I supposed "cruisey" wasn't really what you wanted, if you were in a relationship. Was it what I wanted?
"But Steve likes to go a bit further out-down to Brighton, mostly."
Brighton? That was a long way to go for a pint. No wonder they didn't want to make that trek too often. "Is it pretty lively there?" I'd heard it was the San Francisco of the South of England-but then again, I'd also heard Manchester described as the Venice of the North, so I was taking this one with a pinch of salt.
"Yeah … it's fun, but it's not like going somewhere local, you know? Somewhere your mates go too."
A bit like Southampton was for me, then-although, in my case, that was a selling point. "What are your plans for the afternoon?" I asked, thinking we'd probably spent as much time on gay stuff as was safe.
"Oh, you know." Matt made a vague gesture with a bit of bread and cheese, then frowned as his cheese fell off and went through a gap in the slats of the table. "Bit of gardening, bit of food shopping. Nothing exciting. You?"
"Might get the bike out-I probably need to get in some practice before tomorrow night."
Matt brightened. "You're still up for that, then? I told the lads you'd be coming. Adam's looking forward to seeing you again."
"Oh?" I couldn't imagine why. Of course, any enthusiasm expressed by Adam was undoubtedly relative. A word of two syllables, perhaps, or maybe even a distinguishable vowel sound.
I was sorry to leave the pub when we finally finished our lunch. Matt had cheered up no end since this morning, and I felt proud of myself for having in some small way contributed. Possibly.
I could get used to going out places with Matt.
***
I spent the rest of Wednesday afternoon keeping the shop's books up-to-date. The quarterly VAT return would be due soon, and I didn't want to leave it until the last minute. Luckily Jay had (for once in his life) taken my advice about how to set up his bookkeeping system, so I was easily able to work out where he'd got up to with it all. I tutted as I saw he'd been under-claiming on the input VAT, and corrected his figures with a satisfied flourish. When I had a moment, it looked like it'd be a good idea to go through past returns and see if there was anything we could still claim on.
Still full from lunch, I just had a couple of slices of toast for tea. Wolverine gave me a superior look from his bowl of high-protein fish. I gave him a rude gesture and went off to watch comedy reruns on satellite for half an hour.
My palms were a little sweaty as I got out my gi for karate that evening. Had Pit-bull passed on his poofter judgment to the rest of the class? Would I be given the cold shoulder? Or would it be more along the lines of jokes about not letting me get them on the floor? Loaded questions about whether I preferred attacking or defending, that sort of thing?
Wolverine, gorged on tuna, padded into the bedroom and jumped heavily on the bed. He stalked over to the bedside table, where I'd placed one of Gran's dragon figurines. It was a sleek green dragon, smugly holding a sword in its forepaws and with a knight's discarded armour at its feet. The legend on the base read Tender is the Knight. Wolverine gave it a suspicious sniff.
"I'd have thought you and that dragon would get on like a house on fire," I told him. Wolverine gave me a look as if to say I'd better not be making fun of him and started to knead the duvet into submission.
"Does it bother you that Daddy's a poofter?" I asked him. God, that sounded gay. Although probably not as gay as calling myself "Mummy" would have been.
Wolverine yawned. I hoped the guys at karate, if they'd heard the news, would treat it with the same complete indifference, but I wasn't sanguine about my chances.
When I got there, though, everyone seemed to treat me exactly the same as ever. Did that mean Pritchard hadn't told them? Or they hadn't believed him? It seemed hard to believe that everyone there except him simply found it a non-issue.
Prick-tard himself wasn't actually there, which surprised me. I'd have put him down as the sort of bloke who'd miss his own mother's funeral if it clashed with a training session. It certainly made for a more relaxed evening. Afterwards, I went for a drink at a pub down the road with John, where I studiously avoided all mention of absent enemies and mentioned my break up as a way of bolstering my shaky straight credentials. John chatted happily about his recent divorce and clued me in on a couple of pitfalls to avoid. All in all, I was feeling pretty mellow when I wheeled my bike back down Jay's drive later on.
Even the discovery that Wolverine had left me a present on the doormat didn't ruin the mood. It was-or rather had been-some sort of mouse-like creature. As Wolverine had neatly bisected it down the middle and left me only the rear end, it was a bit hard to tell. Especially since I'd discovered its presence by treading on the little beastie-thankfully, before I'd taken off my shoes.