Page 37 of Freshman

“So?”

She shrugged. “I want to see you happy, Alfie, and I think if you give him a chance, he could do that.”

“Tia…” He bit his lip. “I just want to have a fun night with you. Max, he’s cool, he’s a nice guy, but he’s not my type.”

“And what is your type?”

Freshman.

“I don’t know,” he said, taking another mouthful of coffee. Tia studied him, whipping her gaze up and down as Alfie tried not to choke under her scrutiny.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She looked away. “We’ll find you someone…someone good.”

She put emphasis on the word and stared at him like she knew, then she smiled.

“Actually, I need you to tell me what’s your favourite dress out of the five I’ve narrowed it down to.”

“Five?”

“Yep,” she said with an annoyed squint. She tugged her phone from her pocket and scrolled through the images, and like that, they were back to normal.

Alfie tapped his knuckles to Nate’s door with a smile growing on his lips.

“How are you this morning, Freshman?”

He shrugged and ticked off Nate’s name. “Can’t complain. I’ve just spoken to Queenie, after all.”

Nate tutted, and Alfie rubbed his mouth to halt his laugh.

“I was wondering, what do you drink?”

Alfie frowned. “Why do you want to know?”

“If I met you in a pub and asked to buy you a drink, I wondered what you’d pick, that’s all.”

Alfie opened his mouth to reply, but Nate got there first.

“Please say it’s not one of those alcopops or flavoured cider.”

A flash of humiliation struck Alfie’s cheeks. They were his preferred drinks. They were sweet, mostly fizz-free, and didn’t intoxicate him like beer did.

“I would decline your offer and move along the bar,” Alfie muttered.

Nate laughed. “No, you wouldn’t. You would blush and say something stupid like, ‘whatever you’re having’, and I’d get a whisky and watch as you knocked yours back with a gasp and a splutter.”

The blush on Alfie’s face intensified. The first time he had whisky, he had done just as Nate described. Whisky was as pleasant as swallowing a lit match.

“I’d rub your back until you stopped spluttering, and you’d try to flee in embarrassment, but I wouldn’t let you. I’d wipe the sticky whisky off your lips with my thumb and bring it to my mouth to taste. It would taste sweet. Sweet because it touched you. I’d need more and would forget about my thumb and taste the whisky on your lips with mine.”

The clunk of the gate below woke Alfie from the fantasy, and his eyelashes fluttered when he reopened his eyes. He hadn’t even realised he had closed them, wasn’t aware that he had leaned against the cell door, ear as close to Nate’s voice as he could get.

Alfie straightened and blanked his mind of any lust. “I would push you away and call security.”

He turned to walk away, but Nate spoke again, voice no longer his low drawl but normal.

“I’ve got something for you,” Nate said by the top hinge.

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