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I stared at the floor. “I texted my ex-boyfriend. It wasn’t the most helpful text I could have sent.”
“And we tried to call,” added Mum apologetically.
Leo started. “I’m—I’m so sorry. I normally keep my phone off. I didn’t—I didn’t know—”
“He didn’t know,” I put in, “that I’m a terrible communicator.”
My dad’s eyes were bright with irony—his shy way of smiling. “He’s met you, son. I’m sure he does know that.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Mum started undoing the eighty-seven buttons, zips, and Velcro ties that lashed her sleeping bag coat closed. “We had a lovely walk, didn’t we, Krzysztof? And we metsome lovely people.” She beamed. “Your neighbour three boats down sold us some weed. What a nice man.”
“You bought weed?” I asked. “Just at random? From a total stranger?”
“He grows it himself. It’s organic.”
I glowered at her. “Right, because the eco-friendliness of the drugs my parents purchased is what’s concerning me right now.”
“It’s just weed, paczek. You do know we were alive in the eighties? Your father defended his thesis on LSD. No corrections. And anyway”—my mother was an inveterateand anyway-er—“he was the one told us Marius was probably staying with you, Leo.”
Leo was still pressed to the side of the boat. He didn’t look totally traumatised. But he was definitely on the brink of overwhelmed. “I think you mean—uh, Leaf?”
“That’s him,” cried Mum, excited, as ever, by the most tenuous of human connections. “Leaf by name, Leaf by nature.”
“No,” I pointed out, “if he was leaf by nature that would make him literally a plant.”
“Can I maybe take that for you?” Leo came forward and tried to fold Mum’s coat—which basically involved wrestling it into submission. “What about you, Mister—uh.”
Almost simultaneously, we realised I hadn’t told him my surname. Not that it would have helped him much. He’d probably have had less luck wrapping his tongue around Chankseliani than he had wrapping it around my cock.
“Krzysztof,” he finished, blushing wildly again.
I honestly didn’t know what was wrong with him. Two nightsago, he’d spread himself like a spatchcock and begged to be fucked. And now he was stumbling about schoolboyishly as if we’d been caught snogging with my bedroom door closed.
With a murmur of thanks, my father took off his stultifyingly normal three-quarter length wool coat and passed it to Leo, who then carried both sets of outwear to the cupboard by the stairs. He was impeded in this by Mum, who followed him like a terrier and got completely in the way as she tried to peer inside.
“It’s a cupboard, Mum,” I said, from beneath the palm that had adhered itself to my face. “You’ve seen cupboards before.”
“But it’s so clever. And well designed. He’s got all his keys hanging up inside as well. Are they on corks so they float if you drop them into the water?” Mum had apparently taken the opening of one cupboard as an invitation to open any and all cupboards she fancied. “Ooh,” she added, having discovered what appeared to be the electrics for the boat opposite Leo’s coat space. And then, prying up the stairs themselves, “Look at this. You can store things here too. Did you come up with that, Leo?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Probably not, no. I think it’s just a thing.”
“And you’ve got a fridge,” she declared, diving into his kitchen cabinets.
I made afor fuck’s sakegesture, as if Leo’s living arrangements were any more familiar to me than they were to her. “Of course he’s got a fridge. Why would he not have a fridge?”
Leo, still in abashed schoolboy mode, shuffled his feet. “It’s just a little twelve-volter.”
“And you have enough power to run it?”
“There’s light as well,” I muttered. “And hot water. Imagine.” Apparently I too was regressing to my own brand of adolescence. Though why I was getting territorial over a boat I’d previously shown no interest in, I couldn’t have told you.
“I’ve got solar panels”—Leo was still shuffling—“and the battery when I’m cruising. And a generator for emergencies, but I don’t use it a lot.”
“Mum…”
She had started fiddling with Leo’s teacups so they hung evenly on their pegs.
“Mama…”
