Page 21 of Hard Tail
Chapter Seven
The next couple of days in the shop were pretty similar to the last, except my taste buds started getting spoilt rotten by Matt bringing me in a packed lunch every day. He wouldn’t let me give him more than a couple of pounds a day, either, making his gourmet efforts cheaper than a supermarket packet of sandwiches.
His eye was healing up nicely, I was glad to see—the bruises had faded to yellow already. I’d decided I’d just been an idiot about the necklace. So he’d lied about where he’d got it—so what? He’d probably thought I’d jump toexactlythe conclusion I had, in fact, jumped to.
Which wasn’t that unreasonable, anyway, was it? I mean, if Jayhadbeen that way inclined, he’d have been bound to find Matt pretty bloody tempting—the cheeky smile, the readiness to help, the adorable klutziness… I sighed. Time to get those thoughts firmly out of my head, before I totally flipped and asked him out on a date for real.
Saturday, we were both rushed off our feet. It seemed like every five minutes someone was either bringing in a bike for repair or servicing, or coming in to pick one up. By the time six o’clock came, I was more than ready to turn the sign on the door around to “Closed”.
“Is it always this bad at the weekend?” I asked a tired-looking Matt.
“Pretty much. It’s the time of year, innit? Everyone’s getting their bikes out of the shed, clearing off the cobwebs and remembering how the chain fell off at the end of last summer and they never got around to getting it fixed.”
“Maybe we should start sending reminders round in February,” I suggested as I started to cash up the till. “You know, like the dentist.”
Matt laughed. “Can’t see it catching on.”
He was probably right. “Or…I don’t know, offer a discount on winter services?”
“That’s not a bad idea. You should suggest it to Jay. Are you seeing him tonight?”
I groaned. The thought of seeing Jay I could cope with. Dealing with Mum after the day I’d had? Not so much. “Think I’ll give it a miss tonight. Go home, slump in front of the telly.” There was bound to be aPoiroton somewhere. “How about you?” I asked, more out of politeness than because I really wanted to hear about all the fun times Matt was undoubtedly looking forward to with Steve.
“Same, probably. Steve’s working,” he explained.
“Oh? What does he do?”
“He works on the docks.”
Steve was a stevedore? I tried not to laugh.
Matt must have noticed my constipated expression. “I mean, he’s a supervisor. It’s a good job.”
“Oh.” I was silent a moment, trying to pluck up my nerve. Which was stupid, as this wasn’t in any way like asking a girl out on a date. Just asking another bloke if he’d like to spend some time together, that was all. As friends. “Listen, why don’t we, er, slump in front of the telly together? Yours or mine, whichever’s easiest. We could get a takeaway, a few beers…” What the hell was I saying? I didn’t evendrinkbeer. It just seemed more of a blokes-together sort of drink than, say, wine. That was a date drink.
And this was most definitely not a date.
Matt didn’t seem unduly worried by my dithering and false heartiness. His face lit up like I’d bought him a puppy. “That’d be great! Um. It’d probably be better to go to yours, if that’s okay?”
“No problem. Do you know the way? We could go straight there—I’ll be finished here in a mo.”
Matt nodded. “You’re at Jay’s, right? I’ve been there loads of times.” He headed off to pick up his battered green Ford Focus that had the back seats permanently down, the better to accommodate bike frames.
I finished what I was doing, locked the shop and drove the BMW back to Eling. As expected, I found Matt on my doorstep, but he was hopping from one foot to another, looking like he’d just ridden three hundred miles on an unpadded saddle. “Everything all right?” I asked.
“I. Um. Sorry. I can’t stay.”
“Has something happened?” I was a bit worried, he looked so miserable.
“No—no, it’s just… I rang Steve, just to check when he’d be in, and he asked where I was going, so I told him, and then he said he’d be home early after all, so I’d better get back.”
“Oh. Right.” It must have been the exhausting day that was making me feel disappointed out of all proportion to the event. “No—that’s fine. I mean, of course you want to be with your… And it’s not like we were doing anything special, anyway.” I told myself to get a grip, and gave him a smile that hopefully didn’t look as fake as it felt. “I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”
“Yeah, see you then.” Head down, Matt slouched down the path back to his car.
I didn’t feel like getting a takeaway just for me, so after I’d grilled some chicken breast for Wolverine—I’d started to worry an unvaried diet of tuna might not really be healthy for him—I nuked a ready meal and sat down with it on the big, empty sofa. Wolverine jumped up beside me, took a sniff at my meal and backed away hurriedly, taking his chicken breath with him. I flicked through the channels until I found something I could bear to watch—some car-crash TV program about embarrassing ailments that fed my innerschadenfreudein a misery-loves-company sort of way. “At least I’ve got you, hey?” I said to the cat.
Wolverine cast me a withering glance and hopped off the sofa to lick at his nether regions.
