People recognised me, because of course they did. I’ve made the local news quite a bit recently, and at six foot five there’s really no way to miss me. Only a couple of kids approached my table to beg for an autograph, and one guy whispered to his party as I walked past, “Cents could do a lot better than this moron.”
The pizza was nice, but I found myself thinking back to Owen’s pub, and the steak pie and chips, and wondering . . . would it be so bad if . . .
No. Stop it, Mathias. Yes, it would be that bad.
9
Wednesday 2nd April
Mathias
Two more days of training pass by, and two more days of pretending I’m not simping over Owen Bosley’s fucking cooking. Takeaway is just not scratching this itch, and I have yet to figure out how the AGA oven in this ancient cottage works.
Tonight I have Indian food for the third time in a week. Chicken jalfrezi, rice, two lots of sag aloo, garlic naan, and a can of Coke. Flick, my new team nutritionist, is going to give herself a pulmonary when she finds out.
I tidy up the kitchen, wash out the takeaway containers, drop them into the recycling bin, and head to bed. I spare one last look atOwen’s pub. It’s gone midnight, and downstairs is quiet, dark, but the lights are on in the flat upstairs. I can’t immediately spot him—perhaps he’s in the bathroom—but there’s an open laptop on the coffee table and papers litter the sofa. I don’t wait for him to come back into the room before I switch off my own light and sink down onto the mattress.
What feels like only moments later, a crashing sound echoes throughout the cottage. It’s coming from outside. I jolt up in bed, and peer out the window into the street below, expecting to see a fox, or a cat, or even a drunken person falling into my bins, but nothing. Everything is quiet. The light’s still on in Owen’s flat. He’s there, hunched over his laptop. The TV looks as though it’s been forgotten about and waits on the“Are you still watching?”screen.
I grab my phone and glance at the time—three fourteen a.m. I blink. My sleep-addled brain can’t make any sense of it, but I have training tomorrow and I can’t afford to spare the minutes to work it out.
I’m just about to sag back down into the bed when I hear the sound again. It’s a weird sound—hollow, echoing—like a gong or metal reverberating or like . . . someone crashing into a cast iron bath tub.
My cast iron bath tub.
Holy shit, they’re inside the house.
I’m out of bed in a second, the covers thrown off me, adrenaline whisking away the last of my sleep haze. Now I’m in pure fight mode.
Someone has broken into my house and is in my bathroom right now. Fuck knows what they think they’ll find in there. I don’t keep any medications around. No painkillers stronger than paracetamol and Deep Heat.
The burglar moans loudly. Wait, why? It’s a guttural, masculine cry, and immediately after, they pour something into the toilet. Whatever it is splashes, thunders like a waterfall. It sounds like liquid being poured from a great height. Sounds like . . .
Fuck’s sake, the burglar is throwing up in my toilet.
I yank the door open—they’ve forgotten to lock it—and raise my fist in case I need to strike out.
The first thing to greet me is the sweet stinking cocktail of booze, stomach acid, and partially digested food. A man whimpers. He’s slumped over the bowl like there are no bones in his body, like he’s made of liquid. He’s wearing all black, and he’s my height, maybe even taller. He’s muscular, a gym bro. His black hair sticks out at every angle, and I falter.
He lifts his head towards the door and swings unfocused black eyes towards me. I drop my fist, because despite his size he’s not so much a man, more like . . . just a kid. The newcomer can’t be any older than twenty, surely. Just a silly drunken kid who has somehow found his way inside my house.
“Oh my fuck,” he says, his dark eyes widening. “You’re Mathias fucking Jones.” And then he leans over the bowl again and another fresh wave of vomit splatters the porcelain.
I’ve never been in this situation before and I haven’t got a clue what to do. On the one hand, a young man has broken into my house and is redecorating my toilet bowl, but on the other, he’s only a kid. Judging by his Ralph Lauren boxers I can see peeking over the waistband of his trousers, and his polished . . . Givenchy—fuck me—Chelsea boots abandoned by the bath tub, this kid isn’t exactly in need of a place to crash. He probably has his own mansion with a plethora of toilets to vom in. So why’s he here?
I haven’t been downstairs yet. Presumably he’s broken a window or kicked in the door and I’d slept through the noise . . .
That doesn’t seem right. I’m a light sleeper. Part of me wants to investigate, figure out the extent of the damage, and another part of me doesn’t want to let him out of my sight. What if he tries to follow me? What if he throws up all down the stairs? Man, I would find this motherfucker’s parents so fast and force the cleaning bill on them.
“How’d you get in?” I ask.
My mystery spewer ignores me. Instead he hugs the bowl tighter.
I prod his knee with my bare foot. “Answer my question. Did you break a window?”
He swivels one eye in my direction, grunts like a darted wild animal whose tranquillisers are beginning to kick in, and then folds onto the bathroom floor,curling around the base of the toilet in a foetal position. Just like that, he’s unconscious. As quickly as snapping my fingers.
I flick my gaze between the screen of my phone and the passed-out puker, not knowing who to call. The police? Do I call the police? How long would it take them to get out here in the middle of the sticks? Would they blue light it? Or would I be expected to wait around for hours before anyone shows up? And what would they even do with him? Probably bundle him into a cell to sleep it off.
