“South London,” Luke corrects. “It’s an up-and-coming area. It has well connected transport links, good schools, and green spaces. I considered it when I bought my place. Sutton Common’s really attractive for families.”
“I’ll be sure to bring my four kids with me, then.” What the fuck do I need with green spaces? Does he think I’m going to take up cricket? “I bet Gerald mines cryptocurrency.”
Panic seeps in, my inevitable fate staring me in the face. “Which means he’ll also watch anime and play epic zillion-hour games of Dungeons and Dragons. He’s called freaking Gerald, Luke! He’ll use a travel mug and have one of those plastic banana cases in his work lunch box shaped like a frigging yellow dildo! He’ll know stuff about pensions and tax codes!”
Okay, so I might be hyperventilating. It’s unnecessary. No red flags. Except for the Sutton Common thing. Who wants to live in bloody Sutton Common? It doesn’t even have a Tube line.
“It’s hardly fair to hold his name against him.” Luke isn’t unreasonable. “And isn’t it about time you got to grips with fiscal prudence? You’ve been working for seven years.”
“Didn’t Fiscal Prudence winDrag Racelast season?”
I’m testing the limits of Luke’s patience. “I’ve visited his flat. It’s in a nice, quiet road at the Morden end of Sutton Common.”
“That’s like saying Hell is located on the leafier bank of the river Styx. I’d never even heard of Sutton Common until yesterday.”
One mai-tai isn’t enough. I may need Luke to sub me for another. God, I wish I wasn’t so skint. His warm hand squeezes mine, kindly, even though we both know I’m being an obnoxious dick.
“Listen. The first time I met Gerald, I wasn’t too keen. But I had a lot going on. Like not wanting to be alive, for instance. And honestly, Gerald really is okay once you get to know him. For all his…rigid routines and quirks, he’s solid. The kind of guy who would turn up if ever you needed him. He’s just a bit odd at first, while he’s getting the measure of you.”
“How odd? And for how long? I’m an impatient bugger.”
Luke laughs. “He’s quiet, that’s all, and a bit… he likes things a particular way. But, if it wasn’t for Ezra, I think Isaac and him might have made a go of things.”
Isaac is our mate, shacked up with his sexy as hell brother-boyfriend, Ezra. He’s about as far from my mental image of Gerald as a man can be.
“How is the hot goth?” I crunch an ice cube. “Maybe Ezra might be getting bored of Isaac and his gazillions, and needs a third to spice up their love life, I could always?—“
Luke’s mouth twists into a smile. “Stop changing the subject. Gerald’s only asking five hundred and fifty quid a month. Bills included.”
Five hundred and fifty quid. Even less than what I’m currently coughing up. I repeat the amount in my head, my hyperactive mind already conjuring a virtual spreadsheet and calculating the savings. Halfway across the city, mind, and in the wrong corner of it. But if I can suck up to Gerald and his Nietzsche and his bowties for a year, I’ll pay off a sizeable chunk of my student loan. I’ll be healthier too, what with the sudden death of my social life, which would easily offset the extra travel costs. I could listen to some surgical podcasts on the endless train journey into town, use the time wisely. I could even educate myself about pensions and tax codes. Become part of the sensible, mature grownup brigade, like Stefan and Marcus, Luke, Ezra, and Isaac.
Who knows? I may even start sleeping properly and transform into less of a perpetually wired pain in the arse.
Luke’s soft eyes meet mine. “I’ll tell Gerald to expect you bright and early on Saturday morning, shall I?”
Two mai-tai’s don’t touch the sides after that monumental decision. I need to dance, drink a ton more, and get laid. It might be my last opportunity for a while if I’m moving out to bleeding Sutton Common.
Luke and I head over to Earth Bar, a club-cum-live music venue. Not a queer spot per se, but it draws us in. Ezra and his mate, Neil—the lead singer of the resident house band—recently took over the lease. Both gay as maypoles and hot as fuck. Isaac and his brother-boyfriend are already here with Neil, who gives me his customary greeting: a careless, open-mouthed kiss.
“Who’s he?” Luke sounds worried he’ll be next. The way Neil’s eyeing him up, he might well be.
“Old friend,” I explain. “And occasional partner in mildly regrettable late-night decisions.”
“Only occasional?”
“Yeah. Steer well clear. He’s a catastrofuck on legs.”
Neil’s broken. He’s not a cold man, nor a cruel one, but whatever he’s searching for, to satisfy whatever drives him, he’s not even close to finding. Plenty have tried to fix him over the years; no way will I volunteer for the construction crew. “Stay away; he’s already spotted you as a new face.”
An hour in and I hit the dance floor. Contently tipsy, Luke watches from the side lines. Ezra and Isaac dance together, half lit under the lights. They move as one, Ezra’s hand knows the shape of Isaac’s waist without having to look. As Isaac’s laugh folds into Ezra’s shoulder, something twists inside me. Grown upandhaving fun. Is that even possible?
Neil, for whom employees are a continual source of fresh meat, flirts with a new barman. Which leaves me shimmying alone like no one’s watching. Depressingly close to the truth, seeing as every guy in here’s coupled up with either another bloke or a fit woman. More fucking grown-ups.
Weaving my body to the beat like I just don’t care is the only way forward—the alternative is drinking to oblivion. As the music wraps around me, I close my eyes, letting the sinuous beat fill up my empty, lonely, tragic spaces. Obviously, my eyes flicker open every now and again to scan the room, in case someone wants to step in and fill me up with something a little more substantial. Except they’re not exactly queuing up.
Sometime later, the barman goes off shift. Not long after that, Neil’s lithe, sensual body appears alongside me. Within a few minutes, he’s slithering up behind me and then sexily sashaying in front of me. No doubt later on, he’ll find his slinky way inside me. I’m like a stuck record, I reflect, as the tempo lowers and his hands worm their way onto my hips. No matter how hard I try to lift the needle, it always drops back down onto the same worn fucking groove.
Ezra and Isaac slip away. Home, no doubt, for rampant sex and a night in each other’s arms. I pretend not to see them go. Settling down is for dullards – they’re the exception not the rule. As far as I’ve observed, growing up is mostly about organic food box deliveries and getting to grips with interest rates. One day, maybe, I could learn how to do those thingsandstill drink mai-tais in the middle of the afternoonandstill wage a subversive war against bullshitty diktats in the NHS. I’ll become a better version of me, that’s all. One that still performs the moves to “Kungfu Fighting” while balanced on hot men’s shoulders at foam parties, but now also comes armed with healthier night shift snacks and a comprehension of the gazillion settings on the washing machine.
