I shrug. “Remember whose house I grew up in.”
My dad was in a band in the early eighties. Blink, and you’d have missed their one hit, but it did put him in the Top of the Pops studio in time to meet my mum, who was a Hot Gossip dancer. She made a career out of dancing around in bizarre outfits to songs of the time. It provided me, Tom, and our sister Sally with endless amounts of material for parental piss-taking.
My dad went on to become a very successful songwriter, and our house was always full of rockers wandering around in leather trousers and drinking vodka for breakfast while we ate our Rice Krispies. My favourite was the man who actually joined us for breakfast and poured vodka on his own Rice Krispies.
“I always liked that we were surrounded by music at your house,” he says suddenly. I raise an eyebrow in question, and he waves the shoe in his hand. “My house was so quiet. The only time music was played was when it was Last Night at the Proms.”
“That’s a shame.” I pause. “Although I have to say that heavy metal for breakfast didn’t go down well with the neighbours. And my parents did seem to be stoned for a large portion of the nineties.”
He smiles. “Stoned and welcoming. I think I spent most of my childhood at your house, and they never turned a hair.”
“Probably just presumed you were a child that they couldn’t remember having,” I say. He laughs, and I grin. “At least you weren’t subject to parents’ evening at school. My dad once came to one and pretended to be Australian for the entire session. And let’s never mention the school performance when, right in the middle of my recorder solo, he fell asleep and rolled off his chair.”
He puts the last of his clothes away and stashes his case neatly in the wardrobe, taking the time to organise mine properly. “I think I’ve got you beaten on parents’ evenings, anyway,” he says wryly. “Try and get through one with Derek and Barbara.”
“I think I’d rather peel my eyelids back with a cocktail stick,” I say seriously. “Was it bad?”
“Well, the one where they had a row with the teacher because they thought she should offer night classes to teach me Mandarin—and, of course, she refused—was pretty embarrassing.”
“Wasn’t Mandarin on the curriculum at that expensive private school you went to before you moved near us?”
“Not in the pre-school, no.” I laugh, and he grins. “My parents had taught me all the flags of the world by the time I was two, which was ironic because, at that age, I wasn’t even too sure where I lived.”
“No wonder you’re so epic at pub quizzes.”
“Not quite the outcome of education they were hoping for,” he says wryly. Then he blinks at the TV. “Isn’t that your mum?”
I look at the video that’s now playing on the screen and shrug. “Yep. That’s her. Second spacewoman from the left. I do hope outer space had a warm climate when she visited, or she was going to be very cold in that leotard.”
“I love your mum,” he says affectionately.
“So do I. But I don’t love seeing her vagina so clearly outlined.”
He blanches. “Oh, God.”
I nod. “You see my dilemma, Jack. It’s tough being Arlo Wright.”
Thankfully the cheesy pop tune ends, but not before my mum does the splits while looking sultrily at the camera. I take a photo of the screen and send it to my mum with a message asking her to lay in a new stock of brain bleach. Her response of a one-fingered emoji makes me laugh.
I look up as Jack makes his way to the bathroom. “You having the first shower?” I ask.
“If you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” I say in an overly hearty voice. He shoots me a puzzled look and vanishes into the bathroom.
I hear the shower start and lie back on the bed. “Oh my God,” I say reverently. “Jack Cooper is ten feet away from me, and he’s naked and wet.”
I shake my head at my perviness and grab my iPad to check my emails. Unfortunately, the two adverts for erectile dysfunction and a scam email promising me untold riches if I just contact the person writing are not enough to prevent me side-eying Jack when he comes out several minutes later. The towel clings to his narrow hips, showing off the V-line of his pelvis, while beads of water glisten in the curling hairs on his chest and slide over chiselled abs. If I had a stack of money, I would seriously be making it rain right now.
“Shower’s ready,” he says, scrubbing his head with a smaller towel. His hair settles around his face in inky strands.
“Okay,” I say, and I swear to God, I squeak.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Dry throat,” I mutter and race into the bathroom, banging the door behind me. I eye myself in the mirror. My face is flushed, my eyes dark, and my hair curls in the steam. “Get over yourself,” I tell my reflection. Unfortunately, he’s too busy sluttily inhaling the scent of Jack’s shower gel to pay attention.
“This is a fucking disaster,” I say mournfully.
Half an hour later, we take the lift to the lobby. Jack is wearing jeans and a grey jumper, and I threw on a navy hoodie and a red and blue checked flannel shirt to go with my jeans. Our reflection in the mirrored wall confirms my suspicion that I look like I got my wardrobe from a dustbin.
The lift opens into the lobby, and we step out. I’m looking around for the rest of our party when a heavy weight hits me from behind, and two big arms lift me into the air.
“Shit,” I gasp. “Put me down, Freddy.”
“How did you know it was me?” he says, dropping me to the floor with a thud.
I turn to face him. “Neither Tom nor Jack could bench press a rabbit, let alone my weight. You’re the only suspect.”
“You’re actually right,” he says over Jack and my brother’s protests. “There can be only one.”
“Last heard in Highlander. Thank you, Connor MacLeod, of the clan MacLeod,” I say solemnly.
“They’re weaklings.” He kisses his big biceps and grins at me, and I smile back helplessly because Freddy is lovely.
I was a bit wary of him the first time Tom brought him home from uni for the weekend. He was six-five easily, with huge muscles and close-cropped hair. However, I quickly learnt that he was incredibly easy-going and as sweet as a bag of sugar. Fred hasn’t got a bad bone in his body.
“Tom says he lost you,” I say. “Did you have a good time?”
He grins, not showing any after-effects of what must have been a drinking session. But then, I’ve been to one of his sessions after watching him play rugby on a Saturday afternoon, and I can’t say I remember the following Sunday. And for some reason, I’d slept under my kitchen table.
“Come and meet Diana,” he says, grabbing my hand and towing me after him, making me feel like one of those cartoon characters that moves so quickly their eyes are left behind.
“Who’s Diana?” I gasp.
“My girlfriend.”
“Oh, Fred. And here I was holding out for you.”
He bursts into loud laughter and ruffles my hair. “That saddens me, Arlo. If only I’d known. You and I could have been perfect together. I would have improved your alcohol tolerance, and you could have made me take afternoon naps.”