Page 55 of Hot to Go

‘Are you calling me some rowdy city type?’ she asks, laughing.

‘I’m saying that you need somewhere that will keep all of this entertained,’ I say, pointing at her up and down. And close to us, but I don’t dare say that aloud. Brooke leaving home would be a big shift in our dynamic. When Max moved in with Amy, it was only fifteen minutes down the road and he’s still a huge part of our lives, but Brooke going will leave a massive gap. I wonder how Max will cope. I also worry for my pores.

We wander along a big hall with tables set up for societies, student finance and volunteer schemes and I see her face light up as she takes it all in, wanting to be a part of it.

‘You never told us what happened with that girl from your school, by the way?’ she says, as she saunters along, stuffing flyers and free chocolates in her tote. I thought we were supposed to talk to these university people before we take their freebies. Maybe not.

‘Nothing,’ I say, reluctant to give too much away, knowing that ultimately she’s my sister and some of the detail of my last sexual encounter with Suzie can be kept from her.

‘Really?’ she says, disappointment in her voice. ‘But the way Max tells that story, you cried when you came home from holiday thinking you were never going to see her again. He said you texted him every day for two weeks to see if she’d got in touch. You must have been happy to see her again.’ I turn toBrooke and pull a face. ‘What? Max and I have coffee dates in the daytime when you’re at school. He tells me things. I’m helping him plan his wedding.’

‘I was not crying. I’m a little scared of flying and had indigestion.’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘Liar. You’re a big old softie. You cried duringInside Out.’

‘That was a sad film,’ I argue.

‘We were in a cinema. You scared the children,’ she tells me, laughing.

She reaches into her free tote to find sweets and rips the packet open, carefully deciding which ones I’m allowed to have. ‘So the French teacher is a no-go then? It was all sounding so promising.’

‘Well, I think all that promise was based on a one-off experience. Now that I’m working with her and seeing her in an everyday light she’s…’

‘Proper minging?’ she says.

‘No.’ She’s still attractive to me physically but the incident from a few weeks ago haunts me. It makes my penis sad and I didn’t think my penis could have feelings like that. Why didn’t it work? There was some conversational run-up to it all, the back and forth was flowing, it felt like it was still there, but in the harsh light of the real world, it didn’t seem to work. Neither of us showed up. I shrug, hoping I look unbothered. ‘Maybe it was just a fling, the spark sizzled out in Mallorca. Mistake to think something like that could have translated over here.’

‘Translated,’ she says, pointing at me. ‘I see what you did there with your words.’ I laugh, watching as she dismisses a person trying to tell her about the board game society. ‘But it seemed like the stars aligned, no?’ asks me.

‘Sometimes I think fate just has a funny sense of humour. It saw me having uninhibited holiday sex with a stranger andthought, hey, wouldn’t it be funny if you bumped into her again?’

Brooke pulls a face. ‘Too much information, brother. I don’t need to think about that. Were you one of those awful Shagaluf types who did it in the club toilets?’

‘What do you take me for?’ I say slightly offended. ‘I had classy sex.’

‘Like with a bow tie?’

‘And a monocle.’ I can’t go into the sex, at least not with my little sister, but it was only respectable in that we did everything in private.

‘So there’s no chance that it might work out?’ she asks me.

I see the hope in her eyes, the dream of a big romantic happy ending. I like how she wants that for me.

‘I think the moment may have passed. So sorry to disappoint your visions of a YA Netflix series…’

She shrugs her shoulders. ‘And is there anyone else interesting in this school?’ she asks me curiously. The problem with Brooke is that she takes an unhealthy interest in my love life and always has done. When she was sixteen, she signed me up for My Single Friend and in what felt like some dodgy romcom plot, she spoke to several women, auditioning them to be my wife, writing under my profile that I always wore good shoes.No old man loafers on this one.That said, she was also the one who suggested I ask out Krystal when really I should have understood our incompatibility from the start and given her a wide berth.

‘You know, Brooke…maybe this is the universe’s way of telling me to take a break from dating. Focus on my career for a bit.’ The look she gives me in reply is not impressed. ‘I can spend more time with Max. We can do boy things like get season tickets for football and…’

‘Eat kebabs every night and fart on each other’s pillows.’

Her sullen reply makes me smile, but it also makes merealise something. ‘Brooke, are you always so intent on setting me up with someone because you’re worried about leaving us without a woman in the house?’

‘No,’ she says sternly, before secretly smiling. Busted.

‘We will cope without your all-knowing, all-graceful female presence. And we will miss you intensely but I promise we will continue to do all the good things you taught us to do.’

She looks pleased that we’ll miss her. It will be strange not to have her around but not to the point where I should be simply replacing her.

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