Experimental, Attempt Two
Copyright© 2026 by Its a skirt, not a kilt
Chapter 1
Ada drew a line across the screen with the stylus.
“If we make it a suspension bridge...”
Luca looked across the room to the materials that sat neatly piled up next to the sink in the science room. There was a neatly printed list of all the components on the wall. One of the listed components was the length of the string they were allowed to use. He tried to aim his gaze anywhere but at his long-time school friend. They had been close friends since primary school. She was sitting on the stool next to him in the science class. It was the only class, other than the art class, which neither of them had picked, to have stools.
The problem with the stools - or maybe it was the way she sat on them - was that they seemed to make the hem on her school regulation black pleated skirt rise higher on her thighs than the chairs did. Or maybe it was the same, but with desks, he never saw her legs, since they were under the heavily worn and much graffiti-abused tops. The science room benches had no such overhang; the space underneath was utilised for Bunsen burners and glassware. Her legs were encased in black nylon that drew his gaze and enticed him to follow them up to their juncture and the tantalising mystery that awaited there.
It had never been a problem until this last year, and it had been steadily getting worse, definitely more distracting. He couldn’t help himself, and his gaze slipped down, knowing he would regret it even as his vision dropped. Sure enough, as his gaze landed on the partly exposed nylon-clad thigh between her hem and her kneecaps, he felt his blood boil, and the troublesome monster between his own thighs start to stir. He squirmed uncomfortably on his stool, all too aware that there was no desktop to cover his own puberty-related issues.
“There isn’t enough string...” Luca pointed out, trying desperately to derail his wayward mind from his friend’s highly distracting body.
Ada checked her scribbled notes on her notepad.
“Ahh. Shit.” She tapped the top of the stylus on the top of the workbench. “Have you decided what you are going for in college? How about if we use just the one suspension cable?”
“That won’t work. We would have to make the deck wider on both sides to allow the truck across. And if we did, the cable would work like a fulcrum on a see-saw and tip the truck into the water. I’m thinking about going for automotive or welding, but I don’t really know. What about you?”
“Beauty therapy.” Luca jerked his head back and gave her an incredulous look. “I know, I know...”
“You have the highest STEM scores in the class! Why the fuck would...”
“Language, Luca!” came the rather pointed warning from their teacher as she walked amongst the pupils.
“Sorry, Mrs Havershum...” Luca turned back to Ada. “Seriously! Why? We use two stay cables but only anchor in the middle of the bridge, rather than all the way along...”
“Hmm ... That might work. I was researching it. Something like ninety per cent of female graduates can’t find work and end up in Burger King. Same as media studies. There is no real-world demand, and I don’t want to start my adult life drowning in student debt. Would the deck between the supposed cliff edge and the middle of the chasm, where the vertical suspender between the deck and the main cable meets, hold the weight?”
“No idea...” Luca looked at the pile of Lego pieces and a chunk of solid metal sitting on the toy truck that would be pulled across the bridge by a small electric winch. He had a sneaky suspicion the task wasn’t actually possible and that the real lesson was the problem solving and how they tackled the task. “But really Ads, beauty therapy?”
“Fucking AI,”
“Ada!”
“Sorry, Mrs Havershum! AI is going to take over all the engineering jobs, and the job market is going to be saturated with laid off job seekers with twenty odd plus years of experience. Newly qualified engineers are going to have no fuc ... err ... chance. If we put a strip along the bottom there, would that not help distribute the load?”
“Seems such a waste of your ability. Yeah possibly. If we use the long pieces along the edge, they will act as both a guide for the wheels and as bracing. But seriously, hairdressing?”
“It’s not just hairdressing, it’s make-up and complementary therapies. There is some serious money to be made. You can choose your own hours. Don’t have to put up with older, sexist and scared men who think you are a threat to their position. And it’s a cash economy. So, with some creative accounting, you can reduce your tax liability.”
Luca had never considered his financial responsibilities, and it wasn’t much of a surprise that Ada had.
“Besides,” she added, “AI is never going to take over hairdressing, makeup, or nails in my lifetime. Probably. You have to think of the future, Luca. End of school exams start in a fortnight. How are you?”
“To be honest? I’m fucking bricking it.”
“Luca! I’ll not tell you again!”
“What did you get!” Ada ran up to him and gave him a tight, very problematic hug, and after release, slipped a familial arm through his as he searched for his name. She was dressed in black leggings, bare foot in simple sandals and a loose pink tee. He was wearing scuffed trainers, heavily abused jeans that were hanging onto structural coherence with every fibre of their being and a mostly black, and like his jeans, fabrically distressed t-shirt with the logo of one of his favourite metal bands. His long hair fell in an untidy mess down his back.
The high school was open this one day during the summer holidays, especially for this. They would all get their final results through snail mail in a week or two, but the wait was pure torture. It was best to return this one last time and get it over and done with. The Education Department had tried, repeatedly, to move the process to e-mail, but every year they tried it, it resulted in an absolute clusterfuck of students not getting results or getting someone else’s. Every year, it was the same. Last year had been especially bad, and had resulted in the Education Secretary having to stand up in Parliament and commit verbal Seppuku in front of all the assembled MPs. The Media had a field day, given the amount that had been spent on the supposedly secure and efficient system. The current Education Secretary had, wisely in Luca’s mind, decided to forgo spending the GDP of a small African country on the dubious claims of a software firm this year, relying instead on the claims of the current Investment Firm to have taken control of the Post Office, as to the reliability of the service and its ability to deliver post in the time mandated.
Luca found his name, scanned the results and felt the weight he had been carrying the last few months melt away. They were not brilliant, pretty much bang on what the school had been forecasting, but the important part to Luca was that they were not terrible, they were not worse. He had already seen Ada’s. Normally, he wouldn’t have remembered anyone else’s projected final scores, but Ada’s had been easy, just the one letter. Like Luca, the school had been bang on with their prediction. It seemed like a waste of the other twenty-five letters of the alphabet.
“Hey! They’re not bad!” Ada said with genuine praise.
That somehow made his results worse. Like an Olympic-level runner congratulating you on not tripping over your own two feet as you walked down the street. She was genuinely happy for him.
“Are you still going to do hair and beauty at Glassgreen?” Luca mentally crossed his fingers. Glassgreen was not their nearest college. It was the nearest one with the best education rating and student satisfaction scores. It was two hours away, so it would require accommodation. Both his parents had gone there, had met there in fact. They had bought a small two room student flat when they had been studying, having worked out that the mortgage would be cheaper than the rent and already secure in their shared belief that they would be together as a couple.
“Yes. You?”
Fuck yeah!
Luca tried to act nonchalant. “Aye.”
“Cool. How are you getting on with digs? Have you seen the rents!”
“Umm, not really...”
“Have you even started looking, Luca?”
Luca went silent, unsure what to say. Now that he was about to be in the same place his parents had been at that age, their maturity and financial acumen were becoming painfully oppressive. He could barely decide what he was going to eat that night, let alone make such an appallingly adult decision in both taking on a mortgage and the fact that they were going to marry. Granted, flat prices were a lot more sane in their day, and they had kept the property, telling Luca, often, that it was quite a little money spinner. But still, it was top-tier adulting.
His father had studied accountancy, and his mother had studied Business management, so it made sense that they had both been so comfortable with such a large decision so early on in their lives. A decision that had continued to financially support them since. It was the sort of decision he expected Ada to make.
Just thinking about what his parents had done terrified him. If that was what life was about, making important decisions, he wanted to stay a child. His only important decisions in life so far were what computer game he was going to play that night, or what metal or thrash album he was going to pirate next.
Adulting sucked.
Hell, he had only finally decided what he wanted to study at college a week before they started their exams. The school had organised several days out to the nearby technical college, where they had tried their hand at various things. Bricklaying, welding, plumbing, car repair, house electrical wiring, and joinery amongst others.
Apart from the welding, nothing piqued his interest. But there was something about welding, watching the pool of liquid metal forming, flowing into the surrounding metal, becoming one.
Nothing screamed more ‘metal’ in his soul than fusing metal. That and the fact that, besides the legally required safety apparel, it appeared he could wear what he wanted. He hated suits and all they implied. It was an armour that fitted his father, not him. He only suffered wearing a suit for funerals and weddings. Neither of which he had much experience with. Though given the increasing frailty of his grandparents, funerals were an occasion he was not going to be able to avoid for long.
His parents had always said that the student flat was a future investment for their own children. And they were sticking by that. They had managed it so that the present two students had finished their courses this term, giving him the flat all to himself when the new term started at the end of August.
It wasn’t going to be totally free. He was going to have to pay the utility bills and a token gesture for rent. He was intelligent enough to realise the rent was considerably under the market value and only a complete idiot would have turned it down. He was still going to need to find a part time job if he didn’t want to take out a student loan. He’d already had enough ‘man talks’ from his dad over how that wasn’t a financially good idea.
God, those had been tedious.
His parents had both hinted, loudly, that he should consider finding a summer job, which would help him financially over the coming college term. He had been ignoring the subject, aware he was in denial over the coming, inevitable arrival of adulthood.
Besides, he had a games list he was determined to finish over the summer.
Other kids were jostling them, trying to get a better view of the results list and they moved away out of the way.
“What are you doing this summer, Ada?”
“I’ve got an evening job at the chippy and a day one in a clothes shop in town. Some of my pals are thinking about going abroad for a week or two, but they haven’t decided. I think I might join them. I don’t know yet. I need to save some money for college.”
“Oh, nice.”
“Hello, stranger.”
Luca looked up from the rack of metal albums. He knew who it was just by the sound of her voice. Ada closed the distance and wrapped her arms around him in a tight familial hug that necessitated him wrapping his own arms round her as he tried to keep his hands to areas covered by clothing.
Ada had not made it easy, wearing a sports top that was basically a bra and a pair of shorts that didn’t leave much to the imagination. Her feet were bare in her sandals, toenails painted in bright colours. Her skin was very brown. She had obviously gone on that holiday.
Three girls Luca knew from school, also equally brown in their skimpy outfits, were hanging around watching them. They were obviously out with Ada.
“You’re looking, err...” feelings he had managed to ignore for the last few weeks came flooding back. “very brown...” he finished lamely.
“I decided to join the girls for two weeks on the beach. It was awesome,” she poked a forefinger against his pale white forearm. “You look like you spent a fortnight in a crypt.”
Luca didn’t really hear her. He was desperately trying not to imagine Ada in a swimsuit on a beach. Given the amount of bronzed flesh on display. It had obviously been in a bikini rather than one of the all-encompassing one pieces mandated by the school for decorum reasons.
“Earth to Luca...”
“Huh. I was err ... You look awesome, by the way.”
“Aw, thanks!” She broke the hug, stepping back. Luca wondered how something could be two opposing states at the same time. Something scientists were still trying to create. Yet Ada could achieve it in him simply with a hug. Absolute fear and pleasure at the same time.
She smiled happily at him. “Watcha doing for the day?”
“Just, you know,” he pointed at the rows of compact disks, “looking through albums.”
“We need to hang out.”
“We do.” Luca agreed.
The happy smile spread wide across her face, turned cheeky, teasing. “I would ask if you wanted to tag along with us, but we are Iingerie browsing next...”
“Fuck no!”
Ada laughed loudly. A sound that both soothed and tormented his soul. “Do you want to meet up for lunch?”
“I would like that.”
“So would I.” There was an undercurrent to her voice he was aware of, but couldn’t decipher.
The girls were already seated and eating when he arrived. He looked at the table, all the seats were taken, and he panicked over what to do as he approached with his can of juice and sandwich. Ada spotted him and looked about.
“Is anyone sitting here?” She asked the couple sitting at the table next to them.
“No, you are good.” The woman said with a smile.
Ada reached out and dragged the chair over, spinning it around so it was next to her.
“Thanks,” Luca said to the couple as he moved between the tables and chairs. The girls all had quite a collection of bags on the floor next to them. They had been shopping hard. He looked down at one paper bag next to Ada, the logo proudly displayed across the side. A few of the others had the same bag. They hadn’t been lying when they had said that they were going underwear shopping. He looked up to see Ada watching him, an amused upturn in the corner of her mouth.
For the briefest of moments, he considered making a joke about it, asking if she was going to model the contents for him later. He chickened out and kept his mouth shut. He sat and opened the wrapping on his tuna and sweetcorn sandwich as Ada leaned against him as the other girls animatedly talked about a range of topics in a quick fire staccato. Ada seemed content to just let them as she leaned against him, head on his shoulder.
Luca dropped onto his bed. He hadn’t bought anything. He had been planning to spend his lunch with Ada and then do his own thing, but she had other ideas. She seemed to be able to sense every time he thought about disappearing and doing his own thing, because she slipped an arm through his as they followed the other girls. He had been worried that they might drag him somewhere problematic, like another underwear shop, but they hadn’t, mostly window shopping and eyeing up other boys. They had just ignored him. Not that he was bothered, as it was comfortable enough just going around with Ada.
He pulled his phone out and activated an icon he almost never used. He had never seen much point in ‘Social Media’ and didn’t post much, almost never. He moved to his ‘friends’ list. He had twelve people there, four of whom were the official accounts of metal bands. His parents were there. They posted more than he did. A couple of his mates and Ada. The only girl other than his mother on the list.
He tapped on her name, and her profile popped up. She had a post from earlier about being out with the ‘besties’. Even as he was doing it, he knew this was going to be a bad idea. He swiped back through her history. Sure enough, there were pictures from her holiday abroad.
“Jesus...” There were a lot of beach shots, and sure enough, the bikini she had worn was about as skimpy as you could get without actually being naked. She looked awesome. Jealousy lanced deep into his heart. His finger tip ignored the advice of his brain and flicked to the picture, enlarging it. Some were selfies, some were her friends’ pictures that she had been tagged in. He wondered what her parents thought about them, he tapped on the visibility icon of her holiday folder. It was set to ‘Select only’.
That did weird things inside him. That he was part of her inner circle, somehow. Or maybe she had just forgotten to remove him...
He continued to scroll. The vast majority of shots were shoulders upwards. All very modest. Even the pictures of her friends were headshots. Either individually or when she was with another of her friends, he started paying attention to the backgrounds. One of her friends was wearing some fancy floral thing in her hair, and in one of the shots, the same flower was in the background, throwing what might have been a beach ball or something. It was hard to tell, given that the shot was focused mostly on Ada’s face and a beach parasol obscured most of the background. Her friend was wearing a skimpy bikini bottom, and although her back was turned and her hair was long, there was no sign of a bikini top.
“Jesus fuck... ”
Luca looked at some of the pictures that Ada wasn’t the focus of, and located her in the background of a few of them. Again, it was a shot where she was turned away from the camera, but her hair was shoulder-length, and the expanse of her back was bare. There was no denying that she and the other girls had been cavorting around on the beach topless. That explained the careful framing of the photographs to only focus on shoulders and heads.
He was rock hard and rolled over onto his front, pushing his erection into his bed. He was glad she had never asked him to go, as the sight of her topless was something he doubted he could handle. Hell, he would never have left the sea until they had all left the beach, had he been there...
It was confusing. He felt a need to do something, but had no idea as to what. He looked through the pictures available to him. Thankfully, they were all devoid of a close male presence, which did little to quell the jealousy he felt. It could be that they existed, but they had not been posted, or they had a really select audience. It wasn’t as if there weren’t any males on the beach. They were there in the background. Various ages. He knew that other countries had a slightly more relaxed nature to women topless on beaches than the UK did, but still.
He scrolled back to some of her selfies where she looked really happy and carefree, and after a hesitant pause, liked them.
A few seconds later, his phone buzzed in his hand. A text message. He closed the Social Media app and made his way to his text messages. It was from Ada. He opened it. It was a single heart emoji.
What the fuck did he reply to that with? He thought about it for a long while and eventually decided to just ignore it.
There were just two weeks left of the summer holidays before the new term, and a new chapter in his life started. Luca tried not to think about it, as it made him feel sick. Things were not helped by the internal admission that he was using gaming as a mental crutch. A form of avoidance.
His phone rang.
Now that was an abnormality. He paused his game and reached over to pick it up. It was Ada. Luca removed his headphones.
“Oh, hi, Ads, what’s up?” There was no immediate reply. “Ads?”
“Did you find accommodation?”
“Umm, I found a room...”
“Oh.”
To Luca, it sounded like she was close to tears.
“Did you?” Luca asked.
“No! They are all so expensive! I don’t know what to do!”
Neither did Luca.
“Look, can I phone you back in a few minutes Ads?”
“I suppose...”
“I’ll phone you back. I promise...” Luca hung up. The sickness was back with a vengeance. Even his hands were trembling.
He pushed his chair back, the wheels running along the furrows they had won into the carpet. He closed his eyes, tried to gather his courage. His parents were downstairs in the living room. The TV was on quietly as his mother watched, trying her hand at knitting, which she had recently got into.
His younger sister was in room, he heard her singing as he walked past her closed door. His father was at the dining table, typing away on his laptop, the table covered with paperwork.
“Mum, Dad?” His voice broke as he was speaking, which was annoying. They both turned to look at him.
“What’s up, love?” his mother asked, concerned, alerted by the tone of his voice and years of intuition.
“You know, how you said the other room in the flat was empty, and I could find someone for it?”
“Yes, love...”
His father didn’t say anything, but quietly closed the lid on his laptop, signalling in his own way, that he had his father’s full attention.
“How about if that person was, you know, er, um, what I mean to say is, arghh!” Luca shook himself “Can the other person be Ada?” It felt so much easier now that he had said it. His parents turned to look at each other, and Luca felt that an entire novel had passed between them in seconds. His mother turned back to him.
“I don’t see why not. She’s a lovely girl, and we’ve known her since kindergarten. The two of you have been inseparable at times. She’s almost part of the family. What say you love?” his mother turned to his father, who shrugged.
“Someone has to keep an eye on him, and we won’t be there...”
“Like, really!” his heart felt like it was about ready to explode. “Umm, what about rent and, um, stuff...”
“Well,” His father paused, “if she is going to be your babysitter, I think the same rent as you will be fair...”
“Really! I mean, that’s err ... Mum, Dad, are you like serious?”
His father nodded, “I have no issue, unless your mother...”
Luca turned to his mother, who shook her head.
“I’ll...” Luca froze for a moment in panic. “Umm, I’ll go and tell her.” He raced for the front door, reached it, and remembered his phone was still upstairs. Turned round and raced up the stairs, taking them four at a time. He burst into his room like a dervish, knocked over his chair as he grabbed his phone, ran back to his door, stopped, turned back, ran over and re-righted his chair and ran back down the stairs and out the front door, shutting it with more force than he meant.
In the living room, Luca’s father looked to his wife and raised both eyebrows. She shook her head and spoke.
“It took him long enough...”
Outside, Luca grabbed his bike and cycled like a maniac down the road, almost becoming a road casualty twice in the process. At Ada’s, he cycled up the short garden path, dismounting as he did so. He dropped and abandoned his bike on the front lawn as he stabbed at the doorbell with one finger, breaking the fingernail in the process.
Her mother answered.
“Oh, hello, Luca. We’ve not seen you around much lately.”
To Luca, it sounded a little reproachful. He didn’t know why.
“Are you here to see Ada?” Luca nodded as he still hadn’t caught his breath. “She’s a little under the weather at the moment. I’m not sure she is taking visitors. Do you want me to ask?”
“Please...”
She turned and shouted up the stairs.
“Ada! Luca is here. Do you want me to send him up?”
Luca heard a door open upstairs, but he couldn’t see her room door from where he was standing. Whatever the response was, it must have been visual as her mother stepped to the side.
“Thanks...” He managed to utter between gulps of air to her mother. He kicked off his trainers at the door and took the stairs two at a time as his thighs were burning.
Ada was sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes red and puffy. He sat next to her but didn’t know whether to put an arm around her or not. She took the decision from him by doing so herself.
“Ads.” Luca pulled his phone out, unlocked it and swiped through his pictures. “My parents have a flat near Glassgreen College. It’s two rooms, here,” he held up his phone so that she could see the screen. He flicked to a picture showing one of the bedroom doors. “The rooms have their own locks and ensuite showers, so you will have, umm, your own privacy. The kitchen and living area are shared, and” he swiped through the few pictures he had, showing the kitchen and living area, “um, you will need to pay your half of the utilities ... If you are interested? Mum and Dad said it was okay.”
She pulled back, looked at him for a second and then punched him hard in the chest.
“Oof...”
“You said you’d phone me back...” and then she burst into tears.
Luca put his single bag in the back of the car. Most of the space in his bag was taken up by his console and the disks of the games he was currently playing.
It was Sunday evening, and he had a full week before the start of the term. He would have preferred to have spent it at home, but Ada was desperate to get to their new accommodation. Luca couldn’t really see why, but she had pressurised him to go early. His parents hadn’t objected, and neither had Ada’s. So here he was, about to get in the car for the short journey to Ada’s.
The car was strangely quiet. No one was saying anything or felt compelled to. Even his normally boisterous thirteen-year-old sister was subdued. His dad parked up outside Ada’s, and they all got out, the front door opening and Ada’s mum came out to greet them.
Leaving all the adults and his sister downstairs, Luca made his way up to Ada’s room. He knocked and entered when she said he could come in. She was sitting on her bed surrounded by packed bags.
“Holy fuck, Ada!”
“What?”
“You know we will be coming back at least once a month, right?”
“Yes, but I might need something.”
Luca opened his mouth, decided a reply wasn’t worth it and closed it again.
“Do you want a hand taking these down?”
“Please.”
“Have you finished packing?”
“I think so.”
“Which bag has the sink? I’ll leave that till last.”
She punched him on the arm.
It took him many trips, and he was forced to pile the remainder up in the middle of the backseat and the floor.
Ada hugged her parents like it was her last goodbye with them, and Luca waved to his sister, who was staying behind under the watchful eye of Ada’s parents until Luca’s parents returned to collect her.
His father looked at the back seat, and the bags piled up in the middle.
“At least I won’t have to worry about any funny business between the pair of you on the way...”
“Dad!”
Lucas had nodded off on the journey. Motorways were boring to look out onto, and he only woke up when the car came to a stop and the engine turned off.
The streets were quiet. It was late on a Sunday and term had not started, so there were few students.
Everyone pitched in with Ada’s luggage, which was just as well, Luca decided, as his parents’ flat was at the top of the building and there was no lift.
“Take care of yourself and listen to Ada.”
“Yes, mum...”
She let him go and opened the car door, sliding into the passenger seat.
“No staying up late playing games. And study!”
“Yes, mum.”
She shut the door and rolled down her window. “Any problems, call me.”
“Yes, mum.”
“I mean it.”
“I know, Mum.”
“And stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, mum...”
“And keep the door to the flat locked at all times.”
“Yes, mum...”
He watched and waved till his father’s car was out of sight, before he turned and headed back up the stairs for what felt like the hundredth time.