Boys in Season (Boys In... Book 2) (4 page)

“Have another drink,” he said, gently. “This could be a long night.”

“No way. I had a few drinks at Quiz Night, and look what happened there.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” he interrupted. “I behaved really badly. You were pissed off with me.”

“Don’t tell me what I was or wasn’t,” I snapped.

Greg grinned, which I thought was an incomprehensible response, but it was difficult to get aggrieved when you were squashed beside a pile of Snowman Pop-a-Pens packaging, and had an Egyptian mummy’s papier-mâché hand jabbing you in the ribs.

“You always were a stroppy drunk, at least for the first few.” he said. “Pass me another bottle, will you?”

***

The bulb in the room had gradually sputtered to a bare glimmer. It was taking Elvira Warren’s energy-saving initiatives to a ridiculous length, but it wasn’t as if I was in any position to complain.

My only worry about drinking so much was in case I got caught short like Tommy had. Greg had found a lidded bucket at the back of the room, but when he produced it with a flourish—
just in case
, he said, with a grimace—I started laughing and couldn’t seem to stop. It was something about seeing him scrambling on his knees around the barrel, his hair tousled, his expensive clothes creased and dusty. Or maybe it was the wine. By the time he reached me, a rueful smile on his face, I was the one ready to pass the bottle. Another bottle. Whatever.

“How long do you think before they come to find us?”

I shrugged, and another box shifted behind me. The glazed eyes of stuffed toys glinted at me from beneath the half-open lid, and a fairy wand fell into my lap. I lifted it off quickly, but it still left glitter all over me. “Isn’t Emma expecting you back home?”

“No. I said I was going back to my flat tonight, I needed a good night’s sleep in my own bed before—”

“—the onslaught tomorrow.” I nodded. “Me, too. We’ll be fit for nothing now. And the children need as much help as we can give.”

“Andy, do you hate me?”

His expression was odd. I laughed, but not as easily as before. “You sound like one of the kids.”

“Perhaps that’s what it takes.”

“Sorry?”

Greg knelt up beside me. He’d given up brushing dust off his trousers, or trying to keep things in order around us. He’d spilled some wine down his shirt, and a small crumb of mince pie pastry on his chin glinted white in the reflection off a Roman shield. “With you, it was always difficult to compete with the job. The kids always came first. That was tough for me, you know? You missed nights out, rarely stayed over at my place, didn’t always answer your phone…”

“Greg, it’s my job, and I want to do it well. It’s never been a nine to five one.”

“Of course, I know that.” He was nodding but he looked unhappy.

“And that’s no excuse—”

“No,” he said quickly. “No excuse for dumping you. If I’d been honest with myself, it wasn’t really a problem. I was happy with you. With
us
. Stupidly so. I should have given it my whole effort.”

All I did was shrug again.

“Shit.” His eyes darkened further, obvious even in the half-light. “If you only knew how much I want you.”

Warmth flooded me inside and I smiled. Couldn’t help it. “God knows why. The day we met I nearly knocked you over.”

“Yeah. Not a good idea for a grown man to try out a Bouncy Castle, even to rescue a lost kid from kindergarten. Did you ever find your other shoe?”

“No. And when they banned me from clearing away the music system because of that strange feedback problem…”

“That was when we decided to cut our losses and go back to your flat. I especially remember
that
.” Greg’s voice gentled.

I remembered, too. There was a small silence between us.

“You see,” I said slowly. “I believed you at the Quiz Night. Oh yes, I argued with you! I didn’t want it to end. But in some ways…” My voice dropped. “I was already resigned to the fact it
was
just casual fun, that it’d all come to an abrupt end, at any time. I couldn’t imagine any other conclusion. I’m not really in your class, Greg. You’re a high-flier, I’m a local primary school teacher. To say nothing of the fact I’m such a klutz.”

“Klutz? What kind of word is that?”

I laughed, a bit sadly. “The Sophies said it, when I bumped into the edge of the stall this morning for the third time. It sounded appropriate.”

Greg laughed too, but not as long as I did. “I never saw you as a klutz, Andy. Easily distracted, sure. But for all the right reasons, because you concentrate on everything but yourself.” He shifted nearer and I didn’t push him away. “You’re just as good as me, if not better. You’re genuine, unpretentious. Witty. Easy-going. Devoted to your job.” He leaned over and breathed close to my cheek. “Bloody hot.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “You said that when you caught me falling off the Bouncy Castle.”

“Andy? I need to know if there’s any hope.” Greg looked pained. “I’ll grovel, if that’s what it takes.”

I was going to laugh scornfully, but what actually came out of my mouth was, “You always looked good on your knees.”

Silence again, a little shocked.

“No,” I said, swiftly, before either of us got mixed messages, but Greg just grinned.

“More wine?” he said, eyes sparkling.

***

I had no idea what time it was any more. The skylight was a slab of black above our heads, and there was no clock or watch to consult. There were no clues from outside the room, either: we never heard a sound except very distant traffic.

“I could climb up to the skylight,” I said, and hiccupped. “Wriggle out on to the roof.”

“Like Mission Impossible?” Greg sniggered. He sounded like an older version of Tommy. Maybe I’d give
him
the job of untangling the spaghetti as punishment. I sniggered as well and leaned my head on his shoulder. We were sitting hip to hip against the wall. I nudged an empty bottle out of the way with my socked foot and it clinked against some others. Quite a few.

“It wasn’t enough, Andy.”

“What?” Though I was no longer startled by a non sequitur from either of us.

“You said you understood why I dumped you. That we’d had fun and that was enough. But it’s not enough. Never was. I wanted much more. For us both.”

I felt uncomfortable for more reasons than the fact I was sitting on a plastic Barbie rain-cape. “Still dumped me.”

“Shit, yes. Stupid bastard.” It was his turn to hiccup. “I mean me, not you. Scared you didn’t feel the same, that I’d make a fool of myself. Scared and bloody stupid. I’ve thought a lot about it, ever since.”

“About being a stupid bastard?”

With a nervous laugh, he punched me on the shoulder. Difficult to judge strength in the dark, I guessed, as I surreptitiously rubbed away the oncoming bruise.

“I meant it, Andy. I’d… like to try again. You and me.”

His face was close to mine and a little out of focus. I could see drops of wine on his lips. I wondered how different it’d taste from his mouth rather than my chewed polystyrene cup. “Things have changed, Greg.”

“You’re seeing someone else?”

I opened my mouth to say yes, as a matter of pride. “No,” I said. “Of course not. I don’t want to.”

He sucked in a breath. “Oh, Andy.”

I shrugged and swallowed another hiccup. “I just don’t know if I…”

“Yes, you do.” His voice was stronger, more determined. “The way it goes, you either want to kick me or kiss me. So put me out of my misery, and tell me which it is. It’s your decision. I’ll be fine with either.” He winced. “No, fuck, I’m lying. But anyway. It’s in your hands. If you want, I can get lost after the Fair tomorrow, and change my Facebook profile to ‘was in a relationship and fucked it up but the bloody man won’t give me another chance’.”

I stared at him. “I never saw a status like that in my life.”

He started laughing, much too loudly, and I laughed, too. God, that wine was unusually strong. Actually, it must have been spiked with something, because when he leaned in farther against me, I made no attempt to pull away. And, as I’d suspected, it tasted really good on his lips as I let him kiss me.

Well, I kissed him back as well. With plenty of tongue. Fabulous taste, hot and male and hungry and half-angry.
Oh
, but I’d missed him! When I pulled him down on top of me, I somehow managed to dislodge a pile of glow sticks above our heads.

“Klutz,” Greg murmured, but his tone was fond. One of them caught on his ear and snapped open, releasing its ring of unearthly glow. Just before he brushed it off, I thought how it looked like a halo. Was that how I saw him? Sexy and handsome, bright like the best kind of angel. But disturbing my life, too. Demanding and selfish, sometimes, and judging from the fun we used to have in bed… oh yes, more like a devil.

I sniggered again. And kissed him again. He slid his hand under my shirt and played with my nipple. Amazing how hard your dick can get, even after all that wine. How hard
mine
got. When Greg rolled against me, I could tell he was hard too. He’d always been really good in bed: I wondered what he was like in a Parents’ Association room, with shavings in his hair and a witch’s wig twisted around his ankle. Just as good, I expected. I don’t think either of us knew what the other one was laughing about.

It wasn’t easy to make out in that confined space but we kicked the rubbish out of our immediate way without a break from the kissing, and when he grasped me by the hair, I pressed up against him. I didn’t need to adjust, we fit back together as well as we always had. One of his hands gripped the nape of my neck, the other slid around my waist. I groaned into his mouth and rubbed against him, belly to groin. He made a strange strangled noise in the back of his throat that I’d never heard from him before.

“You okay?”

He nodded fiercely, I felt his hands tighten on me. He seemed to find it difficult to speak, and his hips were jerking boldly against me. Our cocks rubbed together through our clothes, my hands clutched him so tightly I thought we’d meld into one body. No one had ever made my heart race so fast, or made me grab so desperately, or made me so excited that I…

“No,” he moaned. “Not… oh… Andy, I…
fuck
.”

I’d have paid more attention to him if I’d been able to catch my breath, or focus properly, as my head swam and my hips shuddered against his. He grunted, my name a whisper on his breath, and his teeth tightened on the junction of my neck and throat. Then I came, totally embarrassingly and totally fantastically, in my briefs.

***

All I can say is, thank goodness there was a supply of baby wipes on a top shelf. With matching shamefaced grins, we cleared up as best we could, then lay back down on the floor, clasped together in the shade of the barrel. A smile was still stuck on my face, as if Tommy had dropped it in the glue as well as the scissors, and I tried to stretch my legs to get more comfortable. “Ouch. Stiff.” That prompted another juvenile snigger from Greg, and I laughed in reply. “Give a man some time to recover, will you?”

Greg tensed up. “Look. Andy. That was great, but… no obligation, okay?” His voice was slurred: the words were garbled, and
obligation
didn’t sound quite right. It made me smile even more. Thank goodness for mulled wine, too. I hadn’t felt so relaxed for weeks.

“Not looking to move in or anything,” he continued. “Can wait until you have time for me. Realise you have to be able to trust me again, right?”

“Right,” I said. The small bead of sweat at the base of his throat shimmered in the remains of the light. I licked my lips. “No obligations?”

“Hell, no.”

“Not even after we just…?”

He smirked. “Regrets?”

“Hell, no.” I smirked back.

“So. Please. Give me another chance. She said I was stupid to let you go, and she was bloody right.”

“Emma?”

“Fuck, no! Uh. Sorry.” He grimaced. “Little Amy, I mean. Kid’s got twenty years on her passport age.
Uncle Greg
, she says, sounding just like her mother. Hell, like
my
mother.
Aren’t you and Mr Jackson boyfriends any more
? What am I meant to say to that, eh? Andy? What am I meant to—?”

I put my hands on either side of his face and kissed him. To shut him up. Or
whatever,
as 2C would say. When I pulled back, he was panting, looking dazed. I gazed at him for a long while. His features were model handsome, but I knew he put on weight too easily if he didn’t watch his diet. He dressed immaculately on the outside but wore novelty superhero briefs he pretended Emma and Amy had bought. He bickered about the correct percentage tip when we split a restaurant bill, but he’d saved my dad a fortune with free investment advice.

And he’d dumped me.

But who was I kidding? He was the one I wanted. Always had been. He was smart, determined, funny, sexy and… he was man enough to say sorry. He’d wimped out for a while, but he wanted another chance. He played the assertive businessman, trying to take charge, whatever we did together, but he was the usual messy mix inside we all were.