The Hot Floor (21 page)

“Nah, we wanted to wait for you. Don’t want to hassle you, but my belly’s flapping against my backbone. Reckon I’ll end up shaking the house down if I don’t get some grub in me.” Evan eyed my ceiling as he spoke, as if worried it might cave in on us. “You ready now?”

“Yeah, that’d be great. I’ll hop in the shower while we wait, if that’s all right.” I grabbed the last set of clean clothes from my chest of drawers. “Shit. Gotta go to the launderette tonight.”

“You can use our washing machine,” Evan said.

“I’m already imposing enough on you guys.”

“Josh, just use the sodding washing machine, all right? It’s what it’s there for, washing clothes.” I didn’t often hear Evan impatient, so I nodded meekly and followed him down the stairs.

I never did dare ask what they’d been discussing, and they didn’t mention it themselves, both uncharacteristically subdued. Sex seemed to be off the menu, and Evan suggested a
Scary Movie
marathon after we’d finished off the last spring roll. Rai grabbed his laptop and didn’t complain, which was alarming in itself.

Something odd was going on, but I gave up trying to figure it out and lost myself in the sight of a bunch of shallow teenagers being murdered and the heavy weight of Evan’s arm around my shoulders.

Since staying with Rai and Evan, I hadn’t had any notes in my pigeon hole, so I was surprised to see the folded piece of paper there when we got home the following evening.

“Not guilty this time,” Rai said, throwing his hands wide.

“It’s from Stella,” I muttered, scanning the note. It was tough to read the spidery handwriting, but I’d looked through enough of her ancient photo albums with her now to recognise the old-fashioned ways she shaped her letters. “Sounds like she’s having trouble with her oven. Do you want to go up, and I’ll see you in a bit?” I knocked on Stella’s door as I spoke, but Rai refused to budge.

“I’ll come with you, if you like. Might be useful.”

“I didn’t think you knew your way around an oven.”

“I don’t, but I can keep Stella out of your way while you have a look.”

Stella ushered us in with a wavery smile before launching into a torrent of abuse about our landlord.

“That horrible little man doesn’t know how to look after his tenants. He told me I had to buy a new oven myself or get a microwave. A microwave, I ask you! I told him I’d sooner buy food grown around Chernobyl than decimate it in one of those things.”

“They’re perfectly safe. They wouldn’t be able to sell them if they weren’t,” Rai chipped in.

“Oh, when you get to be as old as I am, you’ll stop believing everything they tell you. I read an article about it, you know. In the
Ecologist
. Or was it
Ethical Consumer
?”

Rai rolled his eyes at me from behind Stella, but there was no derision in his voice when he asked her to come and sit down and tell him all about it.

The oven was one of those ancient freestanding electric things with the exposed metal heating coils on the hob. I saw Stella had switched it off at the wall, so I turned it back on again.

POP!

Sparks sizzled out of the wall plate as I snatched my hand back. “Fuck!”

“Language, young man,” Stella called through, then giggled. Yeah, her mouth was as filthy as a standup comedian’s when she got going.

“Where’s your fuse box?” I asked, heading back into the living room. There was no way I was touching the oven or that switch again until the whole circuit was disabled.

“Fuse box? Oh, in the lobby. Up high. You might need a chair to stand on.”

“You know where your fuse box is?” Rai sounded awestruck. “I don’t have a clue where mine is.”

“Yes, well, that’s because you’re a work-shy scoundrel and you rely on your big, strapping boyfriend to do all the work for you. Don’t even try to deny it, young man.”

“You’ve wounded me, Stella. Work-shy indeed! Do you even realise how much work it takes to keep that giant hunk of a man satisfied?”

“I can only imagine,” Stella replied, wistfulness tinting her words.

“I’ll bet you can. You might look demure, but I bet you were a wildcat when you were younger, weren’t you?”

From the tiny entrance lobby I heard Stella cackle, and Rai exclaiming, “I knew it!” before going on to demand details,
now
.

I snorted at Rai’s theatrics as I stood on tiptoes to open the fuse box. Christ, this thing was ancient too. It had the old-style fuses where you had to fit your own wire in when they blew. I disabled the one marked Kitchen since there wasn’t a separate circuit for the oven. I stared at the mass of exposed cables tacked onto the wall below the box. That was what we all had to cope with here—mains voltage cables that hadn’t been safely buried under plaster or boxed in like you had to these days. This must have been how the house was originally wired up. Even the toggle switches for the overhead lights had their cables tacked onto the walls next to them. It struck me, and not for the first time, that I was living in a building that should be condemned.

“Have you fixed it, dear?” Stella asked brightly.

“Sorry. It’s a wiring problem. You’re going to need to get an electrician in.”

“Bloody buggering bastards! Are you sure? Maybe that Evan of yours could have a look.” She glanced at Rai as she said it, but then back to me again.

“I don’t think so,” I replied, a little hurt that she counted Evan as Rai’s rather than mine too. I mean, I know he was Rai’s, and she wouldn’t have any idea of the situation we were experimenting with upstairs, but still, I longed to have my relationship with the two of them acknowledged in some way. “Evan’s got no training in electrics. It’s too dangerous to go messing around with if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“So, can I use my oven in the meantime?”

“Sorry. I don’t think you’ll be able to use any of the electrical sockets in there either. I had to disable the whole kitchen circuit.” I hated being the cause of Stella’s crumpled expression. “I’ve got an extension lead I can bring down for you, though, so at least the fridge and the kettle can plug in somewhere.”

“We can help you out,” Rai offered. “Me and Josh are getting pretty good at cooking. We could bring you something down every evening.”

“Oh, that’s very sweet of you to offer, but I don’t want to be any bother.”

“Seriously, it’s no trouble to make an extra portion, is it, Josh?”

The two of them looked up at me, Rai imploring, Stella inquisitive. There was a question in her beady eyes I didn’t know how to answer.

“Um, no. It’s no trouble.”

“So you’re cooking together now, are you?” Stella asked, barely managing to conceal her fascination.

“Yep, Josh is staying with us at the moment. He’s got no bathroom right now.”

“Yes, he told me about that. He didn’t tell me you were putting him up, though.”

I directed my gaze out of the windows, willing my cheeks to calm down. It was a relief to turn down Stella’s offer of tea and get out of there, using the excuse that we needed to get cooking. That woman saw way too much.

Chapter Seventeen

“I’ve got my end-of-semester departmental meeting on Thursday night,” Rai announced to me and Evan from somewhere near the foot of the bed. I could feel his head moving on my thigh as he spoke. The heat and the blinding orgasms we’d all just had had robbed the room of any energy. Now we lay tangled in our post-daisy-chain languor, Rai’s words making no sense to my fuddled brain.

“Huh?” Evan’s spent cock brushed against my cheek as he moved to prop his head up on one hand. “Again?”

“It’s been about five months since the last one, sweetie.”

“Oh, right.”

“I was thinking,” Rai said, his voice strangely hesitant. “You two should go out together. Do something special.”

“Not without you, love. We don’t need to.” Evan sat up properly, and I followed suit, leaning back against the headboard and hugging my knees. There were undercurrents in the look those two were giving each other, and I didn’t want to get dragged into anything I couldn’t cope with.

“No, that’s just it. I think you do need to.” Rai sat cross-legged at the end of the bed, facing us both. “I think I need you to. To prove that it’s okay, that I can handle it.”

“You don’t have to prove owt,” Evan reassured.

“Yes, I do. But not just that. I was thinking. You and me, we’ve had lots of alone time together over the years, and me and Josh, we’ve been walking back home together every day and cooking and all that.” Rai gave me a significant glance, and I blushed, remembering our activities while cooking earlier. Since the phone-sex incident, I’d been happy to indulge in a little hanky-panky with Rai when we got home together, and Evan seemed to enjoy finding us in a state of aroused excitement when he finally clocked off.

But Rai was still talking, so I got my mind back off the smut track.

“But you and Josh, well, you don’t get much of a chance to spend time together. I think you need that. A bit of couple time.”

Couple time? My heart flipped, but I figured it was just a typical Rai turn of phrase. Best not read anything into it. “We watch movies together,” I said. I’d felt uncomfortable snuggling up on the sofa with Evan at first, especially with Rai in a chair on his own, but it was getting easier each time Rai demonstrated he was fine with it.

“Yeah, but I’m always sitting in the corner on my laptop, aren’t I? It’s not like you’re properly alone.” Rai’s voice was earnest, all trace of his usual playfulness gone. “I want… I mean, if this is to work, long-term, then you two need to bond as well. And I need to deal with my green-eyed demons.”

“You’re sure?” Evan asked, his voice mingling hope and tenderness as he reached to take Rai’s hand.

“I’m sure,” Rai replied. “What about you, Josh? Think that’s a good idea?”

I realised they were both holding out their hands to me. I let go of my knees and took their hands instead, emotion choking my throat. Long-term. They were thinking
long-term.
I didn’t dare ask what they meant by that. “Yep. I’d like that, if it’s cool with you.”

So that was how I found myself on a romantic early dinner date with Evan Truman. I’d bought Stella a fancy salad from Waitrose so she didn’t go hungry, then hurried out to meet Evan. He’d knocked off work early and come to meet me at the Hop Pole, a pub on the route home with a great traditional menu and a cosy riverside beer garden. The food was great, and Evan had made a bit of effort with his appearance and even worn a black, short-sleeved button-down shirt over his faded Levis, but all I could think of while eating was that here I was, on a date with possibly the sexiest guy in Bath, and anyone who knew him would think he was cheating on his boyfriend.

“What’s up?” Evan eventually asked when I dodged his attempt at holding hands by picking up my pint. Again.

“Nothing.” I took another swig to avoid having to explain myself. Shit, I was going to get really drunk at this rate.

Evan just raised his eyebrows as he sat back in his wrought-iron chair. “What I meant was, is there any particular reason you don’t want me touching you in public? You’re out, aren’t you?”

I wished he’d keep his voice down, but the surrounding diners seemed happy with their own conversations for now.

“I just… I’m worried someone you know might see you.” I thought the implications were obvious, but Evan just stared at me like he didn’t know what was going through my head. “They’d think you were cheating on Rai.”

“They can think what they like. We both know I’m not. Rai knows that.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Do you really care that much about what the rest of the world thinks?” Evan leant forward and dropped his voice, and his hand… It landed on my thigh. “Surely we’re the only ones that really matter, and if we’re cool, then it’s fine.” Warmth communicated itself from his touch throughout my body, pooling in my groin and my heart. I would have kissed him then, if he’d leant forward just a tiny bit more.

“Is it what Rai thinks that bothers you?” Evan asked, killing the moment. “I should give you the lowdown. What made him that way, as far as I can tell.” He scratched the back of his neck, staring at the remnants of his pie and mash.

“Go on, then. I’m listening.”

“Not here.” Evan cast an uneasy glance around the busy beer garden. “How about a walk by the river?”

I nodded, and we headed out of the back gate and onto the towpath. The sky was that washed-out blue of a clear summer evening, just before the sunset colours take over. There were a few other people strolling along the path, but we found a quiet spot by walking out of town a way and then scrambling under the barrier to sit on a flat rock at the water’s edge. The opposite bank was taken up with warehouses and crumbling stone walls, but some scrubby buddleia bushes clung on to the sheer surfaces, giving the view a melancholy beauty.

Kind of fitting for a conversation like the one that was about to start.

“Okay,” Evan began, clearing his throat. “Well, it goes back to before we were together. I was… How can I put this? A bit of a stud. I’d do any guy who offered. I mean, I didn’t even need to go cruising. They came to me.”

“I’ve heard the stories.”