Boys in Season (Boys In... Book 2) (3 page)

Now I straightened up with a groan and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I’d already taken off my shirt in order to cool down, and I was in the thin T-shirt I’d worn underneath. Greg watched me as I wriggled to get comfy in the small gap between the barrel and the wall. He was strangely still as his gaze ran over my damp hair and creased T-shirt. He didn’t look cool at all.

There wasn’t a lot of space to manoeuvre. The room was larger than a cupboard, but smaller than a classroom. It was really only used for storage: behind me was a pile of boxes full of anything from drama group costumes to musical instruments to giant chess sets. There were a couple of crates of mulled wine in a corner, and a teetering stack of budget-priced mince pies, all ready for tomorrow’s refreshments.

I glanced up at the half-open skylight, but all I could see outside was darkness. The room was quiet apart from our breathing, and the light from the single, rather dusty, light bulb seemed to be getting dimmer by the minute. “What time is it?” I realised I’d left my watch at home today, just like I’d let my phone battery run down. My only defence was that the Christmas Fair event was very stressful, and I’d had a lot of other things on my mind.

“It must be near midnight.” Greg didn’t seem to have a watch either. “Everyone went home ages ago.”

How had it got so late without me noticing? I’d been totally concentrated on saving the Lucky Dip, shuffling around this small room, digging through the barrel, trying not to break or crush anything else, squeezing past Greg every couple of minutes, coughing from the dust, laughing when we trod on each other’s feet…

Dammit. Elvira had been right. We did work well together.
Dammit
. I looked down at the thin layer of wood shavings at my feet. “Is that the last of it?”

“I wouldn’t have believed a kiddy’s pee could reach to such devastating depths. We must have sifted through almost all the barrel until we reached the dry layers. And most of the Pop-Up Hedgehogs didn’t make it.” Greg reviewed the pile of crumpled Lucky Dip gifts that would not be returning to the barrel, his voice almost wistful.

“We should go. Long day tomorrow.” I turned my head. The door to the Parents’ Association room was wedged open a few inches, and I could see back into the hall. The shades were down and the lights were off: all I could see were heaped tables, covered now with dustsheets for the night. I could make out the stepped arrangement of the jam, pickle and cake stall, and the dark bulbous shape of the tombola, ready for the raffle ticket draw. A sliver of moonlight crept in through a gap in the shades and lit up the tinsel on the large Christmas tree that had seen better days. The kids had loved decorating it. I could identify the spikes of toy swords; an occasional glint from royal crowns in dressing-up outfits. Tomorrow there’d be bright lights and cheesy Christmas music piped through the room, and hordes of visitors, determined to buy all the homemade gifts and have fun, despite the room being too hot and noisy, and the children over-excited as they showed their families around. I wondered who’d finished off my stall and whether it was as good as 2C and I had hoped. Judging from my past track record, I had my doubts.

“Andy?” Greg moved a step nearer me, on the other side of the barrel. “Just hold on a minute. Now we’re alone, I want to explain about Quiz Night.”

“Please,” I said, wearily. “I apologised to the School Governors. I bought your sister a new sweater. To be honest, I was under some pressure that night.”

Greg flushed. “Not you, you idiot. I want to explain about
me
.”

“You?” The room seemed even smaller right now. “All I remember about you, is you finishing with me.”

***

Into the sudden, shocked silence, Greg gave a small groan. “That’s what I want to talk about.”

I stared at him. He’d got much closer, but I was only a few steps from the door. I should make a run for it. I didn’t think my emotions—let alone my pride—were up for a repeat performance of
it’s been really great, but it was only ever a casual thing, wasn’t it?

Obviously it had been for him.

“And I’d rather
not
talk about it,” I said. My voice sounded pretty steady, considering. “Let’s move on with fond memories of the last few months, you said, and I think that’s a damned good idea.”

“You do?”

Of course I bloody didn’t, but I wasn’t going to make even more of a fool of myself. We
had
had a good time. We met at the summer Jamboree, where he introduced himself with his sister Emma, a parent at the school. He was in Business Development for an investment bank, working from home, so his flexible hours meant he could help her out, Emma being a single mum with shift work to juggle. The minute I saw him, I liked him. That feeling just kept growing. He said later he felt the same way, but he didn’t want to make a move that day until he knew I was off duty: as it was, we spent the afternoon at each other’s side, and went out to dinner afterwards. He stayed over, too. We were, as Elvira had so ironically said, a good couple. For many months, we enjoyed the same movies, shared our favourite restaurants, got sweaty together in bed—very satisfactorily—and laughed a hell of a lot.

Then Greg also attended the infamous Quiz Night. Where he dumped me, apparently because he wasn’t really looking for a “serious” relationship, and all I could do was gape like a shocked goldfish. We were taking a break between the Sports and Natural Science rounds. I probably shouldn’t have offered to get the hot drinks for the table, distracted as I was by Greg’s bombshell. I struggled with the tap on the urn in my usual clumsy way and spilled almost-scalding water under three nearby tables and over the coats and sweaters of half a dozen parents, including Emma. And—what was worse, according to my team mates—got us disqualified just before they were due to score in Popular Music.

The Tea Urn Incident—as they embarrassingly typed it up in the school newsletter—relegated the small matter of my heartbreak into second place. I hadn’t seen Greg since that night, hadn’t wanted to. Six weeks and three days. Hell, I’d known this working-together thing would be torture.

“Andy? I’m really sorry. I was wrong.” he said. He looked very disturbed. He’d also sidled around the barrel, getting closer.

“You didn’t think so at the time.” I took a step back. I caught my heel on something that wobbled behind me.

“But it’s different now…”

“No,” I said.

It all happened too quickly, but then, that’d become my personal mantra. Greg reached for me and I jerked away, determined not to give in to that warmth and desire any more if my feelings weren’t returned. The barrel caught my shins and I flung out a hand to steady myself. The wobbling behind me turned into a full topple of at least four boxes, and set up a domino effect from the shelves. Greg yelped as a tennis racquet hit him in the ear, and I stumbled back to avoid a spillage of gym mats. I fell against the junction of the wall and the door, my foot dislodged something that slid across the floor with a loud, metallic screech, and I went down on to my arse.

The door slammed shut in front of me. The overhead bulb buzzed, and the light dimmed.

“Andy, are you okay?” Greg crouched down beside me. “Let’s get out of here.”

“No,” I said again.

“Don’t be like that—”

“No, as in we can’t get out,” I said. I was wheezing from the dislodged dust. “There’s no handle on the inside of the door.”

He stared at me. Glanced over at the closed door then back to me. “You’re joking.”

I started to laugh but it sounded borderline hysterical. “I wish. It fell off yesterday and the caretaker’s meant to have fixed it by now. He’s just been busy elsewhere.”

“But what about the kids? They could get…”

“Trapped, yes.” My voice was sharp. “Obviously we’ve been very careful while the children are in the building, but we needed access to the room for the Fair. The door’s been wedged open in the meantime.”

“Been…?”

I’d kicked the metal block out of place when I fell. It now lay against the bottom of the barrel, heavy and redundant. We both stared at it in disbelief.

Greg bit his lip and let himself down on to the floor beside me. “Can’t you call the caretaker to come and let us out?”

I remembered my phone with no charge, and shook my head. “Can’t you call Emma?”

He flushed. “My phone’s in my jacket, I took it off earlier. It’s probably still behind the stall.”

We sat there silently. Business as usual for me: crisis and disaster. I leaned my head back against the wall and sighed.

“We just need to keep calm,” Greg said. “I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

I glanced around the room. We were sitting side by side on a floor covered with wood shavings, surrounded by spilled boxes of sports equipment, homemade costumes and strings of Mardi Gras beads, under a fading light, with no prospect of anyone passing in the hall until the early hours of tomorrow. I wondered exactly what he’d think of, that could be any consolation.

“What is there to drink around here?” he asked.

***

I hadn’t realised how palatable mulled wine could be, even cold, and drunk from a polystyrene cup. The mince pies weren’t bad, either, though I was getting pretty sick of the taste after my first eight.

“So, how’ve you been?”

I turned to stare at Greg. “Fine, thanks.” I mean, that was what people always said, even if they were limping into the doctor’s surgery with a limb hanging by a thread, wasn’t it?

“Okay, no need for that tone.” He frowned and took another gulp from his own cup. Then reached over for the bottle and filled both our cups again. Maybe it was the second bottle. Or third. We were drinking very freely. “At least you’re a captive audience now.”

“What?”

He shifted on the floor: his foot had probably gone to sleep like mine already had. “I really messed up, Andy.”

“The Lucky Dip? We’ll get it back up for tomorrow.”

“I mean with us.” His face looked very red, even in the dim light. “For God’s sake, are you being deliberately difficult?”

“I don’t have good reason?” I snapped back.

“You won’t give me a fucking chance—”

“And watch your language.” It was an instinctive response, but one I usually reserved for the children.

Greg groaned. “So when the hell do you get off?”

“Me?”

He stared at me and suddenly grinned. His anger bled away, as easily as the Lucky Dip filling had trickled through our fingers. “You should see your face. I meant off duty, so I can talk to you, explain some things. Swear, without worrying that one of the kids will report me to Warren.”

I remembered that smile: the way he didn’t stay angry for long, encouraged me to have fun, showed me the things in life I’d put on a back burner for a long time—or been afraid to try. With Greg, my dread of disaster had never seemed as overwhelming. I’d had more fun—and more pleasure—than I’d ever had with anyone. I smiled back. For that moment we were in accord.

Maybe Greg saw his opportunity, because he rushed on. “I shouldn’t have broken up with you, Andy. I lost sight of things for a while. I didn’t realise what we had. What
I
had.” His face twisted. “You were right.”

I took a gulp of my drink. “I was angry.”
Hurt
. “It was a bad night.”

“You were right,” he repeated, his voice higher. “Told me I was making a mistake.”

Oh God
. It was so cramped in that room, I thought he might actually hear my heartbeat speeding up. “Well, it’s all academic now.”

Greg was inching towards me and his hand brushed my elbow. He didn’t seem to have heard my comment. “You asked what had changed my mind, why we couldn’t work things out. And I didn’t have an answer.”

Go, me. I was ever the voice of reason. Even when every part of me was aching with shock and misery. “No point dwelling on the past. Let’s just be friends, like you said.”

Greg frowned. “I did say that, didn’t I? What a prick. That, and…” He glanced at me and coloured. I was holding my breath for some reason. “I was scared, Andy. I’ve never… it was intense, the way I felt about you. That’s why I couldn’t give you a good reason for breaking up. At least, I realise that now. So I just… ran.”

Intense
? “Look. It’s okay. I understand. You don’t need to apologise.”

“Yes I do.” Greg took my hand. The room suddenly felt much warmer. I wondered if it was more airtight than we thought, if maybe the supply would run out and they’d find us suffocated in the morning, slumped on the floor among empty wine bottles and clasped in each other’s arms.

“It doesn’t matter,” I gabbled, pulling away from him, “because I
do
understand. We had a great time, and that’s good enough. It happens, we’re both grown men, we can move on. I’m sorry if I’ve been…”
What
? Rude? Unhappy? “… awkward. It’s good to work with you again. This Fair’s going to be the best ever.”

He looked angry. And sad, all mixed up together. His hand was at my waist. I didn’t want to wriggle away too obviously, but it was also a comforting touch.