Uptown Boys - Fletcher/Jones, Poynter/Judd - Chapter 3
Title: Uptown Boys
Author: valquiris
Part: 3/?
Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual situations
Pairing: Fletcher/Jones, Poynter/Judd
Genre: Romance
Summary: An age-old story: the earth reaches for the stars. Will destiny ever permit?
A/N: Sorry for the long gap, you guys, but here you go! Nothing more to say except hope you enjoy it! :)
Dedication: To stolenglancesx and nathd5. I haven't thanked you guys properly for making my beginning days here pure heaven. ♥
Disclaimer: I do not own McFly in any way.
One: First Parte A || Two: First Parte B
Danny
I awoke the next morning feeling strangely invigorated, and it wasn’t because of the chicken I had last night.
When Dougie enlightened me about Tom’s questions, I listened as if there were nothing else outside the car. I even stopped feeling the cold air hitting my skin.
He told me that Tom kept asking general stuff: exactly what my accent was, how old I was, what I liked to do in my leisure time, all those kinds of things. Dougie later admitted to me, however, much to my minute dismay, that he didn’t ask them straightforwardly, and that he included Dougie in the questions as well. But he told me that Tom listened intently when he answered on my behalf and that his eyes kept “inconspicuously” glazing over the aisles whenever Dougie would talk about himself. I guess you could call that something, but I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
I heard Dougie grumble in his sleep, and it was then that I realized that his arm was wrapped around my waist, forehead digging into my bare side. I never wore shirts when I slept, neither did he, and we were both comfortable enough in our own skins to share a bed together, shirtless, without freaking out about it.
He dug his forehead deeper, and I could hear him breathing heavily on my skin. Probably having a nightmare.
“Dougie,” I whispered, poking him lightly on the temple with a finger. He stirred under the touch, but made no move to acknowledge it consciously. He continued grumbling, eyes rampantly moving under his eyelids, and I exhaled a soft laugh.
“Dougie,” I repeated, a little louder this time, smile stretching my lips, as I poked harder. More stirring, or light thrashing, really, ensued, and his eyes burst open as if a shot had just been fired. They searched for my eyes immediately.
“What do you want?” he asked irritably in mid-yawn, sliding his extended arm across my stomach and slapping my hand away. Having nowhere to place my free hand, I reached up and used it as a pillow instead, my chest shaking as I chuckled.
“Having a nightmare?” I asked, swiveling my eyes to the ceiling, using my other hand to scratch my head. He shook his head, still locked on my side, and he moved closer so our legs brushed slightly under the covers. I turned my attention back to him. Something was up.
“I think I’m in love,” he said grimly more to the sheets than to me, keeping his hands close to himself as possible, but I heard either way, and I was quite surprised by his bluntness. But what could I expect from him, really? Dougie’s history of not thinking things over before articulating them could speak for itself.
I released my hand and reached over to pet his hair; he always did like it whenever he wasn’t feeling well.
“With Harry?” I wasted no time in asking, thinking it was a bit obvious with him talking about the bloke nonstop last night. He slowly nodded his head, as if he had just received his death sentence, and moved closer, completely closing the gap between us.
“What am I going to do?”
I had to think of the right words to say; I didn’t want to upset him more than he already was. But him being upset about the situation confused me; why, exactly, was he upset?
“What do you mean?”
He lifted his forehead for the first since waking up, disentangled himself from my touch, and rolled on his back, arms firm on either side, eyes fixed on the ceiling, deep in thought.
“He’s a guy, Dan,” he remarked with creased brows, interweaving his fingers and placing them on his stomach. “I can’t just come up to him and say, ‘hey, you want to go out sometime?’ He’s probably straight anyway.”
I watched him concernedly. Dougie was one of those people who loved too quickly and fell too hard. His tendency to be attached usually ended up in catastrophe, and I always had to be the one to pick up the pieces and put him back together.
“But you want to,” I said, moving to my side and propping my head up with a hand. He kept his gaze to the ceiling.
“Well, yeah, I mean… After talking with him for a while, I felt this connection between us, and all of a sudden, I wanted us to be more than mates.”
“In just one night?” I asked skeptically, moving my hand to my mouth to hide a yawn. He shrugged.
“Well, there is such a thing as ‘love at first sight’ you know,” he defended, and I smiled to myself. I would have been lying if I said I didn’t believe in it, too.
To some extent, that was what I felt for Tom; I’ve just been to stubborn to follow it. After seeing Dougie fall so many times, I’ve been fearful of falling in love ever since. I didn’t want to know the feeling, let alone experience it firsthand, but I knew I’ve deprived myself of the complement entailing it in the process. I’ve never really known what it was to fall in love, like really fall in love, but I think having Tom around came real close to it. Something about him attracted me, and I was aching to know what.
“Tell me what to do,” he said, defeated, turning his head to me like a broken robot, and I thought I heard a metallic tint to his voice.
I honestly didn’t know what to tell him. On the one hand, telling him not to pursue would keep all his feelings bottled up inside, and the inevitable accumulation would end in implosion. But on the other, telling him to express his feelings could end in rejection, because there was a possibility that Dougie might have been right about his orientation.
“Just…,” I started, my mind working furiously to form a coherent advice. “Take things slow this time. Don’t be too… overbearing. Ease him into it. Build it up until you’re sure that you can’t take it anymore, and that he’s the one.”
He planted his eyes back to the ceiling, biting the inside of his cheek, considering. With a shrug, he sat up and dangled his feet from the edge of the bed, hands gripping the mattress on either side of him.
“Fine,” he dismissed before hopping on the floor and sliding toward the bathroom. Before he slipped inside, however, he turned back to me one last time and said, with a sly smile, “But you can deny that Tom fancies you, though.”
Tom
“What the hell was that?” I asked loudly as I bounded down the stairs, friction tearing the flesh off my palm as I slid it along the banister.
Harry’s eyes immediately snapped to me the moment I reached the last step, and so did another pair, dark and smoky after being piled heavily with makeup. It didn’t take me long to realize who it was (and who it was that shrieked in the first place), and at once I felt electricity sparking from Harry.
Aleksandra.
Aleksandra, Chester’s half-sister, was tall, slender, and blonde, with long, spindly arms and legs that went on for miles, which helped her rise to become one of the fashion industry’s most sought-out models. One would think her the perfect female specimen, but Harry didn’t think so, and it puzzled me greatly that her attraction to him was blatant like the blueness of the sky, yet he still pushed her away. The ever-mysterious Harry Judd.
Harry unraveled her arms from his neck as politely as he could and he made his way to me, smile real as plastic on his face. I pinched my arm to prevent a smile.
“If you tell her I’ve broken up with Diana, I’ll fucking kill you,” he threatened under his breath, and it was then that my smile escaped the barricade. “Keep her out of my hair until we leave, would you?” Acknowledging the fact that I had no say in the matter otherwise, I nodded and waited until Harry slipped into the kitchen before walking up to the blonde.
“How was fashion week?” I asked when I was a few inches from her, scratching my arm as a distraction. She tore her gaze from the kitchen and settled it down on me. At once, I felt like I was Harry Potter talking to Hagrid. How could she be so tall?
She brightened up after the separation in a fraction of a second, but I well knew she would have much preferred to have been chatting with Harry.
“Oh, amazing,” she replied with her Russian accent, her eyes glazing dreamily into space, clapping her hands together. “I do sixty-three shows this season. I was so surprise! I only get forty-something the last season, but this season I do more!”
“That must’ve been tiring,” I remarked, keeping my promise to Harry. “How many shows did you do every day?”
“Some I do three, some I do five. It was hard, yes, very tiring, but worth it. I get some free clothes, too.”
She twirled around and her skirt waved open in the air. I managed a smile.
“Met some new friends?” I asked to keep everything going, and she reverted to her original position before answering.
“Oh, yes. I make many new friends because some of my old friends didn’t make it to shows,” she said with a slight frown, her eyebrows slightly creased, nodding. But then she stopped, remembering something. “Imogen do many shows, too.”
The mention of the name felt like a club bludgeoning my head, and I cringed a bit.
“Did she now?” I asked, pretending to be interested, but inside I felt the opposite.
Imogen Michaels, my ex-girlfriend, was as crazy as one could be. She was overly fascinated with me, bordering on maniacal obsession; shooting daggers at women we passed them by, kissing me in public when she felt I’ve been eyeing somebody else, feeling me up when she felt I didn’t pay her enough attention… Well, to make a long story short, I just had to break it off with her.
“Yes, we have most shows together. We talk a lot.”
I opened my mouth to keep the conversation going, but a voice rang from the living room before I could speak.
“Aleksandra, dear, we have to go.”
It was Mum, and Aleksandra bade goodbye before sauntering over to her, leaving me all alone with my thoughts. Thoughts I wished would stop following me everywhere.
Why couldn’t I stop thinking about him? His hair, his eyes, his voice, his smile… That fucking smile that just makes me feel all tingly and awkward and… significant. Something about him made me feel like I was someone important, made me feel jealous of everything that came between us. Which was odd in itself; I mean, we had only met the night before.
“Tom!”
Harry’s voice pulled me out of my bubble of thoughts and I turned just in time to see him emerging from the kitchen, advancing warily.
“She’s gone, yeah?” he asked me, peering curiously over my head into the living room.
“Just left with Mum,” I replied, not glancing back to make sure.
“Good. God, why won’t she just leave me alone?”
“I don’t get why you can’t just tell her you’re not interested. I mean, you are basically playing her.”
“I am not! It’s not like I like it, ‘cause then it’ll be playing her. And besides, your mum will murder me if I sent her halfway across the world.”
I shrugged, noting the validity in his remark. Once, when Aleksandra was still stationed in Moscow, her agent made the mistake of telling her to lose a bit of weight, and she phoned Chester to pick her up to live with him the day after. She never went back to Moscow ever since, and Mum treated her like the daughter she’s never had the moment she stepped foot in the house.
“These girls will be the death of me, Tom. I think I’ll take a little break from them.”
I raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
“What do you mean?”
He sighed and sat on the bottommost step, resting his elbows on his knees, forearms stretched out, hands clasped together. I stayed on my spot.
“I mean, I think I’ve had my fill of mental girls, don’t you think so? Maybe I’ll try blokes for a while.”
I was quite taken aback by the casualness of his statement, and I felt my eyes widen a bit in surprise. Harry-this Harry, who I’ve grown to know as a huge playboy-just told me he was going to try men for a change. Oh, he’s just full of surprises. First, the unprecedented break-up with Diana, now this? Not that I had a problem with it, no… It was just very unexpected.
“Don’t get any funny ideas Tom, you’re not my type,” he said with a cheeky smile, drinking in my dazed expression. It took me a second to put together what he had just said, but when I finally did, I glared at him. Well, he’s not my type either.
“Ha-Ha, you’re so funny,” I remarked with a mock smile. He chuckled, stood up, and patted me on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry. Dougie’s more my type, so you can have Danny, not like you’ll complain. I think he’ll get Imogen out of your mind for a while.”
I felt the pang again, and I cringed like the last time.
“Can we please not talk about her? At all?”
He laughed and made his way across the living room, turning back to tell me, “Come on, we’ll be late,” before stepping out of the door.
I started to follow him, but I felt my feet rooted to the spot the moment I realized what he had just said. Not like you’ll complain… Though it wasn’t really straightforward, I well knew what he meant, and I felt my face flush, my heart beginning to race.
Was it that obvious that I fancied him? I didn’t really talk about him much after getting home, so how could Harry have possibly known?
“What the fuck happened to my car?”
Harry’s bellows sent a jolt up my spine, and I darted out the house quick as I could to figure out what happened.
The moment I reached the “car palace,” which was basically a warehouse filled with countless cars that the Fletchers and Judds used as their conventional garage, I spotted Harry pacing between the vehicles, crouching here, leaning there, tiptoeing everywhere in search of something much like a mother looking for her lost child.
“What is it?” I asked worriedly, my voice echoing against the walls, when I came upon him.
“My car’s gone! I can’t find my fucking car!” he said frantically, head turning everywhere. I could understand where his hysteria was coming from; his car had been with him since getting his license three years ago, and, though he’d had the ability to replace it with a better brand, as urged by Dad and Mr. Judd, he refused to give it away, convincing them that it was the only car for him.
“Calm down,” I said, craning my own head to note any sign of his car. “Have you checked where you parked it?”
“Yes, you twit, or else I wouldn’t be looking for it! A fucking Rolls-Royce took its place! I don’t even know where the fuck it came from!”
Curious, I walked over to where he last parked the car and, sure enough, I saw a white Rolls-Royce in its stead, coat gleaming brightly in the sunlight. Brand new, I reckoned as I moved to get a better look. Just then, I heard footsteps behind me, and when I turned around, I saw Chester walking toward us, twirling keys in his finger.
“Where’s my car?” asked Harry the moment he spotted him, and Chester only shrugged, pressed a button to unlock the Rolls-Royce I had been inspecting, and slipped inside.
“Your dad sold it last night,” he replied finally, putting the key in the ignition. “Bought you this one. Ain’t she a beaut?”
“Sold it? I told him I didn’t want a new car! Told him a hundred times!”
“Sorry Harry, not my problem, is it? Now get inside. Your dad says this has to be broken in before you get to drive it, so I’m taking you both where you need to go until then.”
I caught Harry’s eyes, wide open in incredulity, and I shot him a face that said, “There’s nothing we can do about it” before slipping inside the car.
Danny
Was Dougie right?
Those words swam endlessly in my mind as we made our way to the shop. Inside, I hoped he was. Just imagining Tom telling me he fancied me ignited butterflies in my stomach, and I couldn’t help but smile every now and then.
However, there was still the possibility of his disinterest, and it created a sense of false hope with every beat of their wings until it overweighed the mass, sinking them dead to the bottom. My smiles faltered as soon as they came.
“When d’you reckon they’ll be here?” asked Dougie impatiently after we arrived, standing outside with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes focused on the road ahead.
“Soon,” I said, trying to sound optimistic.
Just then, I heard the rumbling of a car from a distance, and the next second, I saw the outline of something white and shining coming into view from a corner.
“You think that’s them?” Dougie asked me, skeptical of the unfamiliar vehicle rounding the bend.
“I’m not sure. We’re closed today so I doubt it’s a customer. But it’s not the same car, though.”
I was puzzled, and I was about to tell Dougie something until I took in the unmistakable identity of the blonde sitting in the passenger’s seat. And the brand of the car.
A Rolls-Royce.
“Dan, that’s a fucking Rolls-Royce!” Dougie said in an unnaturally high-pitched voice, gripping my arm with force. “Do you know how much those cost?”
I only nodded, for I, too, was astonished by the arrival. Those dead butterflies sank deeper into oblivion, and I felt my heart drop the next second. They were rich?
“Dougie,” I said the moment I found my voice, and I didn’t care that it was a bit dry and hoarse from all the thoughts rampaging in my brain. “I think you need to reconsider things a bit.”
Author: valquiris
Part: 3/?
Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual situations
Pairing: Fletcher/Jones, Poynter/Judd
Genre: Romance
Summary: An age-old story: the earth reaches for the stars. Will destiny ever permit?
A/N: Sorry for the long gap, you guys, but here you go! Nothing more to say except hope you enjoy it! :)
Dedication: To stolenglancesx and nathd5. I haven't thanked you guys properly for making my beginning days here pure heaven. ♥
Disclaimer: I do not own McFly in any way.
One: First Parte A || Two: First Parte B
Danny
I awoke the next morning feeling strangely invigorated, and it wasn’t because of the chicken I had last night.
When Dougie enlightened me about Tom’s questions, I listened as if there were nothing else outside the car. I even stopped feeling the cold air hitting my skin.
He told me that Tom kept asking general stuff: exactly what my accent was, how old I was, what I liked to do in my leisure time, all those kinds of things. Dougie later admitted to me, however, much to my minute dismay, that he didn’t ask them straightforwardly, and that he included Dougie in the questions as well. But he told me that Tom listened intently when he answered on my behalf and that his eyes kept “inconspicuously” glazing over the aisles whenever Dougie would talk about himself. I guess you could call that something, but I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
I heard Dougie grumble in his sleep, and it was then that I realized that his arm was wrapped around my waist, forehead digging into my bare side. I never wore shirts when I slept, neither did he, and we were both comfortable enough in our own skins to share a bed together, shirtless, without freaking out about it.
He dug his forehead deeper, and I could hear him breathing heavily on my skin. Probably having a nightmare.
“Dougie,” I whispered, poking him lightly on the temple with a finger. He stirred under the touch, but made no move to acknowledge it consciously. He continued grumbling, eyes rampantly moving under his eyelids, and I exhaled a soft laugh.
“Dougie,” I repeated, a little louder this time, smile stretching my lips, as I poked harder. More stirring, or light thrashing, really, ensued, and his eyes burst open as if a shot had just been fired. They searched for my eyes immediately.
“What do you want?” he asked irritably in mid-yawn, sliding his extended arm across my stomach and slapping my hand away. Having nowhere to place my free hand, I reached up and used it as a pillow instead, my chest shaking as I chuckled.
“Having a nightmare?” I asked, swiveling my eyes to the ceiling, using my other hand to scratch my head. He shook his head, still locked on my side, and he moved closer so our legs brushed slightly under the covers. I turned my attention back to him. Something was up.
“I think I’m in love,” he said grimly more to the sheets than to me, keeping his hands close to himself as possible, but I heard either way, and I was quite surprised by his bluntness. But what could I expect from him, really? Dougie’s history of not thinking things over before articulating them could speak for itself.
I released my hand and reached over to pet his hair; he always did like it whenever he wasn’t feeling well.
“With Harry?” I wasted no time in asking, thinking it was a bit obvious with him talking about the bloke nonstop last night. He slowly nodded his head, as if he had just received his death sentence, and moved closer, completely closing the gap between us.
“What am I going to do?”
I had to think of the right words to say; I didn’t want to upset him more than he already was. But him being upset about the situation confused me; why, exactly, was he upset?
“What do you mean?”
He lifted his forehead for the first since waking up, disentangled himself from my touch, and rolled on his back, arms firm on either side, eyes fixed on the ceiling, deep in thought.
“He’s a guy, Dan,” he remarked with creased brows, interweaving his fingers and placing them on his stomach. “I can’t just come up to him and say, ‘hey, you want to go out sometime?’ He’s probably straight anyway.”
I watched him concernedly. Dougie was one of those people who loved too quickly and fell too hard. His tendency to be attached usually ended up in catastrophe, and I always had to be the one to pick up the pieces and put him back together.
“But you want to,” I said, moving to my side and propping my head up with a hand. He kept his gaze to the ceiling.
“Well, yeah, I mean… After talking with him for a while, I felt this connection between us, and all of a sudden, I wanted us to be more than mates.”
“In just one night?” I asked skeptically, moving my hand to my mouth to hide a yawn. He shrugged.
“Well, there is such a thing as ‘love at first sight’ you know,” he defended, and I smiled to myself. I would have been lying if I said I didn’t believe in it, too.
To some extent, that was what I felt for Tom; I’ve just been to stubborn to follow it. After seeing Dougie fall so many times, I’ve been fearful of falling in love ever since. I didn’t want to know the feeling, let alone experience it firsthand, but I knew I’ve deprived myself of the complement entailing it in the process. I’ve never really known what it was to fall in love, like really fall in love, but I think having Tom around came real close to it. Something about him attracted me, and I was aching to know what.
“Tell me what to do,” he said, defeated, turning his head to me like a broken robot, and I thought I heard a metallic tint to his voice.
I honestly didn’t know what to tell him. On the one hand, telling him not to pursue would keep all his feelings bottled up inside, and the inevitable accumulation would end in implosion. But on the other, telling him to express his feelings could end in rejection, because there was a possibility that Dougie might have been right about his orientation.
“Just…,” I started, my mind working furiously to form a coherent advice. “Take things slow this time. Don’t be too… overbearing. Ease him into it. Build it up until you’re sure that you can’t take it anymore, and that he’s the one.”
He planted his eyes back to the ceiling, biting the inside of his cheek, considering. With a shrug, he sat up and dangled his feet from the edge of the bed, hands gripping the mattress on either side of him.
“Fine,” he dismissed before hopping on the floor and sliding toward the bathroom. Before he slipped inside, however, he turned back to me one last time and said, with a sly smile, “But you can deny that Tom fancies you, though.”
Tom
“What the hell was that?” I asked loudly as I bounded down the stairs, friction tearing the flesh off my palm as I slid it along the banister.
Harry’s eyes immediately snapped to me the moment I reached the last step, and so did another pair, dark and smoky after being piled heavily with makeup. It didn’t take me long to realize who it was (and who it was that shrieked in the first place), and at once I felt electricity sparking from Harry.
Aleksandra.
Aleksandra, Chester’s half-sister, was tall, slender, and blonde, with long, spindly arms and legs that went on for miles, which helped her rise to become one of the fashion industry’s most sought-out models. One would think her the perfect female specimen, but Harry didn’t think so, and it puzzled me greatly that her attraction to him was blatant like the blueness of the sky, yet he still pushed her away. The ever-mysterious Harry Judd.
Harry unraveled her arms from his neck as politely as he could and he made his way to me, smile real as plastic on his face. I pinched my arm to prevent a smile.
“If you tell her I’ve broken up with Diana, I’ll fucking kill you,” he threatened under his breath, and it was then that my smile escaped the barricade. “Keep her out of my hair until we leave, would you?” Acknowledging the fact that I had no say in the matter otherwise, I nodded and waited until Harry slipped into the kitchen before walking up to the blonde.
“How was fashion week?” I asked when I was a few inches from her, scratching my arm as a distraction. She tore her gaze from the kitchen and settled it down on me. At once, I felt like I was Harry Potter talking to Hagrid. How could she be so tall?
She brightened up after the separation in a fraction of a second, but I well knew she would have much preferred to have been chatting with Harry.
“Oh, amazing,” she replied with her Russian accent, her eyes glazing dreamily into space, clapping her hands together. “I do sixty-three shows this season. I was so surprise! I only get forty-something the last season, but this season I do more!”
“That must’ve been tiring,” I remarked, keeping my promise to Harry. “How many shows did you do every day?”
“Some I do three, some I do five. It was hard, yes, very tiring, but worth it. I get some free clothes, too.”
She twirled around and her skirt waved open in the air. I managed a smile.
“Met some new friends?” I asked to keep everything going, and she reverted to her original position before answering.
“Oh, yes. I make many new friends because some of my old friends didn’t make it to shows,” she said with a slight frown, her eyebrows slightly creased, nodding. But then she stopped, remembering something. “Imogen do many shows, too.”
The mention of the name felt like a club bludgeoning my head, and I cringed a bit.
“Did she now?” I asked, pretending to be interested, but inside I felt the opposite.
Imogen Michaels, my ex-girlfriend, was as crazy as one could be. She was overly fascinated with me, bordering on maniacal obsession; shooting daggers at women we passed them by, kissing me in public when she felt I’ve been eyeing somebody else, feeling me up when she felt I didn’t pay her enough attention… Well, to make a long story short, I just had to break it off with her.
“Yes, we have most shows together. We talk a lot.”
I opened my mouth to keep the conversation going, but a voice rang from the living room before I could speak.
“Aleksandra, dear, we have to go.”
It was Mum, and Aleksandra bade goodbye before sauntering over to her, leaving me all alone with my thoughts. Thoughts I wished would stop following me everywhere.
Why couldn’t I stop thinking about him? His hair, his eyes, his voice, his smile… That fucking smile that just makes me feel all tingly and awkward and… significant. Something about him made me feel like I was someone important, made me feel jealous of everything that came between us. Which was odd in itself; I mean, we had only met the night before.
“Tom!”
Harry’s voice pulled me out of my bubble of thoughts and I turned just in time to see him emerging from the kitchen, advancing warily.
“She’s gone, yeah?” he asked me, peering curiously over my head into the living room.
“Just left with Mum,” I replied, not glancing back to make sure.
“Good. God, why won’t she just leave me alone?”
“I don’t get why you can’t just tell her you’re not interested. I mean, you are basically playing her.”
“I am not! It’s not like I like it, ‘cause then it’ll be playing her. And besides, your mum will murder me if I sent her halfway across the world.”
I shrugged, noting the validity in his remark. Once, when Aleksandra was still stationed in Moscow, her agent made the mistake of telling her to lose a bit of weight, and she phoned Chester to pick her up to live with him the day after. She never went back to Moscow ever since, and Mum treated her like the daughter she’s never had the moment she stepped foot in the house.
“These girls will be the death of me, Tom. I think I’ll take a little break from them.”
I raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
“What do you mean?”
He sighed and sat on the bottommost step, resting his elbows on his knees, forearms stretched out, hands clasped together. I stayed on my spot.
“I mean, I think I’ve had my fill of mental girls, don’t you think so? Maybe I’ll try blokes for a while.”
I was quite taken aback by the casualness of his statement, and I felt my eyes widen a bit in surprise. Harry-this Harry, who I’ve grown to know as a huge playboy-just told me he was going to try men for a change. Oh, he’s just full of surprises. First, the unprecedented break-up with Diana, now this? Not that I had a problem with it, no… It was just very unexpected.
“Don’t get any funny ideas Tom, you’re not my type,” he said with a cheeky smile, drinking in my dazed expression. It took me a second to put together what he had just said, but when I finally did, I glared at him. Well, he’s not my type either.
“Ha-Ha, you’re so funny,” I remarked with a mock smile. He chuckled, stood up, and patted me on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry. Dougie’s more my type, so you can have Danny, not like you’ll complain. I think he’ll get Imogen out of your mind for a while.”
I felt the pang again, and I cringed like the last time.
“Can we please not talk about her? At all?”
He laughed and made his way across the living room, turning back to tell me, “Come on, we’ll be late,” before stepping out of the door.
I started to follow him, but I felt my feet rooted to the spot the moment I realized what he had just said. Not like you’ll complain… Though it wasn’t really straightforward, I well knew what he meant, and I felt my face flush, my heart beginning to race.
Was it that obvious that I fancied him? I didn’t really talk about him much after getting home, so how could Harry have possibly known?
“What the fuck happened to my car?”
Harry’s bellows sent a jolt up my spine, and I darted out the house quick as I could to figure out what happened.
The moment I reached the “car palace,” which was basically a warehouse filled with countless cars that the Fletchers and Judds used as their conventional garage, I spotted Harry pacing between the vehicles, crouching here, leaning there, tiptoeing everywhere in search of something much like a mother looking for her lost child.
“What is it?” I asked worriedly, my voice echoing against the walls, when I came upon him.
“My car’s gone! I can’t find my fucking car!” he said frantically, head turning everywhere. I could understand where his hysteria was coming from; his car had been with him since getting his license three years ago, and, though he’d had the ability to replace it with a better brand, as urged by Dad and Mr. Judd, he refused to give it away, convincing them that it was the only car for him.
“Calm down,” I said, craning my own head to note any sign of his car. “Have you checked where you parked it?”
“Yes, you twit, or else I wouldn’t be looking for it! A fucking Rolls-Royce took its place! I don’t even know where the fuck it came from!”
Curious, I walked over to where he last parked the car and, sure enough, I saw a white Rolls-Royce in its stead, coat gleaming brightly in the sunlight. Brand new, I reckoned as I moved to get a better look. Just then, I heard footsteps behind me, and when I turned around, I saw Chester walking toward us, twirling keys in his finger.
“Where’s my car?” asked Harry the moment he spotted him, and Chester only shrugged, pressed a button to unlock the Rolls-Royce I had been inspecting, and slipped inside.
“Your dad sold it last night,” he replied finally, putting the key in the ignition. “Bought you this one. Ain’t she a beaut?”
“Sold it? I told him I didn’t want a new car! Told him a hundred times!”
“Sorry Harry, not my problem, is it? Now get inside. Your dad says this has to be broken in before you get to drive it, so I’m taking you both where you need to go until then.”
I caught Harry’s eyes, wide open in incredulity, and I shot him a face that said, “There’s nothing we can do about it” before slipping inside the car.
Danny
Was Dougie right?
Those words swam endlessly in my mind as we made our way to the shop. Inside, I hoped he was. Just imagining Tom telling me he fancied me ignited butterflies in my stomach, and I couldn’t help but smile every now and then.
However, there was still the possibility of his disinterest, and it created a sense of false hope with every beat of their wings until it overweighed the mass, sinking them dead to the bottom. My smiles faltered as soon as they came.
“When d’you reckon they’ll be here?” asked Dougie impatiently after we arrived, standing outside with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes focused on the road ahead.
“Soon,” I said, trying to sound optimistic.
Just then, I heard the rumbling of a car from a distance, and the next second, I saw the outline of something white and shining coming into view from a corner.
“You think that’s them?” Dougie asked me, skeptical of the unfamiliar vehicle rounding the bend.
“I’m not sure. We’re closed today so I doubt it’s a customer. But it’s not the same car, though.”
I was puzzled, and I was about to tell Dougie something until I took in the unmistakable identity of the blonde sitting in the passenger’s seat. And the brand of the car.
A Rolls-Royce.
“Dan, that’s a fucking Rolls-Royce!” Dougie said in an unnaturally high-pitched voice, gripping my arm with force. “Do you know how much those cost?”
I only nodded, for I, too, was astonished by the arrival. Those dead butterflies sank deeper into oblivion, and I felt my heart drop the next second. They were rich?
“Dougie,” I said the moment I found my voice, and I didn’t care that it was a bit dry and hoarse from all the thoughts rampaging in my brain. “I think you need to reconsider things a bit.”