Besides, I’m almost one hundred per cent certain he hasn’t forgiven himself yet either.
And that’s kind of a big fucking cloud to be hanging over any relationship.
“Are those two going to be okay up there?” Mathias says, as he boots up his laptop. “You know, being teenagers and all. Like sure, he hit on me, but she’s . . . safe with him, right?” Honestly, Mathias makes it impossible not to have a crush on him.
He’s sitting on a hard wooden dining chair and I’m in the much more padded, low-backed leather office chair. The room is lit only by two lamps. One of them is mine, and the other Mathias must’ve brought with him. It gives the space a warm orange glow. It feels quiet and cosy with the illumination bouncing off the black glass. Beyond the window, it’s impossible to discern anything. There are no street lights at the back of the house, and what little moonlight has filtered through the clouds is blocked out by the willow tree. The room is south facing, and in the summer it’s the best and coolest place to be.
Molly and Daisy’s room sits above this one. I glance upwards.
“As far as I know.” My voice is almost a whisper, even though the floors and ceilings here are so thick they’re practically soundproof. “I trust them. Him. Orlando’s gay. Daisy too. He’s a nice boy, ordinarily. You know, when he’s not throwing up everywhere or calling you Daddy.” Mathias snorts with laughter. “His dad and stepmum own the big Georgian manor on the hill, Hooke House, so Lando can act . . . a little spoiled at times, but . . . he’s a good friend to Daze. I don’t think he’d ever try anything.
“They’ve been best friends since nursery. We always laughed about how one day they’d get married, and now Daze’s insisting they’re going to have a lavender marriage so they never have to bother with romance, because in her words ‘what a fucking faff romance is.’”
He laughs. “She’s not exactly wrong there.”
Ain’t that the truth?
“So, for this music round. What kind of theme are we thinking? A genre, an era, Eurovision? Something like that? Ooh!” He jumps in his seat, startling me. “I’ve got a great idea. What about Glastonbury headliners? You could play a clip from a song and they all have to guess the artist and the year they performed.”
“Yes, I actually love that. Much better than what I was thinking.”
Mathias smirks, licks his lips, and pinches his smile between his teeth. I can tell he’s pleased as punch with himself and it’s doing absolutely nothing to dispel this crush.
“I usually do eight rounds, ten questions per round, so I guess there’ll be twenty points up for grabs here. Once every three months, I do a mega quiz where I have twelve rounds. It gets very competitive.”
“I do love a pub quiz,” Mathias says, which feels at odds with everything I’ve learned about him and his antisocialness. “What other rounds do you do on an ordinary quiz night? Like an average Thursday.”
I begin listing them off on my fingers. “There’s music, but it’s always been questions before. Be nice to involve another sense, I guess. There’s history, TV and film, science and nature, pop culture—”
He raises a scepticalbrow at me.
“I’m forty-five, not eighty-five. I know pop culture. I know all about Chappel . . . Rowan? Ronan?” He snorts. “And . . . that guy who’s a bit like Tom Selleck but my age.”
Mathias raises his other eyebrow, cocks his head to the side.
I want to tell him this guy is hot, because I know he’d know who it is right away, but I hesitate. For so long the world of rugby has been painfully heteronormative, and though I’ve never hidden my sexuality and nobody outside of internet trolls and certain trash tabloid newspapers has ever said anything negative, I still find myself filtering my words.
“Everyone is obsessed with him, even Daisy. There’s a picture of him that she taped up behind the bar. He’s at some kind of red carpet event wearing a red coat and shorts and boots.”
“Ohh, Pedro Pascal?”
“Yes, that’s him. Knew it began with a P.”
Mathias glances upwards to nowhere in particular. “Yeah, he’s hot.”
My elbow slips from the table. Not because I’m finding out Mathias is attracted to men, I already knew that part, but because he’s very open about it. Maybe the locker room bants have changed in my time away from it all. Maybe homophobic jokes aren’t the standard any more. I’ve been out of it for so long, how would I know?
“You’re right, he does give Tom Selleck vibes,” Mathias says, ignoring my little moment of surprise.
“Okay, fine, I lied. Daisy writes the pop culture round for me every week. I know nothing about famous people post twenty twelve. Literally, my ability to learn new celebrity names died overnight. I think it must’ve been the Olympics that did it. My brain was overrun with new names and it was all ‘sorry, no room at the inn.’ But sometimes, when she goes out on the piss with her best mate and gets too drunk to function, I have to write them myself.”
“You need some help with that too? I’m not the best when it comes to celebrity gossip, but I at least know who Pedro Pascal is.”
I slap his bicep with the back of my hand. I’ve done it before I even realise. Mathias’s eyes track to the place of contact, but he says nothing.
“So, anyway,” I say, willing the heat rising in my body to stop at my neck and leave my face untouched. “The other rounds are sport—obviously—food and drink, geography, general knowledge, and a picture round, of course. This week the picture round is identifying different piers in the UK and the towns they reside in.”
“That sounds fun, actually.” Mathias pulls the laptop closer to himself and opens a program I don’t recognise. His laptop is silent except for the clicking of his fingers on the keyboard as he types in a password. It’s not the retired jet engine climbing Everest noises I’m used to hearing from my computer.
