Mum clips me around the ear. “Come on, baby, tell us who has your knickers in a twist?”
“Mum! Gross.” I shake my head and bite my lip. “It’s, erm… Arch.”
“Arch?” Jay screams in an obnoxiously posh voice, “As in Archi-fucking-bald Bartholomew III?” He continues to piss himself while he rolls around on the floor.
“Fucking dick!” I spit as I get up and storm off upstairs. I hear raised voices before I hear heavy footsteps coming up the stairs.
“Hey, man.” Jay shoves his head through the door. “Am I safe to come in?”
I sigh.
“Talk to me?”
“I really like him, Jay. Once he packed in with all the bullshit, he’s really nice. I just… I don’t know. I just like him, okay?”
Jay nods, “I’m sorry, man. I thought after everything, you were winding me up. But if you like him this much, I suppose he can’t be that bad.”
I tell him how it all started with the fighting and then the… everything else.
“Does he make you happy, mate? I just want you to be happy. You know I love you, right?”
“I know. I am. We're just keeping it low-key at the minute while we're away, and then we're gonna make a proper go of it.”
“Like a real fucking relationship?”
“Yeah, Jay. Like a real relationship.”
“Holy shit. You in a motherfucking relationship, who would have thunk it?”
I shake my head. “You’re a dick, ya know.”
“I know, but I’myourdick. Now we’re friends again, can we go back down, as my burger’s getting cold and my beer’s getting warm, and I’m turning gayer by the minute with all these fucking feelings and shit.”
“Fuck off!” I shove him, and he falls off the bed onto the floor. I take off running back outside to eat his burger and drink his beer before he can get down there.
The rest of the weekend is amazing, but I’m worried as I haven’t heard from Arch all weekend, and it’s stressing me out.
Heading back to the hotel, I push into the room, and Arch is already there and unpacked. I frown, looking at him suspiciously. “Did you go home?”
“Yeah.” He nods but doesn’t get off the bed. I throw my bag down and crawl up his body.
“I missed you.”
“Sure.” He tight-lipped smiles at me, and I frown, sliding back to my knees.
“Arch, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m tired, I’m just gonna go to bed. Could you keep the noise down, please?”
“Arch, hey, talk to me.”
“They weren’t home, okay?” He tries to shrug me off. “They weren’t even fucking home. I don’t know why I bothered.”
“Hey, why didn’t you answer my calls and messages then? Why didn’t you come home with me?”
“As if your family would want me hanging around when mine clearly doesn’t. And don’t you think they would have thought it weird, me just turning up when we’re not even friends?”
“No, you’re my boyfriend, and I told them all we’re together. It wouldn’t have been weird.”
