Chapter 14

In the morning Andrew said his goodbyes and Matt drove him down to the bus station.

“Thanks for coming down Mac. I was finding the guys I used to hang out with a bit of a pain after three weeks, it was good to get a break from them for a couple of days. I will see you in Cambridge next weekend.”

Andrew thought about that phrase as he sat on the bus. Just as he was finding Edinburgh tough and Pedro was worried about finding Madrid tough, so it seemed Matt was the same. The most noticeable thing was it was three utterly different backgrounds and different areas, even a different country. But like generations of students before them, they were growing up and suddenly the familiar of home no longer was as appealing. There was nothing revelatory about any of that it was just initially very surprising that he was not alone in feeling that way. What it all meant Andrew didn’t know but it was another clue that some of what he was feeling and going through was not unique.

Andrew wondered about the welcome he would get from Abi. She had seemed pleased to hear from him but Paris loomed large. Her actions towards Heloise were confusing and now that the prospect of the shoot was over and that she had seen the reality, he wondered where they were going. The kiss that Abi gave him at the bus station took away a lot of doubts!

“I will have to visit more often if that is the welcome.”

She grabbed his arm and they walked to where she had parked the car.

“It is good to see you Andrew. How long did you stay with Matt?”

Andrew had to stop and work out which day it was, over the holidays the days had started to blend into one.

“I came down overnight on Sunday and was there Monday afternoon, so four nights.”

The general chit chat of the holidays got them out of Bristol and on the road to Chipping Sodbury.

“I am glad you called, and stopped by, the holiday was starting to drag. Mum and Dad will be pleased to see you though.”

She suddenly giggled.

“It may calm them down to have a guest in the house. Paris was like a second honeymoon for them, they have been.”

Her shudder was eloquent testimony to what her parents had been up to.

“So has your dad been lifting weights, building up his strength?”

Her squeal was filled with laughter.

“Thanks for that image. Nobody needs to think about their parents that way!”

“So I shouldn’t ask your mum if she is afraid of heights.”

Despite the fact Abi was driving in traffic whacks were duly administered. Of course they were giggling like eight year olds when they got to the house much to the confused amusement of Pam and Dan. Just like with Helena he was shown a guest suite at the back of the house on the ground floor. But there things diverged.

“They know we are going to sleep together, this just allows them the fig leaf of appearances, plus it is about as far away from their room as it is possible to get. Better for all four of us.”

Andrew lifted Abi into his arms, supporting her under her arse, pushed her against the wall and kissed her for many minutes. When they finally broke apart Abi looked at him.

“Wow Andrew, that was fantastic, what brought that on?”

He just kissed her again.

“I am going to end up doing the Victorian maiden with the vapours act if you keep that up. I need to go and see if I can bribe Mum and Dad to go for a really long walk.”

Andrew dropped Abi back onto her feet and smiled. Lunch was fun and lighthearted, the quiet of the house such a nice change to the constant chaos of Matt’s family.

“When I turned up on Monday afternoon it was crazy. Matt has three siblings and they all had people over, I think there were 15 of us for dinner on New Year’s Eve. Bonkers. But Mrs. Tunney seemed very un-phased by it. But there were pre-teen and early teen boys running around trying to get the attention of the teenage girls, all of whom were ignoring them and trying to get the attention of me and Matt. We retreated to the pub and left them to it.”

“That bad?”

“Listen to me, I escaped from all the women trying to get my attention.”

Andrew shook his head.

“No not really, just, I don’t know, pointless. It is part of growing up but it felt a bit desperate. And after having been away at university, they seemed incredibly young. We would have gone to the pub anyway, even if the house was empty. For nearly everyone I met I was the first Scotsman they had ever spoken to. One or two had seen some tourists walking about but sitting in the pub chatting to a local? No one. I felt less of a stranger in Paris”

Later when they headed off for the inevitable walk she started with the kiss.

“Was that why you kissed me with so much passion, need?”

“Lots of reasons I think Abi. It has been a very disjointed and not very calm break. And it is not just me either. Even before we left Cambridge Pedro and I spent a lot of time talking about life at our respective homes, the difference to our life at Trinity. Matt was the same, getting fed up with the guys from back home. My friends Leslie and Julian had their engagement party and as far as I could see it was for their parents not for them. So, just a sense of life moving on, College and University life being ever more important. As for the kiss, I don’t know. This is why we are out walking and talking, trying to figure out what Paris meant and what next term brings.”

“That cuts to the chase. I am glad we had a four week break and I could get Paris out my system. I let it consume me towards the end of last term. I am so glad I got to see it, all of it, but as it fades into the rear-view mirror I am also glad it is over. It was a fantasy brought to life but it is not real in so many ways. It is not my life, it is not even your life, it is just a crazy adventure.”

“That is a good way of thinking about it. I do not think I will do anything like that again. You being there swamps a lot of the memories and helps it fade. I will see what the final commercials look like but that is it. It is a complication which I just don’t have the time for, but maybe more importantly I don’t have the mental or emotional energy for either. Too much baggage.”

“Heloise?”

“Yes, but not just her. The pressure to help Joelle as well, the pressure of dealing with Chiara, all of that.”

“You want to talk about the Saturday night though.”

“Of course. It, more than anything, has confused me about us.”

Abi walked in silence for a long time.

“At first, I was just amazed to be talking to, and enjoying conversation with, someone I had only seen in magazines. But there was a connection between us. She said she enjoyed the chats just as much as I did. And for whatever reason I didn’t feel threatened by her, I didn’t really feel threatened by any of them, which is odd. But Heloise talked about you so sweetly, with such candour I decided to help her. She is a lonely woman and what you did that night for her was such a kind thing. For someone so masculine you are very unthreatening. But what that all means I don’t know.

“We are not a couple, there is no confusion about that but you have a lot of the characteristics of what I want in a man. But at the same time you are the only man I have had sex with, Gareth was such a pathetic one minute fiasco he can be ignored. At 19 I know I still have a lot of growing up to do. So how Paris translates to this term? I have no clue. I know that I have to make more of an effort to go out with other guys, to try and understand men. I need to face up to the fact that there are more Gareths than there are Andrews.”

There was another long pause.

“When I say it like that I wonder why I am bothering and why I am not going full bore with you. But it seems too young, too soon.”

She squeezed his hand as they walked.

“Do you want to stop having sex, just return to being friends?”

A huge sigh.

“I should but I like fucking you. You are damn good at it, you make me feel fantastic and it is helping me push myself but at my own pace. I know what you and Helena did last year and yet you have pushed for nothing, you have let me figure things out for myself. Plus you have shown me how good sex is, opened Pandora’s box as it were and I don’t want to give that up.”

She snorted.

“Listen to me, I want a friend, someone who can cope with me seeing and potentially fucking other people, but also someone who can make my head spin whenever I want. Under greedy in the dictionary there is a picture of me.”

“It is not like either of us are going into this blindfolded. Don’t stress about it. A lot of what you talk about I think about myself later. I am no closer to sorting all this stuff out either.”

That night Abi came down to Andrew’s room as soon as her parents went to bed, no sneaking around, no pretence, just basic courtesy. It was clear that the photoshoot and commercial had fired up Abi’s imagination, and her sexual imagination. Because suddenly the Abigail from the start of term was back, once they had taken the edge off themselves it was one fuck and then cuddling. That sounds like Andrew was complaining but it was more an observation. Abi was still earth-shatteringly attractive and had great just fucked hair and so to see her lying on his chest with a happy smile of contentment was an incredible feeling. He was the only man who had ever seen this, ever made her feel this way. Did he miss Helena’s endless sexual energy? Yes he did, but it was moments like this that made up for it.

Abi looked even more beautiful in the morning, just ball-achingly sexy. They could hear her mother in the kitchen so Andrew put her pillow on his chest as she rode him and got whacked for his pains. Five minutes later she had her head buried in it as she came loud and hard and all that got him was another whack for looking ‘so fucking smug’. Andrew did his exercises with a naked audience before heading to the attached bathroom. Ten minutes later he walked into the kitchen to be met by a smirking Pam.

“Good morning Andrew. Hungry?”

It was hard not to laugh at the blatant teasing.

“I am always hungry first thing in the morning.”

Pam just laughed and left him with a box of Weetabix and a gallon of milk. Not coincidentally Dan arrived for his breakfast then and they were both finished before Abi came back down, freshly showered and trying, and failing, to look innocent. Dan and Andrew were chatting away.

“So what are you planning while you are in London Andrew?”

“I will stay with Jim and Freya and try and see Jim’s daughter Moira and her fiancé Lars before they return to Iceland. He is doing a PhD in, well I am not sure what actually but it has something to do with volcanos. I will confirm with Justin that it is still okay to stay there and will probably head down on Thursday. His dad will give us a lift back to Cambridge on Saturday. I need to check he is back from the US.”

Abi explained about Judy and the long distance relationship they were trying to make work.

“She is completing her 4^th year in the US and he is here?”

“I think he spent Christmas with her on Long Island. Actually now that I come to think about it, she is Jewish so I don’t even know if they celebrate Christmas. Not the religious part but the whole presents and holiday thing. I’ll have to ask him.”