thighs.
“Nah, you’re all right mate.”
“I know I’m all right. It’s you who looks like he’s not.” He sounded exasperated. “Go on, get in. I’ve just driven a lap of the ring road—the bus isn’t anywhere close.”
I looked back down the street. Plenty of cars, vans, and orange streetlights, but no buses loomed out of the darkness. Just more sodding rain. Alex Valentine wound his window back up and leaned across to unlock the passenger door. The warm dryness of the leather interior was so tempting I could almost smell it.
I don’t know why climbing into his car set my nerves jangling, but it did. It was only a bloody VW Polo; that it was possibly the newest car I’d ever sat in was irrelevant. Automatically, I reached for my pack of Marlboros and began lighting one up. He shook his head in warning.
“You can’t smoke in the car. Sorry.”
He gave a puzzled frown as I pretended to cast a glance over each shoulder.
“Just looking for someone who gives a shit,” I explained, and a satisfying flush warmed his cheeks. The skin of his face was smooth; clear peaches and cream. Not a zit in sight, whereas I cultivated a boil the size of Belgium on my chin. To give him his due, he stood his ground.
“I give a shit.” His words had bite, although the effect was somewhat lessened when he followed up with, “Actually, my sister does. We share the car, but she’s away at university at the moment. In Cardiff, studying psychology. She’s in her second year.”
“When?”
“When what?” His brow wrinkled.
“When did I ask?”
With a rougher touch than strictly necessary, he slammed the car into first gear, most likely already regretting his rash decision to offer a lift to such an ungrateful tosser. My ciggie would have to wait, and I tucked it, unlit, behind my ear. And then tried to keep my head still so it didn’t slip, because…not cool.
“Hopefully, your sister is also the explanation for the fucking disgusting sequined yellow cushions on the back seat, then.”
His lips twitched. “Yeah, not my choice.”
“Turn left at these lights and then follow the signs to New Cross Hospital. And then second left after that.”
He drove confidently, although with much more care than other lads of our age. Phil drove like he was screeching off the grid at Silverstone, and my brother Simon as if he was being chased by the filth. Alex Valentine hadn’t any music blaring out either. No subwoofers in this car—I bet he didn’t even know what one was. Thanks to my damp clothes, the windows had steamed up, and while Alex Valentine was distracted adjusting the demister, I surreptitiously sketched a cock and balls in the condensation on the passenger side.
Between gear changes, his left hand rested loosely in his lap. His nails were short, but not bitten to the quick, unlike mine, and I could make out the muscular shape of his thigh under his school trousers. My dick warmed, so I slid my eyes back to looking around the car. Not a single balled-up tissue, empty Coke can, or random petrol receipt soiled the pristine interior. It was bloody quiet, too. Stabbing at the CD player, I ejected a disc and snorted.
“Boyz to Men? Tell me that’s your sister’s, too, otherwise you’re going to have to perform an emergency stop so I don’t puke all over your immaculate upholstery.”
