“Yes.”
“Here?” He kissed the round of my butt.
“Yes.”
“All better?”
“Yes.”
“You really have a smashing arse, you know that?” He smacked it, and I rolled over, theatrically kicking a leg high and straight into the air.
“It’s all those years of ballet,” I said, secretly enjoying the sting where his hand had been. Sunny climbed up the rug until his lips met mine. We kissed. His mouth was warm, and his lips tasted of lube and sex.
“We should shower,” I said. Sunny nodded.
There was a knock on the sliding glass door of the summer house.
“Bollocks!” Sunny said, a look of panic on his face. He commando-rolled buck naked along the floor and behind the bed.
“Ludo?” It was Father.
“Just a minute!” I called out, scrambling to throw on some clothes. Fortunately, the curtains were drawn. We were in the middle of a top-secret mission, after all. But considering this was a top-secret mission, we had evidence scattered absolutely everywhere. How were we meant to explain all this shredded paper? Some bizarre kitty litter role play? He knocked again.
“Do you boys want supper?” Father said.
Somewhat dressed, I pulled the curtain around myself, hiding the room from view, and slid the door open a little. I straightened my clothes. I saymyclothes; I was in Sunny’s sweatpants and hoodie, which had been the nearest things to hand. My father rolled his eyes.
“Are you boys hungry? It’s leftover curry, I’m afraid, but then curry is always better a few days later.”
“Actually, Sunny has promised to take me to the chicken shop. But thanks all the same.”
“You’re foregoing my famous beef massaman curry to eat at some cockroach-infested high-street fast-food joint?”
Sunny wasn’t having this culinary delight disrespected. “High-street chicken shops are our cultural heritage,” he called out from behind the bed. “They’re iconic institutions, like seaside penny arcades and Miriam Margolyes, and we must use them or we will lose them.”
Father frowned. “It’s a chicken shop, not the English National Opera,” he muttered. He tried to peer into the room, but I pulled the curtain tightly around me.
“You heard Sunny,” I said. “It’s my patriotic duty as an Englishman to go to the chicken shop.”
“There’s a better class of cockroach this side of the Finchley Road,” Sunny added. “The Hampstead ones wear hairnets.”
Father squinted.
“You’ve got a piece of shredded paper in your hair,” he said, plucking it free. I snatched it from his hand.
“How strange.”
“What are you boys up to in there? You’ve been cooped up in here every night this week.”
I felt my face flush. My heart pounded in my chest.
“I don’t think you actually want an answer to that question, do you?” I said. “If you really think about it.”
Father looked down to see I was wearing Sunny’s sweatpants. He raised his eyebrows and slowly nodded.
“Right you are,” he said, eyeballing me suspiciously one last time. Then he turned on his heel and walked back to the house. “Enjoy the chicken shop.”
It was a lucky escape.
