“I guess. What do you wanna do? We could watch a movie, or we could just chat?” Wow, did I really just tell someone we could . . . chat? Like make idle small talk?
“We could do both?” he suggests, like an absolute lunatic.
I press my lips together and shake my head. “If I put a movie on that I love, and you try to chit-chat to me whilst I’m watching, I’m gonna end up with a murder charge against my name.”
“So, we pick a movie you don’t love?” he says.
It takes me less than five seconds to decide which one, and I’m already entirely won over by the idea. A movie in the background means I don’t have to fill awkward silences with my non-existent conversational contributions. But a terrible or even mediocre movie will mean we can talk over it without the inevitable guilt I’d feel for not paying attention.
Okay, the movie isn’t terrible. It’s not even mediocre. I mean, it’s bad, like famously bad, but I fucking love it.
19
Saturday 12th April 2025
Owen
“Why do you have it on Blu-ray if you hate it?” I ask, as Mathias crouches over his PlayStation or whatever console he’s using to play the movie through. I nestle down on the big sofa, kick my trainers off, and prop my feet up on the coffee table.
It doesn’t surprise me that the man who buys digital copies of all his music is also the guy who still owns DVDs and Blu-rays.
“I don’t hate it. I love it. In fact, it’s a comfort movie. Well . . .” He clears his throat. “You know, one of those movies you put on in the background. Though . . . if anyone asks, it’s not my copy, it’s my sister’s.” Thenhe sits back on the other end of the larger sofa, in the same place I used to favour, and presses play on the console controller.
Immediately, I recognise the opening sequence. The deer being chased through the mossy ancient forest by a faceless person. The cheesy voice-over track. The dramatic music. The fever-dream blue filter.
“Twilight?Twilightis your comfort movie?” I say before Kristen Stewart’s character even appears on the screen.
“How did you guess it from those ten seconds?!”
“Mate, I have a twenty-one-year-old and an eighteen-year-old daughter. This isn’t my first rodeo. We’ve been havingTwilightmarathons every September since, like, twenty twelve, or I dunno, ages ago.” I take a sip of my lager.
“Oh, god. Do you hate it? Should I put something else on?”
“Ehh . . . I don’thateit.” I don’t know if Mathias hears the subtext in my statement, but I don’t want him to change the movie. I like the way his brain works. That he didn’t think to question if I, a forty-five-year-old man, wanted to watch a movie about teenage vampires. And I also like the fact that he’s comfortable enough with me to reveal this “guilty pleasure” information.
“The real question, though,” I say. “Is are you team Jacob or team Edward?”
Mathias covers his smile with the neck of his beer bottle. “Edward,” he says after a while, giving it some thought, which for someone who claims this movie as a comfort watch seems at odds. Surely he should be able to answer that one instinctively. “You?”
“Jacob,” I say without hesitation. “So long as we forgo the non-consensual kiss and the whole Renaissance baby imprinting stuff.”
Mathias laughs so loud and suddenly he sloshes beer over himself. “Oh my god.” He’s getting to his feet. “Renaissance.” He leaves the room and comes back a few moments later wearing a clean shirt. This one is plain white, and the way the stretchy cotton brushes over his chest and abdominals feels like a personal attack to my integrity. I have to look away.
He sits down and is silent for a few moments.
“You coming to sevens tomorrow?” I ask.
“Do I have to coach this time?” He picks up his beer and takes a swig.
“No, I can coach. Or we can just play a game for an hour and a half.”
“Sure, call for me again, yeah?” he says. “Though I can’t do next Sunday the twentieth.”
“Shit, yeah, it’s Easter Sunday. Are you going back to Wales?”
Mathias nods, sips from his bottle. “Is the pub open?”
“Full Sunday roast, the works. One of only three days we take bookings for—Easter Sunday, Mother’s Day, and Christmas Day.”
