“Maybe you just need to go out and get laid. You know, have a wild night out with Jesse and Jude and wake up in someone else’s bed, then escape out of the window. Break your dry spell. How long has it been?” She went to the fridge and pulled out two protein bars, handing one to me and biting into the other.
“Forever.”
“Seriously, how long has it been? You and your girlfriend split when?”
“When she went to university. She was nineteen.” Amalia had been my girlfriend since we were fifteen. Four years. She’d been my best friend and lived next door to my football coach from my under-fifteen’s team.
“So you haven’t had sex for four years? Jesus, Nicky! Your balls must be bluer than your football shirt!”
I looked at the floor, wondering if it would open up and swallow me, because I knew I was going to tell Kitty something I’m never told anyone.
“It’s been longer than four years. It’s been twenty-three.”
PARTTWO
Kitty
You know that moment when you think air no longer exists, either that or your lungs have stopped working? That was what I was experiencing at this moment.
“I’m sorry, you haven’t had sex for twenty-three years, but you’re – twenty-three.” I mightn’t be able to breathe but I could still speak.
Nicky, my gorgeous, sensitive, clever, talented, probable best friend stared at the floor as if he was wishing to fall through it.
He was embarrassed. Absolutely, gob-smackingly embarrassed and I got why. He was one of England’s best young footballers. He had girls swooning over him, and media attention pretty much wherever he went. He modelled for four different brands and had just been taken on to be the face of a new cologne. Everyone expected him to be dipping his dick in a range of beautiful models or influencers, with a different woman in his bed every weekend, at least.
I stuffed the rest of the protein bar in my mouth so I couldn’t come out with anything stupid until I’d thought for at least three minutes and walked over to him, pulling his very tense body into as big a hug as a little thing like me could manage. Maybe not that little – I was five-six and weighed whatever it was, but Nicky was tall and, yeah. He made me feel little. But when I hugged, I hugged big.
“I’m going to go and lock up and boot Stefan out of here. Then we’ll talk.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes. Make a pot of that green tea. Five minutes.”
It took me less than that to get Stefan out of the door, giving him all of today’s tips as it had just been me and him because the rest of my workforce were either on holiday or sick. The big rush had been when the soccer school closed for the day, but Nicky had helped then, and I knew he wouldn’t be interested in what was in the tip jar. I locked the door and turned the sign round to closed, then went back into the kitchen to see if Nicky had run away out of the back door.
He hadn’t, but he did look incredibly sheepish and wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Let’s have it out here.” I picked up the pot and two mugs, taking them out into the café. I’d dimmed the lights down to make it obvious we were closed, and chose a table at the back for privacy.
Nicky followed me, slumping down at the table.
“People my age aren’t virgins, Kitty. No one knows. Everyone thinks I slept with my ex and I’m just really private about anything else.” He stared at the table.
I settled down, having a feeling this was going to be a long one. “So why haven’t you had a one-night stand or been out on a few dates, and you know, got it out of the way? Or slept with your ex.” Losing my virginity had been a momentary lapse at a party when I was sixteen, with a boy I’d crushed on for about a year. It had been quick, only slightly uncomfortable, and made me realise that it could be quite pleasurable if the person I was doing it with had an inkling of what to actually do. But it had got it out of the way, so when I did go out with my first real proper boyfriend, I didn’t have to have that awkward conversation when I explained I hadn’t had sex before. I was kind of getting where Nicky was coming from now.
I heard him swallow. “Because if I sleep with someone and it’s, well, quick and not very good for her, it’ll be all over a website by the time I’ve taken the condom off.”
He had a very good point.
Losing your virginity while at school and being the hot topic for a couple of days was a lot less angst inducing than being a multi-millionaire football player.
“Why didn’t you sleep with your ex? You were together for years.”
He shrugged. “She said she wasn’t ready.”
“Ouch.”
“We were best friends, and I really did love her. We messed about – there was a lot of oral, but she never wanted to go the whole way. I think she’s in a relationship with a girl now, so I don’t know if it was me, or, well– She’s happy and that’s what matters.” He poured the tea.
