“I always knew you had a soft spot for him.”
“And he lied, cheated, and stole from you. He didn’t deserve you.”
“I know.” Stefan sniffs wetly. “You’re right. But I didn’t think he’d take quite so much pleasure in telling me he’s been fucking Nathan the intern from accounts for the last six weeks.”
When I hand over the paper bag with the greasy pasty inside, still warm, he bursts into tears. Once more, I’m swept up in his arms as he comprehensively soaks my shoulder. “But I still fucking love the fucker.”
“I know.”
“He was horrible,” he sniffles. “Horrible.”
“He was. Totally.”
“I’ll never find anyone like him.”
“Agreed, it will be hard to top that level of toxic excellence.” I pass him another tissue after he destroys the first. “You’ll find someone better,” I promise.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And so it goes on until, at last, my belly rumbling is too loud to ignore.
“We’d better eat this before it gets cold,” Stefan snivels. “Thank you for bringing it. It’s my favourite.”
As if I don’t know my own best mate.
“Half each,” I warn though, before he gets any ideas. I kick off my shoes. “You cut, I’ll choose.”
We slob out on the sofa for a while, stuffing our faces with flaky pastry and carbs and sharing a bottle of Asda’s own brand Prosecco, the only scrap of alcohol snobby Marcus left behind. Wherever he’s hiding, hopefully in a sewer, he’s missing out: with a splash of cherry Coke to counter the bitterness, it’s the drink of kings. Because I’m feeling sorry for him, I let Stefan have the newer handset as we settle in for a round of COD.
I’ve missed this, I note, after a quarter hour spent mindlessly shooting down enemy targets. But not nearly as much as I anticipated. When I first moved out to Sutton Common, saying goodbye to Stefan, the squashy sofa, and his PS5 felt akin to having a limb amputated. Now, if I never grasped this plastic controller again, my world wouldn’t feel any smaller. And Gerald’s sofa is way comfier.
I haven’t missed Marcus’s moods, that’s for sure, nor Stefan’s weak, gaslit responses to them. Nor the five a.m. hiss of air brakes as the Tesco delivery driver uses Stefan’s quiet road as a cut through to drop off its morning supplies to the Tesco Express around the corner. Now I come to think of it, I don’t miss the neighbour’s shite music, Stefan’s even more shite music, and tripping over Marcus’s padel racquet, either.
So, apart from checking in with my oldest mate each morning, which we still do through the medium of FaceTime anyway, what have I been missing?
A blank space occupies the spot in my mind where a long list should be. Picking flaky pastry from my sweater, I absorb the familiar room. A different version of me lived here. The oblivious young man, hell bent on living in the moment, every moment.The one who danced and screwed and crawled home wrecked in last night’s party clothes but determined to go another round in a few hours. The version of me who believed those golden, feckless days of youth would stretch into always. That for as long as I had a PlayStation, Pringles, and Stefan—a living, breathing reminder of a problem-free youth—desperately zapping CGI soldiers alongside me, everything would stay the same.
Latterly, however, I’ll guiltily admit that I’ve hardly thought about him, our shared history, or any of this at all. I’m not here this evening for a stroll through the past nor with a desire to relive it. I’ve pitched up for the ugly crying, the bad Prosecco, and high-calorie comfort. I’ll always be here for those.
“Marcus was a walking red flag,” Stefan observes sadly.
“I know, sweetie. I believe I may have pointed that out, once or twice.”
“I didn’t listen.”
“I know.”
“The sex was good, though.” His maudlin, Prosecco-pissed gaze scans the room as if searching for reminders. I hope I’m not fucking sitting on any. “We blew the roof off this place. I’m going to miss that the most. His dick was like,” Stefan demonstrates a dick shape with his hands, just in case I haven’t felt the shape of my own in the last few minutes, “and he had this little ridge and this really sensitive bit, you know? Just under here.” Stefan lets out a sniff, wet and rattly, as if he’s slurping soup through a straw. It’s the sort of sniff only a best mate will tolerate. “And now he’s feeding that to some fucking twenty-year-old student snack who isn’t going to appreciate it. Whereas I fucking worshipped it.”
He bursts into tears. “I love him,” he wails.
“I know,” I soothe.
“Even though he tore the corner off my One Direction poster signed by Zayn. I queued for nine hours in the rain outsideWembley Stadium for that. Marcus ripped it on purpose, and I still love him.”
“Love works in mysterious ways.” I sneak a peek at the time, not that I’ll leave until Stefan gets it all off his chest. Gerald will be home from work about now. It’s bin day– he’ll be wheeling out Mrs Gregson’s recycling alongside his own.
