

Elastic Bands

Tom Hampson

© Tom Hampson 2019. All Rights Reserved.

I

The water splattered and clinked against the ceramic. Justin stood up and glanced down at the bowl. He examined the water... he supposed it would do. He flushed and went to the tap, squeezed some toothpaste onto his brush and dashed it a few times over his teeth. Then he spat into the basin and watched the foaming sludge disappear down the plughole. It would be fine. He had cleaned - the discharge had finally started running clear - as glassy as mineral water, in fact - and this might not even be necessary. He had said he was versatile. It should be fine.

Justin glanced at his phone. Two minutes. Fuck. He needed mouthwash. He swilled, spat. He looked into the mirror and ruffled his hair into a messy look. Then he tried to flatten it a bit. Then he moved a few strands from his eyes. Where was the comb? He moved some strands back in front his eyes. And what was this look? Erotic mysticism perhaps, like a bridal veil. One minute. No time to reconsider. It looked like the questionably erotic-mystic look would have to do.

He brought up the messages and checked (for the third time) that they had said to meet on the street corner. He crept down the stairs and through the house, avoiding the step that croaked violently when crushed underfoot. He opened the door with a darting, urgent tug. It was a mistake.

A sharp crack echoed around the hallway. Picture frames rattled against the walls. A vase on the table trembled precariously, teetering on its thin ceramic base. The noise seemed to echo endlessly.

Who puts the chain on a door that has already been locked twice-over? He didn't think he would miss his university accommodation so much, but he did. Living alone was a novelty still, and the freedom it allowed still managed to surprise and delight him, but when he came home, he found its sudden absence was stark.

He stepped out into the night. It was fresh, one of the lulled December nights between Christmas and New Year, when people bunkered down in their homes with cream liquors and ambitious would-be parents planned the birth of their September superstars. There were distant stars, tiny, like particles of polystyrene scattered on a black tablecloth. It was so cold.

A short distance away headlights swung around a bend. A car slowed, then came to a halt. The engine was rasping gently, but in the silent street it had the volume of a retching industrial generator. Justin walked over. His breath was spewing out in silvery clouds.

A window rolled down.

'Hey.' A voice said from inside. It was deeper than he had expected. Justin thought voices always seemed to emerge with unexpected depth. The moonlight moulded around his face. He couldn't see much, but Justin thought the guy had delicate, attractive features.

'Hey.' Justin said.

'Justin?' The voice asked.

'No.' Justin replied.

'Oh,' the guy said cautiously. He was clearly taken aback. He looked around in nervous jolts. He coughed.

Justin panicked. 'No I'm joking.' He spluttered. 'I mean this place is deserted. Who else would be waiting here? Sorry. It was a bad joke. Terrible even. Alex... right?'

How had he screwed this up so quickly?

It was difficult to tell with certainty in the dark, but Justin thought that he saw the guy smile. After a couple of seconds, he even forced out an artificial, charitable laugh. 'Yes.' He said. He looked around. 'Yes, I'm Alex.' He paused and then took a final panoramic glance around the street, as if afraid he was being watched. 'Do you want to get in? It's too cold to chat like this. I mean I get hypothermia in the refrigerated aisle at the supermarket.'

'Sure.' Justin said. He hurried around the car, opened the passenger door and fell heavily into the front seat. A graceful entrance all round, he thought as he adjusted himself. 'So.' Justin said, after he had clicked his seatbelt into the socket. 'How's it going?'

'Well not much has changed since we messaged ten minutes ago.' Alex replied. He was staring straight ahead at the road. He had started to drive, and the world was nothing but blackness and blots of amber from the headlights.

'Good Christmas?'

'I guess so. Ate too much as usual.'

'Yeah you said.'

'Did I?'

'Yeah, you said gluttony was the only thing keeping your sex drive at bay.'

Alex laughed awkwardly. It grated. Justin thought awkward laughter an excruciating sound: a blend of dishonesty and charity. Obviously Justin used it all the time. 'Did I? Well I guess it's true. I stand by that I suppose. Christmas feasting is the one contraceptive we Catholics are allowed.'

Justin laughed not-awkwardly. It was of sufficient generosity to cover his earlier debt. There was a long silence after his laughter died. 'Where is it you know then?' He asked. Justin had always had a need to fill silences. For him a silence in a conversation was like a pothole in a road.

They had said they would drive somewhere private for their meet-up. Justin was surprised at how quickly the arrangements had been made. Given they had spent days with their conversation swirling around banalities and dead-ends - where they went to University? Did they do stuff with guys often from the app? ('Not that often, no.') Preferences? ('Vers top.') What they were into? And even these dulled messages came after long delays, often with one or the other being online and still not replying, suddenly Alex had asked Justin if he was free that evening.

Or as he more succinctly put it: 'Fun?'

And Justin was up for fun, particularly with someone who could suggest it so efficiently. He had broken up with his boyfriend on the third Monday of November, who had said that he just didn't think it was working out and this way they could both be free for some 'festive fuckery', which in his seasonal mindset Justin thought sounded like a Christmas dessert, perhaps made with fruits and meringue. It had come neither as a shock, nor a complete disappointment, and Justin had declared himself over it by the Thursday. His best friend told him they needed to go out to get him over it. They had gone to a gay bar, risked diabetes on gallons of cheap fluorescent alcopops, and danced to the glittering, limitless anthems of the '80s and '90s.

Guys did come up to him in the bar, letting their eyes linger and draw down his low-cut tee, but he wouldn't be able to hold their gaze. He told himself this was playing hard to get. Turns out this wasn't an effective strategy, and he and Blaine left together, alone, at 2am as 'Believe' returned to the speakers for its triumphant encore. As he left, he flushed with an alien confidence that stemmed from the realisation that he had had more or less overcome the relationship by Thursday, and therefore he probably did believe in life after love, after all. The tears and heartache and headache of the following morning dented this optimistic philosophy only partially.

So he downloaded the app.

He spoke to a few guys in the dying days of the term, and then came home for Christmas. He never felt the solitude of the small town more than when he looked on the app at home. There were guys, but fewer were young, and everyone was far away. In the city, the guys it presented him were always within a couple of kilometres, but he would need a car to reach most of the guys here. He did not have a car. Not that anything could happen if he did reach them. Everyone his age lived with their parents.

Alex was only one of the guys he spoke to. He was his age, at a different university. They had some friends in common, distant ones.

'I'm surprised we didn't meet before now.' Alex had messaged. 'At parties. Think of all the fun we could have had.'

Justin had come out late when he was at University. He did not like to think about such lapsed possibilities since they sometimes made him sad. But this was not the time to unleash such demons. So instead he messaged back: 'Nah you would have been wasted and then wouldn't get it up.' He then added a winking face for safety. He didn't want Alex to think he was an aggressive loon, after all.

'Rude,' Alex replied. 'Guess you would just have had to suck it up until I was ready.'

This was more forward than Justin had expected. He wasn't used to such confident yet subversive flourishes of sexuality. He decided to move the conversation back onto safer ground.

'I think I would have gone and found someone more ready actually. It makes for a more efficient evening.' He added a winking face for safety. He didn't want Alex to think he was a thirsty loon, after all.

'I'm jealous. Nothing makes someone feel more special than being loved efficiently.' Alex replied.

The conversation died. Then abruptly restarted.

'So what you looking for on here?'

'Friends fun... you?' The reply came.

'Same. Just broke up with someone and don't want anything serious.' Justin said. He had typed this automatically. It was the expected answer. His fingers could spasm the sentence out from muscle memory as soon as his eyes saw the question.

'Same. No strings. They never did anyone ever good.'

'Think some people have benefitted from them over the years.' Justin replied.

'Yeah. Like who?'

'Guitarists. Kite-fliers. Cats.'

'Cats aren't people. Actually not sure the others count as people either.'

'Why?'

'Because cats are animals. I can send you some links to useful websites explaining this it if would help?'

Justin sent the thumbs-up. Alex did not say anything then, and Justin grew vaguely anxious as he saw Alex was still online yet choosing not to speak to him. Maybe he should have sent more than a thumbs-up. Was it curt? Where were the links he had been promised? He wanted his links.

'I have a car...' Alex said the next day. It came out of the blue. Justin waited a respectable thirty minutes. Alex replied to his reply instantly. They agreed that a car would work. The conversation went quiet. Anxiety clumped in Justin's stomach again.

The next day, after half a day of radio silence Alex said, quite abruptly: 'So since you brought up ropes... what else you into?'

'I think we were discussing strings.' Justin replied.

'Basically the same thing.' Alex replied. 'Wouldn't you agree?'

'I would say that argument hangs by a thread.'

'Answer the question. What you into?'

Justin thought he knew what Alex meant. In fact, he knew he knew. But he wasn't ready to answer that question. 'What do you mean?' He said.

'Come on you know what I mean - what are you into?'

'You mean like what do I like doing in bed?

'Yeah exactly.' Alex replied.

'I'm really into sleeping.'

'Really bold to let me know that.'

'You?'

'I'll answer when you answer seriously.' Alex said. He then added a winking face for safety.

It turned out that neither were that adventurous. Alex was probably more so. Justin was quite embarrassed with what he was typing at one point that he couldn't look at the screen as he hit send.

Alex sent him a raised-eyebrow smiley then messaged: 'Strange boy. We should try some of them out.'

They stopped talking again, as Christmas arrived, family came, and both were expected at home. Alex also claimed his car was blocked in by his uncle.

Then one evening Alex suddenly messaged: 'Fun?'

Justin was lying on his bed, scrolling listlessly through bland, insignificant news articles. The immediacy of the offer pushed Justin into a frantic panic. He shut the app and pretended he was offline. The prospect of actually doing anything other than talking about sex was alarming. He left his room and went downstairs. He made himself a drink. He picked up a textbook he was supposed to read a chapter of for his course. He started to watch television. It was one of the glossy, sequin-soaked, glittery reality shows. But as he watched all he could think about was his ex-boyfriend stalking through some club. He imagined him catching an eye across the room, his smile displaying the slightest glint of teeth, a beckoning, magnetic flash. He imagined him charming this person, then sleeping with them, and every night a new face was slowly blurring out his. This sequence of decay and pixilation and gradual, determined disappearance made it hard to focus on the television.

He opened the app again. He made himself. He typed: 'Sure'.

'Tonight?'

He tapped quickly before reservation stopped him. 'Sure.'

'Where are you?'

Justin sent his location. They agreed to meet that evening at eleven thirty. Justin's parents went to bed early, and his brother was out. He could just sneak right through the front door and nobody should notice.

Alex put the car in gear and pulled away.

They sat there in silence for the first minute. Then Alex put on the radio. An old pop song began to drift through the car. It was a crooning, drowsy number. He had heard it in adverts.

'Love Angie Greaves.' Alex said. 'Don't know what night-time driving would be like without her.' Justin had no idea who Angie Greaves was and so he didn't reply. They listened to the radio.

'So you done much in the car before.' Justin asked.

'Couple of times... you?' Alex said. He spoke without looking away from the road.

'Couple of times.'

'When you back to University?'

'Early January. Got exams. Not going to go well.'

Polite laughter. Not awkward. 'Same. I'm already planning my excuse for why I should get special measures.'

'What have you come up with?' Justin asked.

'Erm.' Alex shuffled in his seat. 'You know... illness.'

'They won't know how to process such an original excuse.'

Real laughter. Alex glanced over at Justin. 'You know Oscar Wilde said sarcasm was the lowest form of wit.'

'And you value the opinion of someone accused of soliciting men?' Justin said.

They both laughed. Then they went quiet. 'Love Angie Greaves.' Alex said.

Justin could feel a roiling in his stomach. The fact he was so nervous unsettled him, and he felt a sadness since he knew he should not feel nervous, not by now. He wasn't doing it right. What he did not want to say is that the one time in the car had been with his ex-boyfriend. In fact, everything had been with his ex-boyfriend. Alex would be his second guy ever. He was stepping into an unknown that everyone knew and he felt so exposed.

'So,' Alex said, not taking his eyes off the road. 'You're a... jock.'

Justin laughed awkwardly. 'I didn't really know what to put in that bio,' he replied, with strained levity. 'I mean I do sometimes play squash.'

'Not sure squash counts as a jock sport.' Alex said. 'I think you have to be in a team sport to be a jock.'

'Who came up with that rule?'

'The Disney channel. Every high-school movie ever made. Do you even have a jock-strap?'

'Okay I don't have one of those. I guess I fail that test.'

'You should have asked for one for Christmas. It would have been the perfect stocking filler.'

'And I would have filled it nicely.'

'What?'

'Erm... never mind.' Justin quickly looked out the window. He could hear his joke shattering. Perhaps the door was unlocked, and he could just throw himself out?

Alex shuffled in his seat. The lights from the street lamps were streaking through the car, and Justin used each brief pass as an opportunity to glimpse Alex. He was not as he expected him to look, but Justin could not place why. They had shared so many pictures, yet he still bore only a slight resemblance to them. He was taller than he had thought he would be for one. He spoke differently to how Justin expected he would, but maybe that was just that he was more reserved than when sending messages, and that whole hesitance had infected his inflection.

Justin said: 'So you been with many guys before.'

'A few, nothing serious.' Alex replied, shrugging.

'You just don't want serious or something?'

Alex shuffled again. 'No, it's just I don't want anything like that yet. I'm young, need to try things.'

'Just not a relationship?' Justin regretted his question immediately. He sounded like he had already selected the wedding venue.

He laughed. 'Just not that. Anything but that. And not fisting either.'

Justin laughed. 'Did that guy ask you too?'

'Yep. Blocked him. He got a new account. Asked again. Blocked him again.'

'I don't get that. I don't get how people can take something... such a handful.'

'Yeah neither...' Alex said. He formed a fist over the steering wheel and briefly looked at his bunched knuckles. 'I couldn't even take Trump's fist.' He said, almost wistfully.

Justin laughed. 'Where is this place then - where we're going....' His mind was suddenly focused on the task again, and his nerves prickled with fresh intensity.

'It's a car park near the woods. Where that ice cream truck always parks and yet nobody ever seems to go there... at least not when I drive past.'

'Oh yeah. I don't get how he survives. He must sell like five ice creams a day. He's even there in winter. Who's stopping to buy ice creams in winter?'

'Probably selling other products too.' Alex replied. 'It's the perfect cover. Who would suspect an ice cream man? Maybe he just turns on the jingle and the junkies come running. Cash business too. You know what that means.'

'What do you study at University?'

'Politics'

'Are you political?'

'Not since lecture three.'

'Oh.' Justin said. 'Same. Well I do Politics and French.'

'Bon.'

'Tres Bien.' Justin said. 'Let me know if you want that translated.'

'I think I'll manage.' Alex replied. 'Are you tight?'

Justin panicked. 'I guess so.' He said. He waited a little. 'I guess I like to top. Well I might do.'

'Yeah.' Alex said. 'Same... how tight?'

'I guess as tight as my ex left it.' Justin said.

'So extremely extremely tight then,' Alex said, smiling and glancing over. His smile had a gravity; Justin could see people would fall into it.

Justin laughed. 'I never said that.'

Alex glanced over again. He was smirking playfully. The intermittent streetlights strobed across his eyes creating lines like barcodes. 'No denial.' He said.

Justin tutted. 'You better not crash. I don't want to be found in some wreckage of a stranger's car with a phone stuffed with messages making it quite clear where I was going. I'm not sure my family would survive the inquest.'

'I don't think they would need to check the phone. The rescuers would probably have to wade through a lake of split lube just to reach the car.'

Justin laughed, and watched the road.

'Do your parents know?' Alex asked.

'What? Oh. Yes. But it's not because of that that I don't want to crash.'

Alex laughed. 'No, I know.' He paused. 'Mine don't.'

'How come?'

'I guess I just never wanted to say. Almost like they didn't deserve to know. It'd be fine I think, but I just haven't. I feel I've left it too late now.'

'It's not too late.'

'No. It's later though. And I think I'd be judged for leaving it so long.'

'When you feel comfortable, I guess.' Justin said. He didn't know what else to say. He felt he should simper some platitude, but nothing suitable came to mind. He looked out of the window. They drove on in silence.

'Almost there.' Alex said after a couple of minutes. The airy, rolling love tunes were still sifting through the car. He had heard most of them in adverts too. They were in woodland now. The beams of the headlights were lighting the passing trees in a hazel hue. Alex was slowing, and he had leant slightly forward in his seat as if trying to find an entrance in the foliage. 'Can never quite remember where it is,' he said. 'It's next to this really ugly rock.'

'What is an ugly rock?'

'You'll know it when you see it.'

He slowed further. 'Here we go,' he said. Justin saw they were approaching an entrance. It was hard to see and was only indicated by a small gap in the tree lining. 'There's the rock.' Alex said. He pointed at a rock that sat on the roadside beside the opening. If it is possible for a rock to look generic, it was this.

'How is that ugly?'

'It's a feature rock.' Alex said. 'Someone put it there specially as a feature.'

'Yes.'

'But it's not beautiful.'

'No.'

'So for it to be a feature it has to have a special-quality.'

'Right.'

'And if it is not beautiful that just leaves interesting and interesting is just a way of saying ugly.'

'I don't think that's true.'

'My logic is rock-solid.'

Justin laughed. He noticed how Alex was unnaturally concentrative given there were no other vehicles or people to navigate. Justin felt nervous again. He was even limper than normal. He rubbed through his trousers as it he could impart some energy through gentle friction, or jostle it awake. Why was he nervous? Why was he doing this if he was? Because he should, he supposed. The indicators clicked off, and the car shuddered over an uneven gravel surface. A wheel plunged into a pothole, and Justin rocked in his seat. He could hear a puddle slopping about. There was an unnerving scraping sound. It sounded like metal on stone.

'Fuck.' Alex said.

'What?'

'Didn't you hear that? I think the tyre may have been knocked. May need to check it. It might be punctured or something.'

'What?' Justin said. 'Here? Can you fix it if it is?' He was suddenly imagining his empty bed discovered in the morning. What would his excuse be? Early morning jog? Popped to the bakers? Did they still exist?

'Yeah.' Alex said slowly, as if listening for the tyre against the hum and buzz of the engine. 'I'm sure it's fine. I can do it afterwards. I have a spare anyway. It'll probably be fine.'

'If you're sure.' Justin said, cautiously. 'I have no idea about changing tyres.' He had not yet passed his driving test. His green driving license was his mark of Cain.

'Yeah, it can wait. Don't worry - I'll save us if it is.'

He stopped the car, turned off the lights and the radio clicked off with the engine. They sat there in the darkness, and the swelling, humid silence. 'I'll put the front lights on.' Alex murmured. A low beam extended into the woods ahead.

They stayed quiet for a little longer. 'Do you want to get into the back seats or stay up front?'

'I don't know. What's best?'

'Probably the back.' Alex said.

They began rearranging seats and tried to clamber backwards. They knocked into each other several times, as they both tried to pass through the gap in the seats over the arm rest. Justin's knee pressed down on something soft.

'Ow.' Alex yelped.

'Sorry.'

Justin moved a bit and shifted his hand for balance.

'Ow.' Alex yelped.

'Sorry.'

'I'll move.' Alex said. His elbow hit Justin in the face. 'Sorry.' He said. 'You know what you go first. I'll just sit here and follow.' Justin fell onto the back seats, and Alex followed him.

They sat back, nestled in the cocoon of the rear seats. Alex leant forward and moved the front seats forward so that they could stretch out. Justin could feel his heart knocking violently. He supposed they were ready.

'Hey.' Alex said softly, almost in a whisper. Justin was impressed at how sensual he could twist a single syllable into sounding.

'Hey.' Justin replied. His syllable was less deft.

Alex put his hand on Justin's thigh and left it there for a moment. Then he leant in and kissed him. Their lips bumped together. Alex's tongue pushed into Justin's mouth, and began twirling and turning, sweeping smoothly over and around his tongue, across his teeth and the roof of his mouth. They stayed like this for a couple of minutes, grasping each other, gripping and squeezing each other. Justin felt himself stirring, and he jabbed his tongue back into Alex's mouth forcefully, as if claiming the initiative, the control, and he explored around it, rotating and rising. He felt himself slipping into it, this moment. They broke apart.

'Fuck.'

Nodding. Exhaling. 'Fuck.' Steam was beginning to gather on the windows. They had the metallic tinge of late morning fog.

Alex moved back towards Justin, and his hands brushed under his jumper. He rubbed the skin of his chest, then his hands kneaded upwards. Justin let out a low, half-moan. Suddenly Alex's mouth was puckering on his chest, his tongue brushing gently against the skin, sliding upwards. Justin moaned again, louder.

'Do you like that?'

'Yes. Fuck yes.' Justin said. 'Keep doing it.'

'Little slut.'

Suddenly Alex's hand was cupping Justin's arse. His finger was circling the rim, pushing ever so slightly inwards, but even this Justin could feel, the cyclical release and rising of pressure, of pain, of pleasure. He felt the life in his body pulsing.

'God, you are tight.'

'I'll pass that on to the ex.'

Alex laughed. 'Do thank him for me.'

Alex swung his legs up and put his knees either side of Justin, so that his crotch was directly in front of his face. Justin reached up and began to rub gently. He could feel the bump bulging beneath the fabric. Alex moaned. His hand went quickly to the waistband button and tugged it free. He slowly lowered the zipper and pulled his trousers down a bit, exposing his underwear.

'A late Christmas present.' Alex said.

Justin began to rub Alex's crotch more vigorously. The thin briefs accentuated the bulge. He was thick. He reached out, grasped the elastic, pulling downwards delicately, slowly, teasingly. Suddenly his penis sprang free, semi-hard. Alex was leaking already.

Justin moved his neck forward, slowly opened his mouth and let his tongue extend outwards. He licked the drops. Alex moaned. 'Yeah.' He said, verging on aggressive. 'Like that.' Justin realised then how quickly things were moving, how he was following commands almost unthinkingly. He opened his mouth and moved over Alex. He filled his mouth and he felt Alex sliding in gently. He felt the saliva gather at the back of his mouth and spill over the head. He gulped, and it slipped down a little further.

Suddenly Alex began to thrust forward, and Justin's throat began to clench. His jaw started burning, cranked wide until it felt it could splinter. Alex was moving quickly. The slap of the saliva against Justin's inner cheeks echoed in the car. Alex was moaning loudly, and Justin could feel his twitching, the convulsions.

Alex pulled out. He was out of breath. The windows had fogged further.

'I want to make it last.' He said. 'You're good.' He swallowed. 'Get on top of me.'

They moved into their new positions, swapping places in the seat. Alex reached out and undid Justin's belt, then the buttons. 'A belt and buttons. Are you trying to make it difficult for me?' He said.

'I like to make people work for it?' Justin said. He felt a rising confidence. He was getting into the rhythm of it.

'People? Plural?' Alex said with pretend shock. 'Why you slut.'

Justin then said automatically. 'Just my ex actually. Don't know why I said people.'

Alex stopped. Justin wanted to groan. Perhaps he didn't have the rhythm quite so mastered after all.

'As in that's the only guy you've slept with?'

'Yeah.' Justin replied, slowly. 'I guess so.'

Justin could sense the sudden pause, the hesitation, and he immediately began to rebuke himself for saying anything, for diminishing the moment, for making it so awkward.

'So you're kind of a virgin.'

Justin recoiled a little and squinted. 'Well no, not really.'

Alex laughed, and Justin could see his smile in the white, weak light. 'Well yes. You see the ex was your practice, the training ground if you will, and now you're ready for the real game. And this is your first time in the real game.'

'Wow.' Justin said. 'Spoken like a true jock.'

'What can I say?' Alex laughed. 'You're lucky to live within the closest fifty gays to me.'

'And I had you down for someone so eager they would have upgraded their account to premium.'

'When I have a job maybe I'll be able to afford such luxury.' Alex replied. 'Until then I'll have to settle for gays like you. Or I'll just keep taking the bus and refreshing along the route.'

'I don't think you're settling.' Justin replied. His hand went to his waistband, and he pulled it down, freeing himself. He rubbed Alex's lips, his cheeks. The bristles of Alex's facial hair scratched the tender skin, and it was less comfortable than Justin had expected. His ex had been perfectly clean-shaven all the time. Not that he had ever been in this position was his ex much before, who used to claim he was a 'total top' and 'blowing was for bottoms.' He had many faults, but alliterative ability wasn't one of them.

Alex opened his mouth slowly. Justin felt the mouth close down over him. He felt the gentle suction, the head beginning to tingle and spark, the blood gushing.

'You're leaking so much.' Alex said, taking breath. 'It's so hot.'

'Sorry.' Justin said. 'I didn't know I did that.'

Alex shuffled back slightly and moved his hands behind Justin's head and pulled him down. They began to kiss again. Justin was reluctant given Alex's lips were still wet. Alex noticed.

'Oh so it's only okay for me to taste it?'

Justin laughed. 'No. It's just I never have. Not my own.'

'What?' Alex said, surprised. 'Did you even sleep with this ex of yours?'

'Yes,' Justin said, suddenly defensive. 'Often.'

'It's just I thought you would have... you know.'

'It was fine.' Justin said, shuffling back. 'He was fine. He was good.'

'Good.' Alex said. 'Good.' He reached up with his hand and began to rub, but Justin moved his hand up, displacing Alex's with an angry flick. Alex looked up at him quickly and swallowed and squinted. 'You're so hot.' He said. 'Thank God your parents decided to live near mine. It would be a total wasteland otherwise.'

'I thought you were settling?' Justin said, his tone still terse. He had started looking away from Alex decisively.

'Not at all.' Alex replied, shaking his head with exaggerated vigour, which Justin saw from the corner of his eye. 'No settling here. I'm completely nomadic.'

Justin twisted back a little towards Alex.

'Nomadic?'

'Yeah. It means always on the move. Not settling.'

'I know what nomadic means.' Justin shot back.

'Just checking.' Alex smirked. 'Just checking.'

'I suppose you do have a little of Genghis Khan about you.' Justin said.

'Can you imagine me siring lots of children.'

'Well apart from the one obvious flaw, maybe.'

'What flaw is that?'

Justin looked at him. 'That you're... you know.'

Alex shook his head. 'Wait a second. Are you telling me you're not a... female?'

Justin hit him gently but couldn't restrain an emerging smile. 'This place is a wasteland.'

'Don't be cruel. Otherwise I'll kick you out of the car and make you walk back.'

'Someone would pick me up.'

'Yeah I bet they would. You could have your third, fourth and fifth guys all on the way home.'

'I don't think you count as a second yet.'

'Why because there hasn't been any penetration? How heteronormative.'

Justin laughed, but said nothing. Alex said: 'That shut you up. I guess I am political still.'

'Maybe.' Justin replied. He rubbed his hands across Alex's chest, and began to sidle backwards. He could feel Alex, hard, pressing against his back. He moved back a little more and Alex began to slide up into him.

'Do you have a condom?'

Alex said: 'Do you want me to wear one?'

'Yes.' Justin replied. 'Please.'

'Oh. Okay. Sure.'

Justin sat there and then realised that Alex couldn't move. 'It's in my jacket,' he said. Justin looked around for it. He couldn't make anything out in the darkness.

'Where is it?'

'The footwell I think.'

Justin reached down and began to move his hands around the footwell. There was only empty space.

'It's not there.'

'Hang on,' Alex said. 'Move over a second.'

Justin slowly moved off him and sat in the seat beside him. 'Good thing these seats aren't leather.' He said, imaging the adhesiveness of such a surface and almost grimacing from the idea of peeling himself from it.

'Does mean they're harder to clean though,' Alex said, only half-paying attention as he rooted around. 'So watch where you dribble.' He reached over and pinched Justin playfully.

Alex was now rummaging through the debris in the front footwell. 'It must be in the boot. I definitely brought them. Hang on.'

Suddenly he opened the door, and the lights came on in a dazzling, glaring blaze.

'Fuck,' Justin said. 'People can see in.'

'There's nobody about to see in,' Alex said, half sitting out of the car. 'And the windows are steamed up anyway. And anyway, you should want to be seen. Or is it that you just don't want to be seen with me?' He said this last bit in a tone of pretend affront, as if hurt.

Justin suddenly felt the cold push against him. 'It's freezing.'

'I know.' Alex said. 'I can see you shrivelling up already.'

Justin clenched his legs, and his hands automatically moved to his crotch. Alex smiled. 'It's cute.'

Justin scowled, but inside the word 'cute' had done something, lit something, and he was overcome with a warmth. Alex smirked, and then got out and moved quickly to the boot of the car. He was completely naked from the waist down. He must have taken his socks off when he opened the door.

The boot opened and a second gust of cold air spiralled into the car. 'Quickly.' Justin said. 'I'm cold.'

'You're not very patient, are you?' Alex replied.

He began rummaging around, and finally lifted a glinting silver packet into the air, like a trophy. 'Here!' He said. He pulled it slightly closer to his chest. 'You know for a minute there I think you were beginning to lose faith in me.'

Justin snorted in a manner of excessive derision, which he then realised would only affirm Alex's confidence.

'Do you not trust my competence?' Alex asked.

'Well you've already managed to break the car.'

'You don't have any trust, that's your problem. And then there's also your lack of patience, which come to think of it I've mentioned already, so you're probably very impatient that I mentioned it again.'

'I waited just fine for you to ask me here, didn't I?'

'A lack of alternatives is not the same as patience.'

Justin laughed. Alex shut the boot and dashed back into the car. He shuffled across the back seats and lay against Justin. His skin was icy, and the cold swelled through Justin upon contact, like a dose of adrenalin.

'Hang on.' Alex said. He began to move furiously. Justin sat there and watched, and thought about how James, his ex, would never be like this, he would always be eager and ready, and he thought how repugnant that stamina and virility now seemed, even though his ex was so confident it was a virtue. All Justin remembered was a process, mechanics, no frailty.

'Feel free to lend a hand.'

Justin looked at Alex, whose arm was moving vigorously. 'Is that a request?'

'Maybe it's an order.'

Justin laughed. He leant over and gripped and slowly began to rub up and down. 'Happy now?'

'Ecstatic.' Alex purred breathlessly. 'Overwhelmed.'

'Good.'

Justin moved over Alex's lap. He opened his mouth slowly and gently dipped his head down and took Alex into him. Then after a few moments he looked up a little and said: 'And is this even better?'

'No.' Alex said. 'Marginally worse if anything.' But closed eyes; tightened, pursed lips, told differently.

'Oh.' Justin said. 'I'll stop then.' He began to raise his head in an extremely slow, exaggerated manner.

'Learn to take a joke, Justin.'

He heard his name and it thrilled him. There was such intimacy about it, such proximity, such precision in its use. They were both ready again.

Alex handed him the condom. 'It's only fair.' He said. 'I got it out of the boot after all.' He gestured from the condom towards his lap and back again. Justin tugged at the wrapping, but the foil did not split. His hand grew instantly slippery and the surface began to slide beneath his fingers. 'I can't get it open,' Justin said, too apologetically.

'You haven't opened one before, have you?'

'I have.'

'Oh yeah?' Alex said amused. 'When?'

Justin scowled. 'I did a practice run once.'

Alex laughed. 'I knew it. Come on.' He reached out and suddenly his hands were encased around Justin's, and he felt their warmth, the thin sheen of sweat slicked across them. The movement had taken him by surprise, and instinctively he looked up, and found himself looking straight into Alex's eyes. He felt Alex's grip loosen slightly as they stared at each other. Then suddenly the grip tightened again, and Alex snatched the condom away.

'Give it to the master.'

Justin smirked. 'Who's the slut now?'

Alex laughed. 'You caught me.'

'Are you?' Justin asked, too quickly, and with a fatal hint of seriousness.

'What?'

Did he want to ask?

'Have you slept with lots of guys?'

Alex looked suddenly uncomfortable. 'Erm... quite a few I suppose. A normal amount.'

There was a pause.

'And what is a normal amount?'

'You know like around...' Then Alex realised the stress Justin had placed on normal, the implications of the word and Justin's interpretation, and the denigration it seemed to hold. 'Wait.' He said quietly. 'That's not what I meant. I just meant to say-'

'It's what you said.'

'I know but -'

'It's fine. Forget it.' Justin said, waving his hand dismissively. 'Have you got it open yet? I mean - I think - just forget it.'

Alex exhaled. 'No.' He said. 'Almost.' He fiddled with the condom packet a bit. Suddenly the foil tore and the packet ripped open. He just looked down at it forlornly. Then he said: 'I'm sorry. And it's more normal than you think. It's just an image people have. It's just this reputation that people think they need to live up to.'

'It's fine. I said to forget it. I know it's not - not real, not always.' Justin paused, as if considering whether to continue or not. 'I just don't like to hear I'm not doing it right.'

There was quiet in the car and Alex fiddled with the packet even though it was open now. 'I find it hot you know.' The foil crunched between his fingers.

'What?'

'That I'm your second.' He waited and smiled gently at Justin. He said more quietly: 'It turns me on.'

Justin looked down to disguise the slight smile that had begun to bend his lips, but he sensed that Alex had seen it, and that he had liked the effect of his words. 'Are you done yet?' Justin said quickly, in a manner of exaggerated exasperation, a playful intonation that managed to instantly expel the frostiness of the last moments.

'Patience, Justin, patience.' Alex said. 'And you are doing it right by the way. I mean - you are here with me.'

'Do you want a hand with that?' Justin said, ignoring him.

Alex smiled and handed him the condom. 'Now I hope you remember your sex-ed class. Just pretend it's a banana and you'll be fine.'

'I don't remember sex ed ever being as practical as putting on a condom.' Justin said. 'Or maybe we were just taught before I realised what I was learning. I just remember scare stories and a woman waving coloured fluorescent condoms about and making jokes about gay guys having lightsabre fights in bed.'

'That's quite common actually.'

'What?' Justin said. 'Is it?' Immediately Justin realised Alex was joking, and he began to blush. 'That's unfair. You know I don't know that much about this stuff. For all I know that is common. It could be foreplay.' He smiled. 'Just got a lot to learn clearly.'

Alex laughed. 'Don't worry. I'll teach you.'

'You'll teach me?'

'Absolutely.'

'Okay. What's lesson one then?'

'Hmm. I guess lesson one comes before anything else. It's the art of the compliment. But you don't need that.'

'What?' Justin said. 'Why not?'

Alex's voice suddenly turned impassioned and soft. 'Because you're someone who deserves only to receive compliments.'

Justin smiled. 'I see what you did there. Very good.'

'I see what you did there. Extremely good.'

'You're such a good teacher.'

'Stop it no one likes a show-off.'

Justin laughed, and reached out with the condom, and began to roll it down. The sensuous nature of the act surprised him, the idea that he was preparing what was about to penetrate him, and the control that gave him, was strangely erotic. The condom ruffled as it unwound, and the latex snapped as it tightened against the skin. Justin looked at it when it was fully unravelled. He thought he had never seen anything as arousing as the straining latex, the taut plasticky rubber.

'You nailed it.' Alex said, and Justin realised how focused he had been on the task for those few seconds because he had almost forgotten Alex was watching him throughout. 'So at the very least you've learnt a new skill tonight.'

'Like riding a bike.' Justin said, smiling.

'Riding.' Alex nodded.

'I was trying to raise the tone.'

'At least you raised something.' Suddenly Alex softened his voice. 'Are you ready?'

Justin nodded.

Alex said: 'Maybe try turning around and sitting down. You can control it then. Just go however quickly you want to.'

Justin felt immediately nervous again, his legs stiffened and the hairs running down his legs tightened and rose, as if invigorated with electricity. He stepped back into Alex's side of the car and put his weight on the seat in front. Slowly he began to lower himself backwards. He felt the tip begin to push against his opening, and he felt the muscle clench around it. The muscle began burning as it slowly stretched.

He let out an anguished noise and lifted himself up.

'Slowly.' Alex said softly. 'Take it slow.' Then he added. 'Don't be greedy.'

Justin snorted, but he was still recovering from the sharp pain that had pulsed through his body. It had been a while since he had slept with someone, with James. 'Sorry,' He said. 'It's been a while.'

'I accept your apology.' Alex said.

Justin smiled. 'Okay.' He moved back over Alex, began to lower himself down again. 'Okay.'

He felt the pushing again, his sphincter wrapping and squeezing around the head. The burning returned, searing as the recovering muscle stretched again. Justin lifted himself off once more, and lowered himself again, and he slowly worked a little of the head in.

'Yes.' Alex said, rubbing Justin's chest, brushing the few hairs that sprouted from his skin in circular motions with his thumbs. 'Like that.'

'Push up a little,' Justin said.

Alex instantly did and a white-hot pain pounded through him, and it felt like the muscle had ripped. Justin cried out.

'It's almost in.' Alex said. 'Then it's better.'

But the pain continued to sweep through him in waves, and Justin's body felt weighted and hot, like it was full of molten metal, or corrosive acid.

'Just take a second,' Alex said. 'You'll get accustomed in a second.'

Justin grunted, and nodded. He was taking in breath in tiny catches. He sat there for a minute. Then he tried to push downwards. The pain intensified, and seemed to rise up through the flesh, rippling through his back, and forward into his abdominal muscles.

'It's too tight.' He said, quietly.

'Yeah.' Alex said. 'Do you want some lubricant or something? That might make it easier.'

'Oh yeah.' Justin said quietly. 'I forgot about that. Never really used it before. He didn't like it.'

Alex said nothing and looked at him. He gave a little smile, then winked. 'Well now you need it.'

Justin smiled, almost sadly, and rested his hands upon Alex's chest. Then Alex let out a short laugh.

'What?' Justin said, concerned that it was something he had done that had provoked Alex to laugh, or rather that it was something he had not done, that he had failed to do.

'Guess.' Alex said.

'What? I don't know.' Justin paused. 'You don't have lube or something?'

'No. I do.' Alex replied. 'Litres and litres of the stuff.'

Justin smiled. 'Let me guess. It's in the back, isn't it?'

'Correct. Smart and cute. What a combination.'

'Well guess you better go get it then.' Justin said, slapping Alex's belly playfully a few times. But the compliments were still sweeping through him, and he tingled. He told himself to keep his composure. Dignity, always dignity.

'Me get it. I got the condom. It's definitely your turn.'

'This isn't a taking turns situation.' Justin replied. 'Your penis, your responsibility.'

'You know what I'm going to say to that, don't you?'

'Something irrelevant no doubt about something being mine.'

Alex winked. 'Actually that's mine too.'

Justin stirred. 'You better hurry. I'm closing up here.'

'Okay.' Alex said, with an egregious sigh. He gently pushed Justin off him, who rolled into the neighbouring seat. Alex smacked him on the arse as he sat up and began addressing his rear. 'Stay with me.'

Justin laughed.

'Maybe I should give it CPR.' Alex said, leaning in. When he saw Justin continue laughing, Alex noticeably beamed.

'Just go get it.' Justin said. 'I'm not sure that's how CPR works either.'

'Isn't it?' Alex said. 'Well I should probably learn in case I have to revive you in an hour.'

Justin laughed again. Alex smiled, and then flicked Justin's leg. He sat up and looked at the door. He exhaled loudly and moaned. 'But it's so cold out there.'

'Put something on then.'

'Oh you'd like that, wouldn't you? That was your plan all along.'

'What?'

Alex opened the door and the cold surged into the car once again.

'I'm going to leave the door wide open.'

'No shut it - it's freezing.' Justin said, deliberately whining, but his deep, ascending thrill at the provocation meant his protestation sounded embarrassingly artificial.

'What?' Alex said, as he walked around to the boot. 'I can't hear what you're saying.'

He opened the boot and began to look around inside.

'I said close the door.' Justin said, looking up from his seat at Alex. The moonlight was bright behind him, and it made his skin glow at the edges of his silhouette.

'Oops sorry I must have missed that. Ah.' He lifted the lubricant into the air. 'I bet this is also one of the most beautiful sights you've ever seen.'

'I'm beginning to think you don't know me at all.' Justin said. He said this just as Alex was shutting the boot.

Alex lifted the door back up so that he could see Justin. 'Well I'm trying to get to know you. But you're all closed up, Justin. You have to let me in.' He said this last bit with his hands over his heart, and in a manner reminiscent of the caring psychologists in films. 'Do you think you can do that?'

Justin fell into character. 'I'll try, but I'm not used to sharing. Some things are just too painful to let out.'

Alex leaned towards him, one hand back on the boot door. 'Let out? Oh Justin - you've only gone and got the metaphor the wrong way around.'

Alex smirked and quickly shut the boot before Justin could respond, though he had nothing to dart back with anyway. The fabricated scolding, the outmanoeuvring - it delighted him.

Alex got in the car. 'Shall we leave this open for a bit of a breeze?'

Justin ensured his face was fixed into stony displeasure. Alex winked. 'Someone's getting tired. Catch.' He threw the bottle of lubricant at Justin, who caught it. Alex said: 'Good catch. So that's why you put jock.'

Justin scowled, and clicked open the top of the bottle. He squeezed some of the lube onto his finger, and instinctively gave it a sniff.

'Are you sniffing it?'

'Yes.' Justin replied. 'Do you have a problem with that?'

'No problem,' Alex replied, holding his hands up in mock defence. 'Just wouldn't say its the nicest smell.'

Justin began to rub the lubricant. The gel was icy, and it made the skin bristle. Delicately he pushed a finger inside himself, and it slipped in with surprising ease. He worked the lubricant around inside himself and then moved a second finger in too. He closed his eyes as the feelings of stimulation swirled within.

'Someone's enjoying themselves.'

'I am.' Justin said opening one eye. 'I don't think I even need you anymore.'

Alex laughed, shook his head in a show of magnificent sorrow. 'I've been replaced by a finger.'

'No.' Alex said, shaking his head and moaning. 'Two fingers. Three fingers.' He moaned louder. 'Four. Five! Six!'

'A sextet?' Alex said. 'How cruelly ironic.'

Justin glanced up with a wry smile, catching Alex's face, washed in a glow of pride. 'Catch,' Justin said, throwing back the bottle of lubricant.

Alex caught it and squeezed out a short stream of gel. It began to sludge down the sides, glistening. 'Isn't it beautiful how it catches the light?' Alex said with his eyebrows semi-raised. He waved both his hands as if he had just unveiled an intricate machine or a work or art.

'Radiant.' Justin said. 'Like diamonds. I think UNESCO should protect it for future generations.'

'The future generations will get their chance.' Alex said. 'Are you ready?' He had softened his voice again.

Justin nodded. He moved onto the other side of the car again, using the seat in front to leverage himself down. He felt the ring of muscle begin to strain again, being tugged loose, widening. Alex gently began to push up. Justin felt himself filing.

'How's that?' Alex said.

'Better. But go slow.'

'I am. If I go any slower, I'll be in reverse.'

'You realise sex does actually require you to reverse.'

But then Justin let out a whimper as a ferocious burning swept through him and he felt Alex's grip tighten around his arms, and he withdrew slightly, then immediately pushed up again, and the burning slowly subsided. Alex left his fingers wrapped around Justin's arm, and the touch was like static.

'Why doesn't porn set expectations about how painful this is?' Justin said. It was a strange blend of grimaced laughter.

Alex loosened his grip and patted his arm. 'Maybe you need to watch different videos. Ones about first times and stuff like that.'

Justin snorted, wincing at the same time. 'As if that would help. It's amazing how many times I've seen the same guys lose their virginity. I suppose they just loosen the definition as- well- you know.'

'Some people are just really flexible like that. They flex like elastic bands.'

'I'm not one of those people.' Justin said as he swallowed thin clutches of breath. 'And I don't want to hear about their superpowers right now.'

'Neither.' Alex said, holding still. He was not pushing anymore. 'I wish I was. It is like a superpower. Imagine. It would be like having another pocket.'

'Ah,' Justin simpered instinctively as Alex pushed up a little, although in fact he had slid in with less pain than before. He hit Alex on the stomach. 'Slowly.'

'Okay,' Alex said. 'Push down.'

'In a second.'

'In your own time. I have don't have anywhere I need to be.'

'You haven't got somebody else to see after me then?'

'No, it's a quiet night tonight. Just the one appointment.'

'Sounds like I'll have to start booking in.'

Justin looked down at Alex. His eyes were glinting in the faint illumination of the reflecting headlights. Justin realised it was the first time he had properly been able to look at him, since before he had only managed to, wanted to, catch glances, slight stolen snatches. In the whitewashed light, he saw the charcoal stubble bristling in the lowest part of his cheeks, the small chink in his nose, and when Alex smiled Justin saw there was a little gap between two of his front teeth.

'What's that?' Alex said. He suddenly turned away from Justin's gaze. 'What was that?'

'What?'

'Get off.' He said. 'Quickly.' Alex moved his palms under Justin's thighs and began to push upwards. Justin slid off him, his thighs throbbing as he lifted his body weight. In doing so realised how little of Alex he had actually managed to take.

'What?' Justin demanded again, as he rolled into the neighbouring seat.

'The light.' Alex hissed. 'There.' Alex pointed into the bushes. Above the low-cut headlights, Justin could see a torch beam through the darkened foliage. It was coming from inside the woods, and the light was cut by the leaves and branches.

'Fuck.' Justin said. 'What should we do?'

'Turn off the lights, quickly.'

'But they've seen them already.'

'No, the bushes.' Alex urged in burning whispers. 'I think the bushes will have blocked them. They're thick. And we can't get dressed in time.' Alex was frantic. Justin could almost hear his nerves crackling, like the hissing buzz of moisture meeting electric current. Alex lurched out of his seat and flicked the lights off. 'Turn them off.' He choked. 'I can't be seen.'

'The windows are quite misty.' Justin said, surprised at his own calm insouciance. 'They shouldn't be able to see anything. And so what?' He allowed a muffled laugh. 'We'll never see them again anyway.'

'No don't you get it.' Alex hissed, leaning aggressively towards Justin. The virulence stunned Justin, who sank back into his seat, wounded. 'No.' Alex said again, as if gathering himself, but repeating the word to avoid undermining the effect of his previous curtness.

They lay there in the darkness together. They could hear each other breathing in deep, stifled pants.

Justin lent down and began to look into the footwell. 'Where's my tee-shirt.' He said quietly.

'I don't know.' Alex said. The words dribbled out in a dismissive, carefree way. 'Just be quiet. They'll be gone in a moment. If we make noise that'll only draw attention.'

Justin continued to look for his tee-shirt anyway.

Alex saw. 'Why do you need it anyway?' His voice had become more alert, more concerned. The change was slight, gradual, but noticeable.

'To put on.' Justin said. He made sure each consonant was stressed; each syllable spliced to ensure the bitterness burst through. 'You know - to wear.'

'What? Why?'

'So we can go when whoever that is has gone.'

'Why... we haven't.' Alex turned from the window and looked at Justin. Justin saw the edged fear on his face, and he watched as it gave way, and Alex suddenly looked uncertain, suddenly crestfallen, and seeing that splintering broke Justin in turn and the anger, the humiliation, the hurt ebbed with an unnatural instancy, and he was suddenly confused at how the look of just a fractured second could so entirely transform him.

Justin raised his eyes. 'Yeah.' He said quietly. 'We haven't.' He began to look for his tee shirt again, even though he didn't particularly want to anymore.

'Justin.'

Justin didn't respond. He continued to rummage through the debris of fabrics assorted in splaying piles across the floor of the car.

'Justin.' Alex repeated. 'Justin, I'm sorry.' Justin finally looked up. 'I'm sorry.' Alex repeated. 'Really.'

Justin looked away. 'It's fine. I'll - It's fine. I'll be quiet.'

Alex smiled, knelt down and kissed his leg. He whispered. 'You are noisy. All those moans. I can only describe them as soaring.' Justin didn't laugh. He was preoccupied with how Alex constantly seemed to dart his eyes back to the window, even as he lay across his lap and low in the car. The noise had reduced, and Justin hoped Alex might relent and relax a little as a result.

'You liked it though.' Justin said. He had decided to retain his surliness for the act.

'Oh I did.' Alex stressed with excessive, playful emphasis. 'Of course I did. I never thought screams could sound like a symphony.'

They could hear gravel being crunched underfoot again. Alex went rigid. He looked over at the door in a jerking glance.

'I wonder where he's going?' Justin whispered.

'There was no car, and I'm not sure there are houses near here. But he doesn't have a light on so I think we should be fine. He shouldn't be able to see in.'

'Do you think he knows what's going on?'

Alex waited. Eventually he said quietly: 'I guess that depends on what he knows. If he used to do this maybe. If not probably not.'

'Do you think he'll report it.'

'I guess that depends.'

'On what?'

'On whether he was happy he used to do it or is angry because he feels he no longer can.'

The rustling of the gravel was diminishing.

'I could imagine you as an old man reporting on the youngsters in the car.'

'I could imagine you as an old man running over to them with a wad of cash.'

A dog barked, very close to them.

'Shit.' Alex said. 'The dog knows.'

'Just be quiet.'

Alex pushed himself back in his seat, and the sound a tail bumping against the metal chassis reverberated in the car, like fingers flicking tin.

'Fuck off.' Alex whispered at it as if this would help.

There was the sound of sniffing, as the dog stuck its nose in the little gap where the door met the frame. Justin did not understand how such a powerful jet of air could emerge from a dog's nose, but it had the rush of a crushed bellows.

A voice called out, but it sounded distant. 'Come on!'

The dog kept sniffing, the loud exhalations pulsating through the car.

The shout came again. 'Leave... it... alone.'

The voice seemed to have an effect because the dog immediately stopped pushing its damp breath into the car. They waited in aspic stillness, in gossamer silence. The light clinking of stones and the seeming patter of paws indicated that the dog was walking away. The sounds died away and they exhaled.

'He paused.' Alex said.

'What?' Justin replied. 'What do you mean?'

'He paused. When he said It.'

'And?'

'And that means he knew.'

'No, it doesn't. It could mean any number of things. Maybe he wanted to say car and forgot the word. Let's remember that this is a guy walking a dog at midnight. Maybe it's not even his dog.'

'No, he knew.'

'But who cares?'

'He can't know it was me.' Alex said slowly. 'He just can't know that.'

'Listen. The windows are misted up. You can always deny what happened. He probably thought the mist was smoke and we were smoking or something.'

Alex suddenly laughed. 'You think he thought we were smoking. Maybe. Smoking what? What makes this much smoke? A steam train?'

'That makes steam.'

Alex looked at him unimpressed. 'But how does it make that steam?'

'Burning stuff.' Justin conceded.

Alex raised his eyebrows. 'He probably thought we were smoking.' Alex agreed. 'I can live with that. I'll leave it up to his imagination for what it was we were smoking. Although it may be before his time.'

Justin laughed. 'It's not exactly new. They've been doing group drug binges since Ancient Greece.'

'What?'

'At the temple of Eleusis they would have a big party each year. Philosophers and politicians and people would turn up and they would pass this drink around which was a hallucinogenic.'

'Oh.' Alex said. He seemed to grasp for something to say. Justin made a note to himself that he should really learn the delicate art of smoothing his trivia into the conversation.

'What stopped it?' Alex finally said.

'Christianity.' Justin said.

'Oh.' Alex said. 'That's interesting.' Alex was a bad liar.

'I'm full of interesting things.' Justin replied.

Alex smirked and looked at Justin fully again. 'Not entirely I hope.'

Justin smiled. 'Shall we pick up where we left off?' He said. He moved slowly on top of Alex. His skin was warm still, but the sweat had cooled, but not yet dried, creating a strange sensation to touch, like dew on a warming engine.

'I'll go slow.' Alex whispered.

Justin moved up Alex's body. He began to lower himself down very slowly, until he felt the pain, the parting. He pushed downwards and let out a soft moan. Alex moved his hands onto Justin's chest, and began to rub his nipples beneath his thumb and finger. Justin moaned again.

'Push up.' He said.

Alex did, very slowly, very delicately. Suddenly there was a loosening, a release, and Justin felt Alex slide further into him, further than he had before.

'There.' Alex said. 'It's almost in now. You okay?'

'Yeah.' Justin replied, very quietly. 'It feels good.'

'Good.' Alex pushed up so gently again. 'Almost there. Is it okay?'

Justin nodded. He lifted himself up a little and pushed himself down, and then he did it again, and again. Alex began to moan, and he moved his pelvis, and then Justin felt skin meeting skin, and the idea of this momentary indivisible connection between them bounded through him, and he felt so aroused, like his whole body was energy and potential.

'Wait a second.' Alex said.

'What?' Justin said. 'It's so good.' He was moving quickly, and sweat was sweeping down his back and torso, and dripping in pristine droplets onto Alex's chest.

'Stop.' Alex said. 'There's something wrong.'

What?' Justin said again, slowing himself. He felt his lower body strain with pressure.

'Don't worry.' Alex said. 'Don't worry.'

II

Justin looked out the window into the matted darkness. The heat had faded slightly and with it the sweep of chalky condensation covering the window. Alex sat beside him. Their tee-shirts cleaved to their damp chests, drooping loosely in places, pinching where the skin was sticky.

'Don't worry,' Alex said. He had said this several times. 'It happens. Perk of the lifestyle.' And he had said this at least twice. His tone was gentle and imploring. The pity was badly disguised. It was how his teacher used to speak to stop him crying after he had accidentally called her 'mummy', which was a mistake he unforgivably made more than once.

But Justin did not acknowledge him. He continued to look out into the night; traced the murky edges of the trees to provide distraction. Thank God for the tissues in the footwell. He felt as inexperienced as when he first got in the car. Only now he felt detached too, studying the moment with the remoteness of a scholar poring over ancient records, as if his mind wanted to distance itself from the failings of his body. He didn't blame it. What were you doing?

'It happens.' Alex said again. A pleading quality had pushed in now.

'No, it doesn't.' Justin said, half-twisting but refusing to draw his eyes away from the window. He heard his voice catch, like his words trailed dangling threads snagged on saliva.

'It does.' Alex waited. 'And how would you know it doesn't? I thought I was your second. You don't have a comparison, do you? Or was that just a lie to entice me. Well it worked.' Alex reached out to take Justin's hand. 'It worked very well.'

Justin pulled his hand away. There was quiet. Alex rubbed his hand, as if it had been burnt. The silence was deep and awkward.

'Has it happened to you before.' Justin simpered finally, faintly, still looking through the window. A glob had abruptly gathered down in his throat, and he found speaking difficult. His breath fogged the cold glass. The moment was still stuttering and jerking in his memory like malfunctioning footage.

Alex said cautiously. 'As in doing it or... being... done to?'

Justin swallowed. 'Doing it.'

'No.'

'Being done to?'

Alex didn't say anything, and the silence prompted Justin to twist a little.

'Slightly.' Alex rushed.

'Slightly?' Justin said. His voice adopted an acidic sourness. 'I don't even know what that means.' He turned back to the window and traced the trees. He saw the moment, repeating endlessly. It had become his baseline. Everything oscillated around it.

'It's fine. Just forget it. Everything is cleaned up now. We can move on. Onwards... upwards.' Alex reached out for Justin's hand, and Justin let him take his fingers for a few lingering seconds, before jerking them free. The lump was growing, blocking his throat like gunk down a drain.

They sat there quietly.

'You know I have a theory.' Alex said. Justin could feel Alex staring at the back of his neck. He opted to continue his dignified silence.

'Don't you want to hear it?' Alex said. Well don't you, huh?'

Justin shrugged forlornly. His shoulders barely lifted.

'I have this theory.' Alex repeated. 'A Big Idea. An Everest of a theory. You'll want to hear it now so you can say you were one of the first to hear it. You'll see me sitting there in my turtleneck one day doing a late night news interview, as a professor at Princeton, or a Nobel laureate, and you can say you were one of the first to hear my theory before I sold out and started advising big business and doing lucrative lecture tours and having academic groupies. Well, don't you want to hear it? I don't want you to have a violent pang of regret when you see me on that television. Imagine watching me knowing all the while you could have heard my theory before anyone else.'

Justin shrugged again. All he could think about was that pause. Those words. 'Something's wrong.'

'So, there are people in the world right.' Alex continued, seemingly unencumbered by Justin's slack response.

Justin half-turned. From the corner of his eye he saw Alex smile widely at this meagre engagement. It was so giddy and eager, so like a child presented with platters of sugar, that seeing it instinctively made Justin want to smile too. Not that he did. 'And there are more and more people all the time and eventually the world is going to become overwhelmed.' Alex continued, accelerating.

Justin kept his gaze down but twisted around a little more. This minor concession broadened Alex's smile. 'I think Malthus may have taken this theory already.' Justin said quietly. 'So I hope you haven't bought the turtleneck quite yet.'

'No. Not this one.' Alex said, accelerating even further. 'This theory is all mine. I'll need so many turtlenecks. My neck will never be exposed again.' He paused. 'So the world needs to reduce the number of people.'

Alex waited, as if wanting to be attacked with a counter, gambling on a response. 'Or just produce more.' Justin eventually offered, drawing on that exotic wealth of knowledge accumulated in distant Geography lessons.

Alex flashed his teeth. 'Right, okay - yes - so it needs to reduce the number of people.' He took in a swollen breath. 'So I think the world is turning people gay.'

Justin finally looked up. The answer was ridiculousness enough to temporarily throw him. He squinted at Alex with a scathing, playful confusion. 'That's ridiculous. What do you even mean?' He greyed again and said: 'You're just trying to distract me.'

But this response only made Alex gleam. 'You shouldn't be ashamed at paying attention to new theories. I'm a pioneer. You see I think the world has the ability, a pseudo-spiritual switch you might say, to make people gay and so reduce the birth-rate.'

'But gay people can have children?' Justin said. 'Maybe not by themselves... but they can.' He turned back to the window.

'That's just a quirk of the modern age, and it's still rare anyway. It's the exception that proves the rule.'

'What?' Justin turned back. 'I don't understand that phrase. I don't think it works like that. I don't think that's what the phrase means.'

'Neither.' Alex shrugged. 'It's just the phrase I use when I don't know what to answer.' Alex batted a hand. 'Anyway, think about it. It kind of works. The world develops, more people are born, more people move to cities, feel - I don't know \- liberated, come out, fewer people are born, population pressure goes down. It's a process of homostasis.'

Justin shook his head. 'What about cities that don't make you feel liberated.'

'Exception that proves the rule.'

'Right. What about people who only realise they're gay after they have children.'

'Exception that proves the rule. You won't be able to turn me against my theory. Do you want to know what I call it?'

'What?'

'My theory. Guess its name.'

'Alex's theory?'

'There speaks the imagination of someone who will never come up with a theory. It's called the Gaya theory.'

Alex looked at Justin proudly, expectantly. 'I don't get it.' Justin said.

'After the Gaia theory. You know. The one about Earth's systems balancing each other.' Justin shrugged, and Alex waved his hand. 'Don't be so down on my theory. Do you have a better one, huh?'

Justin shrugged.

'Thought not. Now don't tell me: you find my intelligence remarkably sexy'. He reached out for Justin's hand, and Justin let him take it. Alex rubbed his fingers over his, and then leant in towards Justin's neck. Justin closed his eyes. He felt the rising warmth, a growing tingling trickle down his neck.

He suddenly pulled away.

'What is it?' Alex said.

'I just... I just don't want to. Not yet.'

'Don't you?' Alex said, with an interrogative bite. He seemed to realise his tone, because he softened.'If it's because of that - it happens you know.'

'Yes it's because of that.' Justin said. His anger was so hot and sudden that even he was taken aback by it. The shock at it calmed him. Homeostasis, he supposed. 'I just - I don't know. I just feel tired.'

'I sometimes feel tired afterwards too. All that squeezing. That release.'

'Stop it.' Justin said. He turned away. 'Just stop it.'

Silence. 'Sorry.' Alex said. 'It's just we were having so much fun. I guess... I guess I don't want it to be over.'

Justin shrugged with his back still to Alex.

'Were you?' Alex said.

'What?'

'Were you having fun?'

Justin half-turned. 'Yes. Of course I was. You know I was. Don't ask questions like that.'

'Questions like what?'

'Questions like that. Questions where you know the answer.'

'Do you want to see me again?'

'What? Yes. I do. I guess. If you want to.' There was a second of hushed delay, and Justin added. 'But don't worry if not.' He stammered. 'I'm happy either way.'

'I do.' Alex replied. 'Of course I do. You're the only guy I've met who I get to tell my theories to. You didn't show the appreciation I'd hoped but that's something we can work on. But yes I want to see you again. Right now in fact. I want to return to our blissful co-existence immediately.'

Justin smiled sadly. 'It was blissful.' His tone emerged sad, but hearing that Alex wanted to see him again unlocked something, released something, built something, and he felt the weight lifting from his stomach.

'So much bliss.' Alex said. 'So blissful I'm getting wistful.'

Justin laughed, and Alex leaned in and kissed him very gently. Justin stayed motionless, let the kiss linger then lapse slowly.

'Let's make a baby.' Alex said.

Justin laughed again. 'I don't know why you're laughing. I will be a Father.' Alex added.

Justin leaned in towards Alex and said quietly. 'And a very successful one I'm sure.'

'Do you think so?'

Justin couldn't tell if Alex was being serious now. His voice had changed, very delicately, almost imperceptibly.

'Yes.' Justin said. 'Very sure. The best father since... I don't know...I don't want to blaspheme. You did stress how you were Catholic earlier.'

Alex smiled. 'I want to be the best Father since Christmas.'

'Christmas? I don't think he'd be the best Father. He'd be a slave to the office, always checking production, negotiating trade deals, battling elf unions. I can't imagine Mrs Claus is satisfied.'

'Poor Mrs Claus.'

'I'm sure she finds enough lonely activists en route to the North Pole.'

Alex looked away. He looked through the window. Justin looked at his pale, glowing reflection with its ghostly tinge. They sat there quietly. Then suddenly Alex turned and moved his head into Justin's lap and began to nuzzle his thigh. It was so sudden a movement, that Justin lifted his hands instinctively and let them rest them on Alex's head. He felt his hair, coarse and bristling. He wound it around his fingers.

Alex lifted his head up and moved to kiss Justin. Justin was motionless, waiting. But then Alex pulled back, ever so slightly.

'What?' Justin said.

'Nothing.' Alex said, as if confused why he had stopped himself. But Justin felt the hesitance. It was infectious. The flaring doubt coursed through him again, and he saw the footage playing again in its agonising, crushing loop. He felt himself withdraw; his arousal instantly chilled. Just as suddenly Alex continued upwards to kiss him. But now Justin pulled away. The moment had shattered, and Justin couldn't be convincing, not anymore.

'What is it?' Alex said.

'Nothing.' Justin said. 'Just thinking. Just - you know - just thinking.'

Alex shook his head. 'Not this thinking again. Leave the thinking to us theorists.' He softened the bravado. 'It's fine. Fine. Natural even. Pretty sure they put it on your skin in health spas.'

'I just... I think I want to wait a little.'

Alex sighed. 'Well let's sit here then. We can talk.'

Justin was surprised at how nonchalantly Alex had accepted his request to talk. He supposed he was surprised because James wouldn't have been so accepting.

'What do you want to talk about?' Justin said after a short pause.

Alex exhaled loudly, and looked around the car, as if a topic might present itself in the upholstery. 'Have you ever been in the supermarket and run into a guy and you both look up at the same time and try to remember where you recognise each other and then it clicks for one of you and the look of sudden awkwardness instantly makes the other remember too?'

'No.' Justin said. 'I told you - I only just started doing this. I'm not an old hand like you.' This sounded more hostile than he had intended.

'Oh. Yeah.... I forgot about that. You got so many wonderful experiences to come. Oh the things you will see!'

'Why should it be awkward. You both know what you want. You're both old enough. You should both be fine seeing each other.'

'Ah.' Alex said, like a wise professor. 'What a rational yet inexperienced mind.' Alex shrugged, and rubbed his chin. 'I don't know why it's awkward. Because of history, I guess.'

'What... you'd seen him before?'

'Seen him.'

'Yeah. Seen. You know what I mean.'

'Seen? Don't you want to say it.'

'No.'

'Getting jealous are we?'

'Not at all. I'm actually rooting for the two of you as a couple.'

'What - you're rooting for me and this guy you've never met?'

'Yes. I want you to hook up, get hitched, and live out your lives happily. I want you both to live in bliss.'

'It could have been your ex in this supermarket for all you know.'

Justin froze. Alex smiled at him. 'Too far?' He said, but his smile said the dice were still rolling, and he was confident of sixes.

'Too far.'

'How far too far?'

'Visa-required levels of far.'

'Vaccine jabs levels of far?'

'So far you've circumnavigated.'

Alex raised his eyebrows with amusement. Justin continued: 'Actually I guess that puts you back in the right place so that doesn't work.' He trailed off, and Alex began to smirk.

'Justin gets it wrong again.' He said. Justin scowled as if this could disguise the fact that he was subliminally delighted at the teasing and provocation.

'Did you tell me anything that you hadn't told others?' Alex asked.

'What?'

'When we were chatting. Did you tell me anything that you haven't told anyone else?'

'Oh.' Justin said. 'I don't know.'

Alex laughed. 'Yes you do! You just gave yourself away with that pause. I know you're hiding something.'

'Okay.' Justin relented. 'Yes. I did - happy now?'

'No, obviously not. Obviously I want to know more. What was this secret you told me?'

'I'm not telling you.'

'You're not going to tell me something you already told me?'

'Precisely.'

'That makes no sense. You're not thinking clearly.'

'I thought I was rational only a moment ago.'

'I must have said that in a moment when I wasn't thinking rationally.'

'I think that's the first time you've suggested you might not be fully perfect.'

'Everyone's fallible.' Alex shrugged.

'They are.' Justin replied, scratching his teeth over his lips. 'Some more than others.' He raised his eyebrows at Alex.

Alex saw and smiled. 'What can I say?' He said. 'Sometimes my thinking turns to shit.' He raised his hands quizzically. 'Speaking of which \- are you fallible?'

Justin looked up sharply. 'That's not funny.'

Alex looked quickly away, back to the window, and Justin did not know if he looked stung, or pleased. 'You're right.'

'It's not.'

Alex twisted around. 'Sorry.'

There was an awkward, stilted pause. Justin took a breath, and then said in a sudden rush. 'It's just.... It's just I just can't stop thinking... about it.' His voice splintered unexpectedly. 'I just wanted to get it right.' Justin turned to the window. He was surprised at how hurt he was. His eyes had begun to throb and felt fatty and bloated. And then he felt embarrassed too which made it all worse.

Alex reached out and touched Justin's shoulder. His fingers trailed slightly down his back. 'I won't say it again. Sorry. I'll make you think of something else.'

'It's fine.'

'No. It's not. I know it's not. We'll move on. I won't say it again.'

'But \- I can't... I just keep seeing it and can't stop... thinking about it.'

'I told you - I'll make you think of something else.'

'How?' Justin said. For him, the idea of shedding thoughts was an unobtainable elixir, a miraculous cure. He knew people who could bleach and scrub their mind until it was spotless. But such talents were virtually mythical to him.

'I don't know.' Alex said. 'I'll have a think.' He winked playfully.

Justin turned back to the window and smiled a little. 'Let me know when you've come up with something.'

'Will do.' Alex paused. Then he said. 'I know. Why don't we talk about those things you told me you wanted to try?'

'What?'

'You know. Those things you've always wanted to try.'

'You mean.... I don't want to...'

'Yes, that's what I mean. Why not?'

'Because - because they're embarrassing.'

'They're natural. Well -.' Alex tickled Justin's leg lightly. 'Some are.'

'Yeah I'm not sure they had a stocked playroom on the savannah.'

Alex laughed, perhaps a little generously. 'You didn't mention that before.'

He stopped, as if thinking. Justin shrugged. 'I'm not mentioning it now.'

'No.' Alex said, shaking his head. 'No. No. No. I'm not letting you get away with that. That was your go-to answer. That means that fantasy is lurking somewhere in there, throbbing, exploding, tremoring in your loins... even if you refuse to acknowledge it.'

'No, it doesn't. And I don't even know where my loins are.'

'Yes. Definitely means that. Don't be shy.'

'Says who?'

Alex rubbed his chin. 'I imagine Freud dedicated a sentence or two to the matter.'

Just as he finished, a shard of light arched across the roof, and then the yellow light spilled downwards, swilling through the car. Both of them ducked instinctively: they knew headlights when they saw them. They heard the car approaching. It trundled over the gravel, and the light beams bounced with the undulating surface. It turned in a large curve, the engine rumbling gently, and then began to accelerate towards the exit of the car park once again.

But just before it reached the turn, the car stopped. The engine calmed a little, clicking downwards into neutral. 'Why is it stopping?' Justin said. He lifted himself up a little and peered around. 'I thought you said nobody comes here.' Alex pulled him down from the window, and he slunk low in his seat. Their shoulders were now where the smalls of their backs would be on the seats.

'They don't.' Alex whispered. 'I've hardly seen anyone here. Even in the day. It's just that eternally optimistic ice cream man.'

They could still hear the car. A door opened, and then was shut. Footsteps began to shuffle along the gravel.

Alex lifted himself up slightly and peered through the back window.

'Why do you get to look?' Justin said.

'Because I'm subtle.' Alex said downwards. 'And it's my car. Who is this guy?'

'What's he doing?'

'Why are you assuming it's a man?'

'What?' Justin said. 'You just said it's a guy.'

'Yeah it is. Actually.... I - I.'

'What?' Justin said, attempting to sit up again.

'Wait.' Alex said quickly, and a hand rested on Justin's shoulder, pushing ever so gently to keep him down.

'What?' Justin said. He knew he was practically whining now.

Alex fell silent. Justin listened, and he heard the slight crunch of stones underfoot. Then a door shut, and the engine revved slightly, and the wheels started scraping against the gravel. The car seemed to be getting further away, and then there was the grunt of acceleration and Justin heard the car begin to throttle the stillness of the lane as it drove away.

'Is he gone?' He said.

'Yeah. He is... He is \- I think.'

Justin lifted himself up slightly, and finally got to see through the window. 'What? He isn't here anymore.'

'Yeah.' Alex said. 'I suppose.'

Justin looked at him quizzically and debated in his mind whether he wanted to pursue it. 'Do you know him?'

'No.' Alex said, smiling. 'Probably not. I don't know anyone with a nice car like that.'

'One of your previous hook-ups?' Justin said, and it came out sounding embarrassingly bitter.

'Please.' Alex said. 'I have some taste.'

'I didn't see him remember.'

'Oh \- yeah. Well I mean you may have been impressed. You do like guys with fancy cars.' Then Alex looked away quite abruptly.

Justin waited a moment. He was calculating the action; weighing the probabilities. 'What is it?'

'Nothing.'

'It's clearly something.'

'No. It's nothing.' Alex turned back and smiled, but it had an inauthenticity, a plasticity.

'Okay.' Justin said. 'If you're sure.'

'I am.' Alex looked back and moved a fraction of an inch towards Justin. He softened his voice. 'Come here. I'm cold and need warming.'

Justin glanced up, and it was as if he could feel his eyes glinting, leaking light. 'You need it do you?'

Alex smiled. 'Need it. Need it so desperately.'

Justin moved slightly closer and leant into Alex. Alex reached around and pulled him close. Justin could feel the heat seeping from his skin as if pushing through the pores. Justin slipped down Alex's chest, until his head rested against Alex's abdomen. Alex began to curl Justin's hair around his finger, winding it, rubbing it slightly with the jagged tip of his nail, and Justin felt exhilarated by the delicacy of the movement, the way his whole body was teetering just within the possibility of pain.

Justin exhaled in a drawn-out sigh. Had that sounded contented? He had intended it to. Maybe it was too low?

'What was that?' Alex said. His voice was higher, like it had been stretched taught. It took Justin a moment to realise the question wasn't about how contented his sigh had been.

Justin began to lift himself up slightly. 'What was what?'

'That. That noise.' Alex said. His voice was disturbingly high, the words spurted out. Justin twisted his neck around and lifted himself up slightly so that he could look through the back window. He strained to listen. He heard nothing, and so moved slightly closer towards the window, attempting to focus on the cushioned, silky sounds that barely broached the glass. He heard only the rustle and scrape of branches mangled in the night wind. There was the shrill cry of an owl somewhere.

He waited then gave up. 'What's what?'

'I heard something.' Alex said. Justin heard how the edges of his syllables were sharpened. They could have cut the tongue.

'Heard what?'

'Like a... I don't know... like a cough. Or something dropping. It sounded close. Like just out there.'

Justin sat a little backwards in his seat. He raised his head as if this might clear the path between him and the illusive sound. He listened diligently for several moments.

'I don't hear anything.' He admitted. 'There's nothing around here. You've clearly got twenty-twenty hearing. Maybe you should become an eavesdropper. Work for a government agency or something.'

'I'm being serious. I heard something. Didn't you? Like you heard nothing?'

'No, I -.' He did not get to finish. A shrill, biting shriek interrupted him. It was piercing and cruel and sounded extremely close.

Alex darted his head around wildly, as if trying to pinpoint its source. 'Hear that.' He urged. 'I mean you heard that, right? What was that?'

Justin had turned sharply to the window, and he was staring through the window trying to make out the shape of the nearby woods in the milky moonlight. He cautioned his tone, but he noticed his heart was thumping quickly from the shock at that primal scream. 'Yeah I heard that. But that's a fox. That's just one animal attacking another. That's nothing. I've heard that before. That's nothing.' He said it slowly, like he was negotiating with his own sensibilities.

'No. ' Alex said. 'It was more. I heard something before.'

'What?'

'Like footsteps on the gravel.'

'Why would there be footsteps?'

'It could be the guy coming back.'

'What? Which guy... the guy with the dog?'

Suddenly Alex looked at Justin. 'No. Not him.' He had paled. 'The guy in the car. It could be him.' Then Alex looked away suddenly and Justin thought he seemed almost ashamed, no, frightened to have spoken.

'What do you mean? Why would it be him? He's driven off, we would have heard his car if he came back.'

'Yeah.' Alex said nodding and turning back, but he would not look at Justin. 'You're right. Of course, you're right. You have to be.' He was deliberately shielding his gaze, directing his eyes down at the fraying carpets and their clothes.

'Forget about it.' Justin said cautiously. 'You're overthinking it. There's nothing there. Nobody ever comes here. Especially at night.'

'Yeah.' Alex said, with a little more confidence. He turned to look out the back window. 'Yeah,' he said again, his eyes fixed steadily out the glass. They stayed there quietly until Alex slowly turned around from the window. He gradually slumped in his seat, rubbing his face. His hands slid down his cheeks.

'What is it?' Justin eventually asked.

'Nothing,' Alex said, waving a hand with lame dismissiveness. Justin had seen more convincing denials in his time. Even Isabel, his Year 10 girlfriend, would agree, and she wasn't used to the most crafted of performances.

'Okay fine.' Justin said. 'If you say so. Clearly nothing's wrong.' He immediately regretted his caustic tone. They were quiet for a while.

'Fuck. Fuck. That was it again.' Alex said, twisting frenziedly to look out of the back window. 'You must hear it. The footsteps.'

Justin felt the skin on his neck tighten, his pulse began to rise. It was as if he could feel the arteries across his arm straining. He listened, and for a moment he thought he could hear the slow crush of a footstep pushing down carefully on gravel. He focused on the sound, as if he could scrub the audio like an engineer cleaning disturbance from a muffled recording. Was that it? The delicate movement of stones, like crinkling paper.

'You heard it, didn't you?' Alex said, almost desperately.

'I - I.' Justin said, trying to hone his ear around the sound.

'Well?'

'I - I don't know.' Justin relented. 'Maybe - I think.'

'Well?'

'Maybe.'

'Are the doors locked?' Alex whispered.

'I don't think so.' Justin said, trying to look, but before he could see Alex had scrambled across the front seats to the lock. The reassuring click of a bolting lock echoed in the small space of the car.

'Who is it?' Justin asked. 'You need to tell me.'

'I don't know. I just think - I don't know.'

'Well who did you think it was earlier. In the car I mean.'

'No, it couldn't be him.'

'What?'

Alex looked up. Justin saw fear plaguing his face. His skin was the colour of plasterboard.

'Him?'

'No.' Alex said, but he garbled the word, so he said it again with added stress. 'No.'

'Whose him?' Justin repeated.

Alex glanced up and they looked at each other. Alex slowly nodded, as if inviting the question again.

'Whose him?'

'It doesn't matter.' Alex said. 'It couldn't be.'

'Who is he?'

'No-one. Nobody.'

'Fine.' Justin said fiercely. 'Don't tell me.'

The tone seemed to work. Alex swallowed. 'It was just a guy. From a while ago. But it can't be him now. It was done. It was all finished with.'

'How did you know him?'

'I didn't.'

'What?'

'I didn't know him. Not really.'

'What?' Justin stammered, trying to work out if he was being dumb. 'That doesn't make sense. Why would he be here now then?'

Alex paused, and looked away. 'He was someone I didn't want to know, but I was forced to. If you know what I mean. If you get that.'

'Not really, no.'

Alex sighed. It was extended, exhausted. 'He was.... he used to have an... interest in me.'

'You slept with him?' Justin said. He attempted to say it neutrally, but this didn't work out.

'What? No!' Alex had grown animated. 'Chatted once or twice, but nothing else.'

'And then what happened?'

'I stopped replying.'

'You ghosted him.'

'No. I took longer to reply, let things die down. You know how it goes. You let things wane.'

'And then stop replying altogether.' Justin let out a glib laugh. 'Yes I know.'

'Well, yes.' Alex shrugged, turned anxiously away again. 'You know how it goes.' His voice had softened, and it sounded regretful.

'And then?'

Alex glanced back around.

'Then I started getting this weird sense. Like I thought I was being followed when I drove places. I found it weird and so blocked him on the app - him along with others. I didn't know who it was then. But then new blank profiles would pop up and be really close to me. I had given him my number - I don't know why, he asked early on and I was dumb and gave it to him. I would get texts saying 'hello' or 'what you up to' - comments like that. I would block the numbers but then a new number would message me. I knew it was him.'

'And you think that was his car?'

'I don't know. I don't know.' Alex exhaled in a long, fatigued breath. 'I think so. A car like that was once parked near my house, and someone was sat inside. I was on edge by this point, so I noticed it quite quickly. It stayed for a long time, and eventually I decided to go closer to see who was in it. As soon as I stepped out the front door the engine turned on and it drove away. I looked in as it passed, and it was accelerating really quickly, too quickly for just a street with houses, and I saw this guy inside. And you know when you get that sense that the person inside knows they're being watched? Like his eyes were unnaturally focused ahead of him.'

'Did you tell anyone?'

'No - not really.'

'And?'

He erred slightly and flexed his shoulder to give a tiny shrug. 'He just stopped. I never saw him again. It was like he gave up. Maybe he moved onto someone else.'

'I see.'

Alex turned to the window, and he went up close so that he could see further through the glass and into the darkness that surrounded the car like dulled tarmac.

'There.' Alex cried, and he pointed through the glass urgently. Justin scrambled over to the window and began to stare through the glass.

'What?'

'No. I thought - I thought I saw someone. It's dark, but I mean - I saw something. Or Someone.'

'Where?'

'There.' Alex said, and he pointed through the glass again, this time jabbing his finger viciously and holding the tip against the glass.

Justin strained his eyes. He could not see anything. 'Maybe we should just go.' He said nervously.

'We can't.' Alex whispered. 'Remember the tyre blew out - when we drove in. I need to check it at least. It could ruin the car.'

'Is that important? It would still drive right?'

'Do you know much about cars?'

'No.'

'Then no it wouldn't.'

'I'll get my phone.'

'Wait I-'

Justin reached forward, and fumbled around for his trousers, pulling his phone from the pocket. He looked at the screen, which glared blisteringly in the darkness and made his eyes throb. He had no service.

'Fuck.'

Alex leant towards the phone and saw the words in the corner of the screen. 'Yeah. The trees block the signal, I think. We're in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing here.'

'Do you really think he could be there?'

'I'm not sure.' Alex turned back to the window. 'I don't know. He was so odd and irrational. How can you second-guess someone like that?' He fell back into silence.

Justin opened his phone. It was instinctive from being in his hand. The app came up on screen. It had been the last thing he was looking at when he was messaging Alex before. He looked at the screen. It must have updated whilst they were driving to the wood.

'Alex.'

'What?' Alex replied. But he was staring through the window again. He was still unaware.

'Alex.'

'What?'

'Look.'

Alex eventually turned to him. He had picked up on the sense that something was wrong. Seeing where Justin intended him to focus, he leant towards the phone. He squinted against the brutality of the glare. He looked up. Justin saw his face contort through a sequence of confusion, angst, uncertainty, fear. The last dregs of colour clinging to the surface of his skin leached away.

'I don't get it.' Alex said quietly. 'That doesn't make sense.' He said it with passive resignation. He turned back to the window, away from the phone which was still displaying the black square of an empty profile beside the squares of Alex and Justin's profiles. In the corner was the distance. It said this person was very close. They sat there in silence, listening. Every tweak, and scratch, and rustle, no matter how softly and gently it penetrated the thick metal of the chassis, throbbed through them like charge.

Justin leant closer to the window, until his ear rested against the chilled glass.

Justin held up his hand. 'Listen.' He said.

'What?' Alex cricked his neck upwards and the bone clicked.

'Don't you hear it?' Justin said. There was a noise, in the distance. He knew the sound. It had a tune, one that was agonisingly familiar. He only needed to let it sift through him a little more, pay attention to the beats, the jumps, the descending, sinking lilts.

'What?' Alex asked.

Justin held up his hand again. He was focusing on the rhythm.

'Don't you hear it?' Justin said. He was infuriated that only he seemed to be able to hear it. It made him think he was going crazy, which potentially he was.

Alex sat a little more upright. 'I think so.' He turned back to the windscreen.

They listened. Up and down, rising then dropping, the tinkling rhythm rippled and bumped along merrily.

Then Alex made a noise, like a gentle snort. He looked at Justin, and his face was a stew of frustration, and anxiety and relief. 'I think I know what it is.' He said.

Justin glared at him. 'What?' He demanded, and when Alex did not immediately respond, he hissed: 'Just tell me.'

Alex laughed glumly. 'My alarm. On my tablet - in the boot. It's beeping, but the volume is basically off.'

'Does that have better signal?' Justin said. Though he suddenly wondered who he would contact anyway. He didn't think he could pretend he was en route to the bakers from here. Then he wondered why he was even thinking up an excuse.

Alex looked up sharply. 'I can't get it without getting out. But I can get it. I mean - I think I was overreacting before.'

Justin shook his head and bent his neck to look at the seats. He could imagine the tablet vibrating and blinking behind them. The roof rattled as a stone or a branch clashed against the metal. He jerked his head back up and stared at the roof. The shock of the noise had iced his muscles, hardening them to the consistency of setting clay. In the faint light he felt he could see folds in the metal, as if the impact had bent the sheet. The folds seemed to twist and meld and then disappeared entirely as the slight moonlight was carved and sliced by dragging clouds and interrupting branches. 'We are near the trees.' Justin said quietly. 'The wind could blow things over that distance.'

They listened for the wind. They had just started to notice it. It had only recently begun to rise, but now they could hear it whining and swarming intermittently. The gusts were infrequent, but surged ferociously when they came, brushing frozen dewdrops from the foliage and hurling it into glass where the bullets exploded in loud clicks.

'I think I'm overreacting.' Alex said. 'I mean I must be. We're being irrational. I should get out to check. I can turn off that alarm. The sound it makes is like torture. It scars me every morning.'

'No.' Justin said. He looked through the glass, straining his eyes in an attempt to see into the charred foliage. He looked through the front windscreen. The condensation had faded with the lapsing heat and he could see through it more clearly.

There.

He saw torchlight. It was in the distance, and very faint. He saw it just for a moment. Then it turned off, and there was just the darkness of the treetops, galvanised by the silver light from the low moon.

'Did you see that?' Justin said, nudging Alex, who wasn't looking in that direction.

'What?' Alex said. Then more nervously. 'What did you see?'

'Down there.' Justin pointed through the windscreen. 'It was a torch I think.'

'No.' Alex said. 'I - I - what torch? You're getting confused. Why would anyone be down there? Out there is the - focus zone.' He inclined his head towards the back window and the car park. 'But I told you I was overreacting. There's no torch - and nobody outside.' He stopped. 'I think.'

Silence dominated for a few seconds. The wind spluttered and the window jostled in the grip of the holding. Justin noticed Alex kept glancing from the window to the windscreen, and the distant patch where he had seen the torch light.

'I'm going to get out.' Alex said, eventually. 'I presume you also can't hear anything? I think I was overreacting. I should get out and check that I'm right though. I can look at the tyre too. You can't hear anything either, can you?'

Justin listened. He shook his head delicately. The silence was thick and draped the car. 'No - I. I - don't think so - I can't hear anything.' He looked out the window. The darkness was too thick to see through. It was like gloop.

'Okay then.' Alex said, and reached for the door handle.

'What are you doing?' Justin said. He moved slightly forward in his seat ready to bat Alex's hand away from the handle, but Alex put his hand back to his side anyway.

'Getting out.' Alex said. He was looking through the window. But it was a look of such excessive and entirely unnecessary purpose. Justin had never seen such a suspicious pose.

'Alex?' Justin said.

Alex slowly turned to face Justin. It was so begrudging a twist it was like his eyes were battling magnetism.

'Why do you suddenly think you're overreacting?'

'Because.' Alex said slowly. 'I can't hear anything. And neither can you - right? So I'm going to get out and check and turn off the alarm.'

'But you literally just thought there was someone there and now you don't.'

'Yes.' He said. 'But I think I was misguided. A bit of an overreaction. I'm a bit embarrassed actually.'

'Misguided?'

'Misguided. Error prone. Overly-cautious.'

'Right. And now you want to go outside and confirm that you were just...'. Justin paused. 'Error prone.'

'Exactly.'

Justin waited. 'It's a bit strange.'

'What is?'

'The sudden change of opinion.'

'Great realisations are often made in seconds. Like Achilles in the bath.'

Justin waited, judging his next question. He felt his throat go dry as if in the prelude to vomiting. He decided to ask it. 'Did you ever think there was anyone there?'

'I was never completely certain there wasn't anyone there.'

'Do you think there is someone there now?'

'Somewhere? Yes.'

'Near?'

'Potentially. Quite possibly.' As he was replying, Alex was looking around the car in a lazy, ditzy, carefree way, but then his eyes suddenly landed on Justin, seemingly by accident. 'Yes actually.' He said.

'Within metres?'

'Absolutely.'

'Not including me.'

'Less likely.'

'Less likely?'

'Less likely. But entirely possible. Remember that. Entirely possible.'

Justin turned away from Alex and scratched the hair on the back of his head. He looked out through the window. There was a long period of crystalline silence. Then Justin turned back to Alex.

'What the hell were you thinking? You had me worried. I thought we were in - danger.'

'I'm sorry.' Alex relented. 'It was stupid. It was -.' He stopped. 'Well it was to distract you - to make you think of something else. I told you I would. You were so focused on that one thing and I wanted to show you that as soon as you think of something else whatever you were thinking of before becomes diluted, less toxic, and you realise how little it really matters.'

Justin stared at him. 'You can make me think of something else without frightening me.'

Alex nodded. 'I guess I just panicked. I just thought of something. And everything else wouldn't be as effective. That's what I thought.'

Justin turned away. He went to open the door handle.

'Where are you going?' Alex said.

'To get out of here. To get away from you.'

'Why?'

'Because you just did what you just did, why do you think?' Justin said, fumbling with the handle.

'We locked them remember.' Alex said.

'Yes, I remember.' Justin said. 'Maybe you can unlock them.'

'Justin, I'm sorry.'

He ignored him and continued to jerk and jiggle the handle even though he was now fully aware it was locked.

'Justin.' Alex said again. 'Justin, I'm sorry.'

Justin paused, and let his hand fall away to his side. But he still didn't look at Alex. He scratched his cheek and stared down at the floor. He then started searching for his shoes in the motley assortment of clothing sludged across the carpet.

'Did you actually think it would help?' Justin said, as he rifled through the pile. His tone was hot and indicated he firmly did not think that question could be answered positively.

'Yes.' Alex said. 'I thought it would distract you for a few minutes. I thought you looked like you were hurting.'

'It was longer than a few minutes.'

'The performance could have been edited.' Alex said, bobbing his head in gracious concession. 'It got out of hand. I didn't know how to tell you without you hating me.'

'You were waiting for the opportune moment?' Justin said, his voice a potent blend of incredulity and scorn. 'Well I don't think you broke the news to me particularly well. I could think of much better moments for you to tell me.'

Alex looked like he was about to speak, and Justin knew what he was going to say: what was this moment then? But then Alex seemed to catch that Justin was not going to be willing to share this assistive insight, and he took a second to rethink his next words, exhaling with a delicate, reluctant breath. 'This is true. I didn't think it through.' He said. He held up his hands very slightly in a performative, deferential surrender, which Justin saw would look ridiculous to anyone removed from the heat and headiness of the moment.

'You look ridiculous.' Justin said. But he hadn't managed to sound as angry and prickly as he had before, even though he was fairly sure he was still angry and pricked, because Alex had been a prick.

Justin pulled his shoes on. He began to fumble with the laces. One side of the string had become a lot shorter than the other side and so forming a knot was difficult. The laces were also crusted with mud. It was like trying to tie twigs together.

'Don't you think you should put your trousers on first.' Alex said.

'I don't need your advice.' Justin said, continuing to unsuccessfully tie his laces, but he realised that Alex was in all likelihood onto something with the order he should be getting dressed. This realisation made him pricklier. But tying his laces had become an act of defiance now, a display of independence and integrity, the unwavering will of someone who could walk away from disrespect with grace and dignity, and if this path had to be pursued trouserless then so be it.

'I said I'm sorry.' Alex said.

'Did you just make him up?' Justin said.

'Who?'

'The guy.'

'Oh.' Alex said. 'No I - I didn't.'

His voice was wavering and juddered, like his tongue had been salted and couldn't curve the words correctly. Justin didn't know if he was telling the truth or not. He felt every time he thought he had Alex sensed he would say something or do something that cast his decoding formulae and calculating antennae out of whack, and he would be back to trying to understand him; learning and parsing and retesting again.

Justin shook his head but stayed quiet.

'Fuck.' Alex said.

Justin looked around at him. 'What?'

'There was a light down there.' He said. 'It was on and then went off, but I think it was just covered by the trees.'

'Are you literally trying this again? Even if there is somebody there what does it matter?' Justin said, his voice burnished with a rekindled incandescence, and all the ceded, repressed anger from a minute before suddenly felt fresh and refuelled and able to infect all parts of his body.

'It matters.' Alex said. 'I told you before.' He was biting the underside of his lip with his teeth and staring down into the trees. 'It matters entirely.'

Justin looked down into the trees where Alex was looking, but he could only see darkness. The tree tops beneath them looked like a decaying carcus, with the pillowy, expansive canopy of the coniferous trees broken up and punched through by the branches of the barren deciduous trees. 'I don't think it's there anymore.' Justin said. 'So you can stop being so dramatic.'

'I'm not being dramatic.' Alex snapped at him, and Justin recoiled slightly as the words seemed to thump into him and he was forced to absorb the blow. He hadn't expected Alex to be so acerbic - wasn't he supposed to be the one who was angry? He sat back in his seat quietly and scratched the fabric with his nails. The sound was pitched and grating, which was precisely what Justin wanted - white, tortuous, drowning noise.

Alex was slowly lowering himself back into his seat. The darkness had been preserved for a minute and the slipping time was making Alex second-guess his initial fear. His state of attentive, unwavering alertness was gradually loosening. But Justin thought he might as well preserve his poised sentry since he would have nothing to say to him even when he did eventually relent.

'You're a prick, you know.' Justin said. He said it before he had thought about saying it. His antagonism surprised him.

Alex looked at him with a half-twist of his head. 'You don't understand.' He said. 'You're judging me when you don't know me. You don't get it. You never will.'

'I don't know you.' Justin agreed. 'I don't want to.'

Alex turned slightly further towards Justin and swallowed. It was loud and sounded painful like it had gullied his throat. Then he looked down at his chest and twisted away again, still without saying anything.

They sat there quietly.

Then Alex turned to him. 'There's always something going on. With everybody. Don't you get that. Skin is opaque. People pretend. They make others comfortable.'

'What's going on then?' Justin said, his voice puffing with heat. 'You say I don't understand but maybe you could at least tell me, and I could see. I know why you don't want to. You don't want to in case I do get it. And how do you square that with being the complicated, incalculable genius.'

Alex erupted with a dismissive, snarling, guttural laugh. 'Genius? I don't know a bigger idiot than me. Only an idiot would end up here.'

'Sorry I forced you to come.' Justin said, in a half-whisper. 'I won't make the mistake again.'

'Not here.' Alex said, his tone half-exasperated, half-morose. He punched the seat in front of him gently as if to signal the proximity of the point. 'I mean more generally. I ended up here because I'm an idiot.'

Justin didn't know what to reply and so said nothing. The wind racked the car. Branch bits lashed the window. Justin felt the tingling, low throb of a readying headache, and he realised he hadn't drunk anything for a while, at least not anything substantive. He felt tired. It was like a treacly glaze had been tipped over him that made his skin feel heavy. His eyes were burning with exhaustion. He should go home.

Justin looked at Alex. He was looking through the window out into the dark car park. He breathed heavily and his spewing breath condensed across the glass. A single drop scratched through the frost as it fell downwards. It drew an isolated, shivering line and as the condensation heated, more lines emerged, and the glass briefly looked like a delta photographed from above.

Alex turned to him. 'I know it seems weird. Sounds demented even. It's just I can't choose like you did.'

Justin nodded half-heartedly and looked out through the windscreen. The torch light was back. The beam of light swayed slightly. It was too far away to see any detail that it illuminated, but where it swung over the trees it turned the leaves a marginally lighter green. It was the slightest of changes, as if they had been dusted with powder. The torchlight turned off again.

Alex hadn't seen and Justin didn't know whether to tell him or not. He decided he wouldn't.

'I think we should go.' Justin said, moulding each word into a stiletto-sharp dart. He still felt a coarsening, bristling heat in his chest, which he presumed was anger, and even if consciously it has past, he was speaking as if it hadn't. He considered then the way the body runs on different speeds, how chemicals linger in the muscles and make them operate in manners resistive to the mind. 'Do we need to fix the tyre?' He said, and again it emerged with excessive aggression.

Alex didn't respond, until finally he nodded delicately and said quietly: 'I need to fix it. Although I've never actually done it before. Well maybe it's fine. I need to check it though.'

'I can help if you want.' Justin said. He realised his hunched tone would make this sound disingenuous and involuntary. It was precisely the same tone and words he had used when he had seen his flatmate receiving a delivery of flatpack furniture at university. They had taken him up on his offer.

Alex opened the door. The light in the car turned on and a flinch-inducing brightness blanketed both of them.

Alex swung a leg out the door and sat on the edge of the front seat listening. He got out the car and Justin heard as he walked around to the wheel. He heard thumped rubber and scuffed gravel and an exhausted, long sigh. Justin looked through the window and saw Alex staring at the tyre, as if it were an unfathomable piece of engineering, which maybe it was.

Justin got his phone out again. The battery was low and there was still no service.

He heard Alex moving quickly back into the car and the door slammed.

'What is it?' Justin said.

'It's back.' He whispered frantically, pressing against the back seat as if to burrow through the firm, tough fabric.

'What?' Justin said. He was still a little dazed from the bright phone screen and the general sense or urgency made him more perturbed.

But then Justin turned and saw that Alex was pointing through the windscreen at the torch that was swinging wildly across the tree line down below them. His eyes were so wide that Justin thought they might be in pain. He imagined their glaze pulled thinly like stretched clingfilm.

The torch stayed on for longer than it had before, and then the beam turned, and it was pointed directly at them. It was too far away for the light to wash across them, but Alex tried to retreat further into his seat as if he was being confronted by a blade.

'What are they doing?' He said nervously. 'Have they seen us? Do you think they know we're here.'

'No.' Justin whispered. 'How can they? It's too far away to pick up anything.'

The beam began to shake. Someone was walking with the torch. The pale beam flickered across them, strengthening gradually into a penetrating light.

'They're coming.' Alex said. 'Look. They're coming towards us. We need to get out of here.' He looked towards the ignition and bent over the front seat, his hand outstretched yearningly for the key.

'The tyre. Was it fine?' Justin said. 'We can't drive remember if not.'

'I don't know. I couldn't see in the dark.' Alex said, dropping his arm. 'Fuck'.

The torchlight was swaying around the car. It was still far away, but with every few seconds it grew noticeably stronger. The diluted light turned concentrated and deepened into a yellowish haze.

'Why are you so worried about them?' Justin said, and he heard how his voice had risen. He looked at Alex and then glanced back and saw the torchlight had strengthened even in those few seconds.

'I told you.' Alex said. 'I told you. I can't be seen here. What if someone sees me? What if they see me here - like this?'

'But why can't you be seen?' Justin said. 'Why?' What have you done? Who will even know it's you?'

Alex lashed his eyes towards Justin. They looked kinetic. 'They might know me, don't you see? Don't you get it? Or maybe they will know me one day. And they will remember seeing me here - like - like this. And they might tell them. And I can't take that risk. Not - not just for... this. I shouldn't have come.'

He finished. His face gradually tightened; he seemed to hear his words playing back to him, and his features gradually sank into disgust as he processed them. 'I-.'

'Forget it.' Justin said. 'Just don't bother.'

'I don't -.' Alex began, but then the torchlight passed across his face and he just shook his head. Justin understood. He didn't think it was a dismissive sign. It was just the leaking out of inner frustration.

Justin watched the torchlight come towards them. There was nothing else to be done. There was nothing else to be said. He turned back to the front window.

'The light's gone.' Alex said quietly. He turned to Justin and then jerked his neck around to look forwards. 'It's gone.' He said it louder. His breathing was swollen and hard. 'Why? They're still coming. Right? They're still coming. I know they're still coming.'

'I don't know.' Justin replied coldly, and he turned to look out the window again.

Alex lurched forward for the door handle.

'What are you doing?' Justin said. 'You can't go outside. Where are you going to go? Just wait and then we can go home.'

'I can't be seen.' Alex cried, but he hesitated over the door handle, his hand trembling very slightly. He pulled it back.

They sat in the quiet for a few moments, and Justin heard Alex breathing heavily. Each exhalation erupted with furious pressure, and then he would swallow as if his lungs were deep mine shafts riddled with cavernous vacuums. He lent forward for the door again, and Justin mirrored his movement with a half-second delay, as if this shadowing might forestall him.

'Did you hear that?' Alex said, raising his arm. 'Branches, like bushes snapping. Someone's coming from down there. I need to go. I can't be here anymore!'

'Stop it.' Justin shouted. 'Stop it! Just - just stay there.'

Alex glanced around. His eyes were pitted. Justin saw his outburst had surprised him, and despite everything Alex didn't know quite how to react.

But the moment was short-lived. The sound of a flock of birds, flapping their winds in a energetic, hot panic bounded over from the periphery of the woods. Alex turned to stare at the spot where, even in the darkness, he could clearly see the black, ballooning spiral of birds escaping.

'They must be there. Let's go. They're coming. We need to go.'

Justin slipped down in his seat resignedly, and stared through the glass at the fleeing birds, rising up only metres away. Whatever had thrust them into their flight was so close.

'You don't know what it is.' Justin said eventually, quietly, from the recess of the seat.

'You saw that.'

'You can't see anything.' Justin said. 'It's dark out there. You don't know what's anywhere.'

Alex was breathing deeply, in extended nervous snatches. Justin tried to second-guess what he was about to do, understand the eddying, raging flurries of his thoughts. He supposed he must have grown to understand Alex a little because in the elastic second before he acted, Justin knew that he was about to do something. He just didn't know what.

Alex lurched forward, throwing his body between the front seats of the car. With his arm lashing out wildly, he grabbed for the right side of the steering wheel and pulled himself across the seat. His fingers clasped around the keys, and he violently spun the ignition. The engine glugged and gasped, and tumbled over, and the clumsy rattle of the engine jostled the air.

Alex glanced back at Justin. 'They can't see in, not yet.' He sounded frantic. 'Not yet. I need time.'

He moved his hand from the keys, which clinked against the interior plastic, and his hand wrapped around the indicator. He yanked his hand upwards, and the headlights burnt out into the blackness, singeing everything ahead with a dazzling, white haze.

Justin's eyes were stunned. Everything blurred.

It was only Alex's frantic shouting that made Justin realise the headlights had exposed something. But Justin could not decipher Alex's spewing sentences, his gushing obscenities, and so he had no idea what this was. He watched as a smudged and sharpening Alex began scrambling to get into an upright position from his belly.

His vision finally recovered. He turned to look forward and through the windscreen.

There was nothing.

He didn't understand. Alex had seen something. He must have done. Justin's eyes scanned straight across his sight line. Nothing. He pushed himself up slightly from his slumped position.

Then he saw. The lights had caught glinting eyes.

Alex was still shouting. He pushed to his knees, and his hand darted for the door handle. He pulled it with such power that Justin thought the plastic might snap. Justin spun his head from the slouched body of Alex back to the bulging eyes. It was a dog. It was gazing wildly into the car, and thick, bulbous frothing drops of drool were dangling from its muzzle.

Justin felt a thrust of cold air shear across his cheek. He turned to see that Alex had opened the door. He was still on his knees on the seat, and he clumsily slid a leg out onto the gravel, then shuffled forward slightly, half-falling onto the floor. 'They're coming.' He said. 'I'm sorry - I need to go.'

'Wait.' Justin shouted after him. His eyes turned from Alex back to the dog. He had never liked dogs.

But Alex did not hear, or did not want to, because he suddenly pushed himself up from the ground, and darted around the car. He sprinted into the woods. He seemed to have taken a path that disappeared from the car park slightly away from the dog. The dog began to chase him, yelping as it bounded across the bank.

Then Justin realised both had gone. And he was alone.

III

He looked from the open door to the back window and then lent forward towards the door. He reached over and shut off the engine. Though he could look out of it from his position, several moments passed before he cautiously tilted his neck through the gap. He listened carefully but heard nothing. He gazed into the darkness. There were no shapes. No blurred, wispy pencil-grey outlines. Nothing moving. He listened for disturbed stones or restrained breathing, for the scrape of air against waxed fabric or the tinker of coins and keys in a jostled pocket but there was only the gradually stirring wood and the light rankling of the wind.

He was alone. It was just a sense, the type of intuition that is learned instinctively and passively and gathers over time. He fumbled around for his shoes and pulled them on. He tucked the laces into the sides rather than tying the twigs together. He was about to get out the car when he remembered to put on his trousers, meaning he had to remove his shoes. When he finally fell out of the car, he felt how the air was noticeably fresh, stripped of its toxins, pollution and spiked, abrasive particles by the pressured cold. There was the smell of chilled soil and mulch.

He walked around the car slowly, dragging his fingertips across the raw metalwork and glass. He listened for Alex. He did not know what he expected to hear - slapping feet on sheets of dirt, or shattering puddles, or torn branches? He approached the track he thought Alex had taken. It was in the corner of the carpark and traced away at a sharp, knotted angle. It wound steeply down a slope.

He looked backwards because he had been nicked by the sudden sense that he was being watched. He did not have a grasp on the direction which these investigative eyes came from. It was only the faint feeling that when he moved it was being registered elsewhere, recorded and rebounded along some distant synapse.

He thought about shouting for Alex but this feeling of not being alone made him hesitate. The darkness offered a protective shroud that any shout would dissipate. So instead he decided to take the path. His feet slipped down in his shoes from the steepness of the incline. He grabbed the branches that nestled along the path edge as he descended. His felt each bump and bristle and scrape from the bark. When the path flattened, he stopped needing support and let go and he instinctively sniffed his hand and the rich, fresh aroma of resin and oaky dirt rippled up his nostrils and it was like he could feel the resulting drip of endorphins into the brain. The smell was nostalgic and set pastel fragments of footage playing from years before. He didn't go to woods much anymore. They were for underage drinkers and fly-tippers and he would probably feel unwelcome.

The path trailed down into a valley. He reached a junction where the path splintered in two and carved away in separate directions. He looked at the floor, hoping to see a pair of recently pressed footprints or scuffs that would indicate movement. He could make out nothing. He remembered in those distant Geography lessons that he had once been taught that criminals run downhill after a crime (it was a subject full of such eclectic, jumbled trivia). Apparently, it was a psychological quirk that helped detectives cut through fact-fugs and aided the solving of crimes. But both of these paths seemed to run downhill. He stared down both paths, flexed his ears. Then he shrugged to himself and went right. It seemed to run more downhill.

As he went lower the foliage thickened above him and the moonlight was extinguished. He began looking over his shoulder, and regularly slowed his pace and stared into the darkness, at the curling, knarled trunks, and binding branches, and his spindly nerves crackled with an irrational fear that with every few steps these trees had suddenly metamorphosed into people who now lurched up behind him. The same sense of being watched, of their being a proximate, insidious presence, prickled and scratched at him. His pulse pumped staccato. The path continued to drop, and Justin followed it for a few minutes. Time seemed to foam and expand, and the minutes passed extremely slowly.

He thought about Alex. In particular, he wondered what he was thinking right now - wherever he had ended up in this excessive wood - and why he had been so afraid of people discovering them. Justin was not sure he understood him after all. Justin generally thought he had a handle on people. He prided his sensitivity to other people's character, the way he could decipher and decode psyches and parse them into a comprehensible, condensed profile. Evidently, he was optimistic in this ability. He should probably add this optimism to his own profile.

He saw ahead the path widening. It seemed to spread into a clearing. He approached with hesitant, drowsy languidness. He walked into the opening and looked around. Of all the things had expected to see - iced ash, embers, skeletal detritus - he had not expected what was in the middle of the clearing.

It was a telescope. Standing on its own and angled upwards. In its isolation it looked as if it might have been there for forever. It reclined on an extended tripod. Its mercurial skin was washed by the moonlight. He looked around but saw nobody. That feeling of edged uncertainty streaked through his blood again. His body hairs turned to metal pins and felt like they were incising slowly into his arms. His scanned across the clearing into the gaps of the surrounding trees but there was no way his sight could penetrate the dense blackness that bound the trunks like cement. The clearing itself was a slight, shallow bowl in the ground. The floor was speckled with twigs and unkempt tufts of needly grass crusty with ice.

He stood still for a moment, staring at the glinting metal tube. Slowly he went over, spent a few moments letting his eyes drift over it. It looked expensive; the surface was metal not the grey acrylic plastic that his old telescope had been decked in. Then again, that was only a toy, and this was made for enthusiasts, people who watched astronomy television shows, charted the passage of asteroids and constellations and had attractive neighbours. He bent low and looked over the top of the cylinder squinting at the sky specked with its span of minuscule stars.

'Don't move it.'

The voice startled him. He swivelled around, only narrowing missing the telescope with his hurtling shoulder. A collision would have sent the telescope spinning, firing around its axel like lifting helicopter blades.

'Careful!' The voice cried. 'You almost moved it!'

The voice was coming from the trees and was loud and sharp and brisk. Gradually a figure emerged and took shape from the darkness.

'Not that it's set up correctly.' This voice added, and Justin thought it sounded like it belonged to a woman. 'For some reason I always thought it would be easier. How everybody used to be able to read the stars and knew what they were looking at I'll never know. I feel like I'm looking at a bunch of a billion LEDs - like they're on the roof of a ride at a theme park.'

'Hello.' Justin replied. He could hear his voice juddering. 'I'm Justin.' It sounded rather stupid, introducing himself so formally. He had yet to even see whoever was with him.

The woman had walked deeper into the clearing, and the light spilled across her face. She nodded but seemed preoccupied with the telescope. Her gaze tacked quickly back to the instrument as soon as she had let a meagre smile crease her lips. 'Hi.' She said. The word was curt, polite, and tainted with dulled, dismissive enthusiasm.

She was younger than Justin had expected a stargazer to be, probably about forty. He had always seen it as a hobby for the aged, like bingo or visiting the doctor. She had a bag on, a battered, blotchy leather satchel, and dropped it onto the floor. She took out several large glossy books on the subject of astronomy. The titles indicated they were beginner's guides.

'Have you seen someone else round here?' Justin asked.

'That's quite vague.'

'Someone, my age, in the last few minutes.'

'Now,' she said, looking up at Justin. 'When a person says that it puts a lot of pressure on a person to guess that age right. Apparently, you can insult someone quite deeply if you get it wrong. I mean, you would think everyone would jump at the chance of getting the pensioner's concession ticket but turns out that's not so.'

'Nineteen.' Justin replied.

She scrunched up her face tightly. 'Really?'

Justin was taken aback. He even recoiled slightly. She smiled. 'I'm joking. Actually, I would have guessed exactly right. I would know.'

Justin was still a little flustered but had composure enough to know he should remain focused on finding Alex. 'He was running. Probably quite urgently.'

'Running? Well that gives me even less chance to have seen him, doesn't it?'

Justin realised he had a wit on his hands. 'Have you heard anyone?'

'I just arrived.'

'Were you using a torch earlier?'

She looked at him suspiciously. 'Yes. Whilst I was finding this spot. A bright one actually. Could hover over a Prison yard - if that actually happens. Can't imagine the batteries will last.'

'And then you stopped?'

Her suspicious, vaguely aggrieved look deepened. 'I know they say you should take an interest in a person when you meet them but that doesn't mean interrogate them. I feel like I'm on a first date with a recent divorcee or a recruiter or something. If you must know I need the darkness to see it properly.'

So that explained the torchlight at least. He thought he should go and find Alex. 'I should probably...' He began.

But he didn't finish because she interrupted him. 'Do you know anything about astronomy?' She asked, and then she smiled when she saw he was surprised at her intervention. 'I felt it was my turn to ask a question.'

'What?'

'I need to find this ... I guess you'd call it a... location?' She flourished a torn piece of paper from a half-ripped and fraying coat pocket that dangled loose threads like sinewy tissue. It was a used envelope with ruffled, peeling strips where the seal had been. A sequence of numbers was scrawled in blue biro. A crazed spiral that darkened and thickened as it ran suggested the biro hadn't worked at first. Justin presumed the numbers were coordinates. He had no idea how coordinates worked in the context of astronomy. Actually, he wasn't entirely sure how coordinates worked in any context.

'I - I don't really know.' Justin said. 'I should probably...'

'Damn.' She said. 'I'm running out of time.'

Justin squinted. 'Running out of time till what?'

The woman began fiddling with the telescope. 'It's coming.' She said. 'Through the atmosphere.' She cursed again. 'How the hell do you use this? I should have practised beforehand. In fact, I should have tried this ages ago. I guess I used to think it was for old people who didn't like bingo.'

'What's coming?'

The woman glanced up and her face was struck by a wicked, giddy smile. 'The satellite.' She said, and her excitement was eruptive. 'Through the atmosphere. Falling right back to Earth.' She winked and the smile cranked yet wider, which Justin thought looked borderline sinister.

Then she dropped her head again and began thumbing through the pages of one of the books. She tweaked a dial gently. She glanced up at the crinkling sky and squinted at a distant point, where only a few trailing cloud fibres latticed the darkness. 'There,' she said. I think it'll be there it comes down.' She pointed with sudden vigour.

'What will?' Justin asked. 'I'm not sure I understand.'

The woman looked up. Justin saw her face gathering with a suspicion that he might be a bit dim. 'The satellite.' She repeated. 'You know. The things up there that go around and around.'

'Yes.' Justin said. 'I know that bit.' He then gave a polite smile which the woman didn't notice anyway and added. 'Although I think sometimes they're geostationary'. He realised he really did need to learn to let the little things go.

The woman continued fiddling. Justin stood there dumbly. He imagined he was confirming her suspicions with each lapsing second of his listless stance. He eventually said: 'But what is the satellite? Why does it matter?' He said this mostly just to say something. The woman seemed not to hear, because she had moved round to the back of the telescope and was peering up through the warped glass.

He knew he should go and find Alex, but his curiosity was making his feet sticky and leaden. He reckoned he had time. He thought about Alex, no doubt slouched against a tree somewhere in the woods, his aggravation and angst gradually loosening in the cold to be replaced by bitter dismay and embarrassment. He probably should be left alone for a little bit. He would benefit from the space. Interrupting people whilst they were adjusting to their new state of unease and shame could be destructive.

'What did you say your name was?' She asked.

'Justin.'

'Perfect.' She said. 'Because you're just in time.'

Justin did a half-snort, half-fatigued tut. Then, after a flash of panic that she might think him rude with his dismissive tut, he offered: 'A joke I haven't heard before.'

'And I hoped I was being original.' She said, smiling over at him.

'Just in case. Just in time. Just in place.' He paused and shrugged. 'I'm versatile.'

The woman laughed. 'I'm Lily.'

'Justin.'

The woman laughed again. 'I know.'

'Oh yeah.' Justin said, grimacing. 'It's late.'

Lily reached for a brushed aluminium thermos and swigged from it. She handed it to Justin, who shook his head. 'It's early.' She corrected.

Justin nodded. 'You're right. Too early. I kind of forgot. I guess I like to think the day isn't over.'

Lily looked back up. 'That's natural. I think I was nineteen when I stopped hoping tomorrow would come quickly.'

Justin waited and shrugged. 'Who would? Everyone says these are my best days. Which sometimes worries me.' He laughed awkwardly.

Lily smiled sadly. She turned back to the telescope. 'Well everyone's different.'

Justin moved the earth under his foot in vague, meagre circles. Lily played with the telescope. 'What satellite are you looking for?' He asked.

'A satellite that's falling to earth.' Lily replied, without even glancing over.

'Don't things fall to earth all the time? They just burn up in the atmosphere.'

Now she did look up. Her wicked smile had returned. 'Pulped to particles by nitrogen and oxygen and carbon dioxide. Oh, I'm counting on it. I didn't buy that gluttonous torch not to see a show.'

'But you clearly don't do this all the time if you're... struggling.'

'Oh no.'

'So why are you looking at this satellite? is it big or something?'

Lily paused and tilted her head as if in ponderous consideration. 'Knowing the guy who put it there far bigger than necessary.'

Justin laughed. 'A guy made it?'

'Made it happen. He's not clever enough to make it. Not technically minded anyway. He has no clue about that stuff. He's the type who thinks the fax machine is the most technology society should be trusted with. He just ordered it. Had it shot up into space to add to the dreck and junk drifting around up there. It was for his company.'

Justin nodded. 'And who is he?'

She shrugged. 'Businessman. Bully. Butcherer of good manners and values.'

'Sounds like my ex-boyfriend.'

She laughed again. 'I don't think that can be true - you're far too decent a person still.' Justin smiled, then felt himself tinging from the compliment. Noticing this made more blood gurgle into his cheeks. Lily must have picked up on his embarrassment. She laughed. 'You don't agree? Maybe you think I'm wrong.' Her words did not help the dilating vessels, the cells engorging in his cheek. He almost thought it just as embarrassing how so slight a compliment could trigger such a reaction. What did that say about him?

She went back to gently orientating the telescope. 'Any minute now.' She said. 'Look up there. There'll be a streak of flame. Just a little rip. The cloud cleared. I knew it would. It had to.'

'Why do you care so much?'

'Huh?'

Justin suspected she had heard the question fine. It's not like there was any noise to counteract him.

'Why do you care so much? About this satellite. About this guy.'

'Oh, I don't care about him.' She said, suddenly terse, almost cruel. 'I don't care about him at all.'

Justin felt stung. Lily glanced up and seemed to reconsider. 'I care about him in so much as he did something that impacted me indirectly. You know it's like the butterfly effect. One flaps its wings and stirs a hurricane half a world away. He made a decision and it rippled out and out and out until it tore my world apart.'

'Oh.' Justin said. He paused. 'I guess I can see why you want it to fall then.'

She looked up at the sky for a little while. 'I don't know why. I just felt the need to come. It's not a moment of elation. It's sad. It was all for nothing.'

'What was?'

Lily ignored him. She placed an eyeball behind the lens and began to twist the telescope. 'I think I got it.' She said. 'And you said I was struggling. Maybe after this I'll test myself. We can find the second star on the right and you'll never be scared of tomorrow again.'

Justin felt the awkwardness, the disconcerting, unbalancing void of the clearly-avoided question.

'Maybe I should go.'

'One minute.' She said. She started looking at her watch, a thin silver band like gauze with a white dial. 'You may as well watch it now. It's practically here.'

'I think -'

'It's just one minute. Any second.'

'I-.'

'Please.' She had suddenly spun around, and her face had blanched, her eyes puffing into deeply swollen discs. The swiftness of the transition shocked Justin. He really didn't get people as well as he thought.

'Okay.' Justin nodded slowly.

Lily smiled with a weary gratitude, rubbed her eyes and turned quickly away to shield her face.

'What happened?' Justin asked. He said it deliberately softly, so that she could pretend not to have heard it if she wanted to, like his words had been whisked away by a channel of wind or crumbled to nothing in the distance between them.

'She put it there.' Lily said and turned back. Her eyes betrayed no sign of that previous, fleeting collapse into emotion. It was like it had flared with a blinding, hot heat then immediately subsided.

'What?'

'She put it there. She put the satellite in space.'

'The satellite? But I thought you said he did.'

'No. No. He ordered it. She actually did the work of putting it there.'

'She flew it up?'

'You don't fly them up.'

'She put it together or something?'

'No. Okay maybe not the work work. I mean the other work.'

'Designed it?'

'No.'

'Painted it?'

'She did the financing.'

'Oh.' Justin said. 'The work.' He paused. 'And what happened then?'

'And, well - and that was the last thing she did. Pretty much the last.'

'Oh.' Justin said. He waited a while before asking: 'Who was she?'

'Someone. Just... someone.' Lily went quiet and began to stare into the sky. 'I - no that's not it. Any minute. I think it should come down right about there.' She was pointing at a piece of sky that Justin was sure was in a completely different location to where she had previously thought the satellite would come down.

Justin looked at her. He knew he should adopt a quiet detachment and let the issue slowly simmer away. But if he was going to be asked to stay, he felt deserved to know exactly who it was who had brought them together. The curiosity overwhelmed him. And an interest in others was a virtue, wasn't it?

He looked at her for an unnatural, affronting length. Justin could tell she felt his eyes burrowing into the back of her neck. Her shoulders had hunched, her shoulders clenched slightly in that unnerved manner derived from primordial days.

She eventually sighed, relenting, but still didn't look towards him. 'She was someone I suppose I have always wanted since.' She said.

Justin waited politely. Then he replied: 'I mean I'd guessed. You don't take up stargazing for your distant cousin.'

She laughed graciously. You could almost hear the hiss as the pressure eased. Her tone lightened. 'Unless they happen to be at an impressive distance, of course.'

'Oh well that's different.' Justin said. 'You invite the neighbours around to join your stargazing if that's the case. Make sure to tell them how exploration always ran in the family. How you even once managed to find an alternative route to work.'

There was just the rasp, crinkles, rustles of the wood. Justin felt the singeing burn of the dud reaction.

Her tone fell again. 'We were both young. Not that we felt it. But I felt time accelerating. I felt angry at her.'

'Sorry?'

'She was wasting it. Sitting there with her spreadsheets and contracts and... I don't know... her staples and stuff. Night after night - every weekend too. She would get angry, properly shout at me, when I told her what a waste it all was.'

'Wasting what?'

Lily replied: 'She said she was going to stay for that.' She pointed up at the dark sky and the microscopic stars like chalk points on black lacquer. 'It was a big deal that satellite. It was going to get her a large bonus. That's how it works. They demand the hours and you let them take them because they dangle a bonus. All you can think about is how those numbers will make everything worth it. How after that bonus you can finally do something you love. Have your delayed youth but lived so ferociously and so vibrantly that you forgive yourself the wait.'

'What happened?'

'Well... I'll let you guess happened?'

'She's not here.'

'Not here. Not anywhere.' Lily grabbed her knees. 'Well not anywhere I'm getting into. I feel it must be a one-in-one-out policy by now. I mean look how many people there are. They'll have tightened up entry requirements.'

Justin did not know what to say so he stayed quiet.

'Her colleagues didn't even know about me. They didn't know about her. Imagine that - hiding yourself in plain sight every day.'

'About her?' Justin inquired delicately.

'They didn't know about her.' Lily repeated. 'She didn't want them to know. She thought it would harm her career. I suppose she was right. It probably would have done. It was that sort of time. I should have been more forgiving, I guess. But like I said we were young. And with the young it either goes complete forgiveness with tears and solemn vows never to repeat such idiocy or total hostility from then on. Such drama. Such sense of occasion. Everything has to be a series finale.'

Justin scratched the edge of his lower teeth. 'Everyone is harsh on themselves when they look back. Everyone screwed something up. I feel like I screw up most things. Sometimes I hope that if I just keep taking the opposite path from the one I'm meant to take I'll probably end up in the right place by going the other way around.'

'It's the last moment you remember, you know.'

'Sorry?'

'When you lose someone. You remember what happened last. You remember the ecstasy, the agony, and what happened last, no matter how dull.'

'What...' He stopped. 'What happened last?'

She lent her head slightly to the side in recollection, then turned slightly away. 'We had been due to go away. To Buenos Aires. I booked the tickets as a surprise. She had read a book when she was younger set there and had always wanted to go. Anyway, one night I found an invitation in her pocket. It was her work jacket. I looked at it and it was for an event at her company. A dinner to celebrate the success of that satellite there. Partners were invited. It was only a couple of nights away. I knew when I saw it that she didn't want me there. Turns out she had invited a friend of ours - a guy. We argued about it. I was over the top. I said if she didn't want me to go to the dinner with her, she clearly wasn't proud of our relationship and if she wasn't proud in it then it didn't have a future.'

Justin swallowed and sucked in air through his teeth. He eventually replied: 'What happened?'

'I - I told her not to contact me for a while. And then - then I flew to Buenos Aires without her the next day. They moved my ticket. I didn't tell her that I'd gone. Just packed a bag and locked my flat.'

'Oh.'

'Yeah.' She said. 'Not great, right?'

She stared into space. 'She felt guilty.' Lily stopped and swallowed loudly what sounded to Justin like a gruesomely bloated lump. 'She didn't go to the dinner. But then that night she tried to go to mine instead.' She stopped.

'And you weren't there...'

'No. I wasn't there. I was spending my traveller's cheques and no doubt trying not to cry into some shitty sugar cocktail. The place was empty. But I'd left a light on in the hall. It was a red light. She used to say it looked like a den of vice from outside when I had that light on. Like some place you could go for a shag and opium.'

She went quiet for a long time. Justin stayed mute and motionless and waited.

'She was hit by a drunk driver.'

Justin didn't say anything. There was a drawn-out silence. 'I'm sorry.' He said. Because what did you say?

'Outside my flat. She was taken from my street to the hospital. She died there. That same night. I was probably on the beach.'

'I don't know what to say.'

'There's nothing to say. Except sometimes I still think about her schedule. About her timings and when she would have left work.'

Justin waited. 'What do you mean?'

'Her schedule. Don't you see? Because it makes all the difference. The timing of it. She was hit outside mine. But had she been to mine yet? Or was she just on her way? It makes all the difference in the world. Was she rushing towards the red light? Or had she just learnt that I'd left without her?'

Justin stayed silent. Then he said: 'So it all goes back to the satellite.'

She turned and smiled. 'Not really. Not really at all. It's nothing. That satellite is nothing.' She tried to lift her tone. 'But if you can't blame a random piece of falling metal what can you blame?' She suddenly pointed up. 'Now look at that!'

Justin looked up and saw a small white flash in the sky where she pointed. It burned for about five seconds more and then was extinguished. And then there was just the darkness of the sky again and the billion LEDs.

'Seconds.' Lily said. 'All gone in seconds.' She went quiet again. 'You know I think she would be happy. She hated that guy.'

'The one she was working for?'

'That's him. Kris detested what he stood for. His politics in particular. The way it infected everything.' She paused and smiled to herself. 'There was once this person she disliked, and she ordered them a subscription to his newspaper anonymously. She said it was win-win. Either she filled their house with waste paper. Or they would start to read it and slowly alienate all their mutual friends as well.'

Justin laughed. 'She sounds fun.'

'Being boring was her biggest fear. She felt she would always be fine as long as she stayed firmly away from boring. She ensured that she was a character. Sometimes you could see her straining to stay in it. And when you start to notice that you really do know someone, I think. She took some getting over. But I did. Eventually. Kind of. As everyone does. I don't think the people I replaced her with ever really replaced her. That was the problem really. That was why it all stopped.'

'What did?'

'Oh.' Lily batted a hand dismissively. 'Just who I ended up with. The guy I married.'

'You married?'

'Met. Married. Had a son. Divorced. Life brought options and I chose.'

He could feel the bewilderment brush across his face. He was powerless to stop it. Lily smiled. 'I'm guessing you're surprised.'

'Well -.' He began awkwardly.

'You're an assumer!' She laughed. 'I often wonder how such a disadvantageous trait perseveres.' She scratched her cheek and added more ponderously. 'I mean I'm sure Darwin said such things shouldn't happen.'

Justin laughed. 'To be honest when it comes to the survival of my genes, I think Darwin would have been more concerned about another trait.'

Lily laughed. 'Well at least you're a straight-talker.'

Then in the distance Justin heard the barking of a dog. He whisked around in the direction of the noise, and stared at the trees, which remained as solid a wall of blackness as when he had entered the clearing.

'That your friend?' Lily asked.

'I don't know.' Justin said. 'I think maybe it is. I should probably go.' He was conscious of how long he had been away from Alex. He would probably be waiting for him, wanting to leave. Justin was then fearful that Alex may have left already. He hoped the tyre was broken.

'You should.' Lily said. 'I mean you've been trying to go for a while and I've quite selfishly kept you. Thank you. You just remind me of someone, and I found you being here comforting. Do you want some coffee for the road? It's like rocket fuel.'

Justin shook his head and held up his hands. 'Thanks, but I want to be able to sleep.'

'Probably for the best. You're still in night time mode. Stretch those evenings out whilst you can.' She paused and looked down at the floor. Then she looked up with a seemingly horrified expression. 'Did I just compare the coffee to rocket fuel? I've become space-obsessed, haven't I?'

Justin laughed, then shrugged. 'There are worse things to be obsessed with.'

'True.' Lily nodded. 'So you really shouldn't tell me about them.' She paused. 'Find your friend. I need to go back myself and get ready to sneak into the house.'

Justin nodded goodbye and began to walk away. Then he stopped and turned back. 'You didn't need the telescope.' He said.

'No.' Lily replied quietly. Then she laughed. 'I told you he would have made that satellite bigger than it needed to be. Don't worry - I have the receipt and this thing was always going to returned unused.'

Justin turned to leave the clearing and walked away. He turned to wave just before he disappeared into the shadowy gloop that lapped the opening, but Lily was already busy unfastening bolts on the telescope, so she didn't notice. She had a cloth out to polish the metal casing so that nobody need know fingers had ever touched it. It evidently wasn't her first reseal and return.

He went back to the junction and listened again for the dog, but he couldn't hear anything. He took the other route. He followed it for a while, but held off shouting for Alex, enjoying the momentary solitude and the silence. He hoped Alex hadn't gone back to the car. He suddenly feared he might have left him. How long was he with Lily for? Longer than he had intended. Justin couldn't change a tyre in that time. But this was mostly because he couldn't change a tyre at all. If he was ever stranded in the middle of nowhere with a broken tyre his best hope for survival would be to hope the spare was made from a particularly nutritious crop of rubber.

He walked a little further, then came to another split in the path. He shouted Alex's name. He seemed to disturb slumbering wildlife because there was fluttering and agitation in the nearby bushes. He shouted again, heard nothing. He looked at the floor, but his inspection of the terrain proved as fruitless as the previous time. Evidently his stint in the wood hadn't yet made him adept in the art of tracking. He took the left-hand path and walked a little further.

He shouted again. Nothing. He tried again.

'Here.' A voice said. It was very faint, almost like the words were an echo, the resonance of sound trapped in the chest.

Justin stopped walking. Ahead he saw a dark figure, hidden from the moonlight by the overhanging branches and the evergreen canopy. 'Alex?' He said again, cautiously

There was a long wait. 'Yes.' The voice came, quietly. It sounded so hollow.

'What's wrong?'

There was no answer. Justin went closer, walking very slowly. That was when he saw that there were actually two figures. But one was lying flat on the ground. He noticed the dog silhouetted next to them. Steam burst from its mouth like a primed kettle.

'What's wrong?' Justin asked again.

Another wait. 'I almost killed him.' Alex said. Even from the distance Justin heard his voice break, juddering through the sentence with the constant sense that every syllable was unsustainable, like his voice was about to keel over.

'What?' Justin said. Had he misheard what Alex had said? He reached Alex and looked down. A man lay face up, eyes closed. Was he breathing? In the faint, adjusted light, his face looked grey, shorn of colour, bleak like linoleum.

Justin spun around to Alex. 'What happened?' He tried to say it calmly, but the panic came through anyway. He had never seen a body like this.

Alex slowly turned to face him, and Justin saw that he had been crying. His eyes were red, and hollowed. Drying tears streaked his cheeks, and fresh tears rattled and spilled over at the bottom of his eyes. 'I told you,' he said. His voice shattered into a terrified and wincing pine.

'I killed him.'

IV

'But he's not dead.'

Justin looked down at the body, with its greyed skin, its drawn, puffy eyelids, its solemnity and terrifying stillness, and momentarily doubted the accuracy of his words. He moved his eyes over the man's chest again. He waited. And waited. There was the slightest rise and fall. The intake of breath was so meagre. He imagined the oxygen particles barely expanding the man's lungs, leaving them as limp, drab pockets slack in his chest. Such scant intake would struggle to fuel the large body slumped on the ground. The soil was like a skin of iced iron and Justin wondered how long anyone could survive lying down on such a cold surface. It would make the muscles lock and the heart slow. But he was breathing.

Justin crouched down beside the man. He left his hands on his chest. He was already in the recovery position - Alex must have done that, or else he had fallen like this in a miraculous accident. He felt his chest move again - a quick, jolting bump, like his lungs had skittered.

'Have you called an ambulance.' Justin said, without looking up at Alex. 'Did you manage to? Was there signal?'

There was no answer.

'Alex?' Justin said. His eyes were still dragging cautiously over the body. Every few seconds he would stare at the man's chest fearful that it wouldn't move. Then finally it would rebound upwards and Justin's own heartbeat would thud to catch up its rhythm. Then the cycle would repeat - paralysis followed by frenzy. Any more of this and he might collapse himself.

'Alex?' Justin said again

No answer.

Justin swivelled around and glared at Alex. He was standing slightly away and was looking down at Justin and the body entirely blankly. He might have been watching tarmac setting. 'Alex.' Justin said, but this time more loudly.

Nothing came back. Alex continued to stare with his empty, lulling eyes.

'Alex!' Justin shouted. 'Have you called one?'

A long wait.

'Al-"

'Yes!'

The word hurtled through the quiet wood. Justin glared at Alex for a moment and then turned back to the man without saying anything. He didn't have time for Alex's idiosyncrasies.

He delicately moved the man's body more onto his side, clearing his throat to allow the passage of more air. It was probably unnecessary, but he wanted to do something whilst the tension settled.

'I put him on his side.' Alex said. 'I did that earlier. I did that.' He was still hovering several metres away, uneasily skirting around them both, like he couldn't approach beyond an invisible circle.

'How did you call the ambulance?' Justin said. 'Where's your phone?'

There was a slight pause. 'I used his. It was in his pocket - I - I didn't have mine. It's in the car still.'

'When did you call it?'

A bit ago.'

'How long ago is a bit?'

Alex didn't answer.

Justin continued. 'Well how long did they say they'd be? Do they know exactly where we are?'

Silence.

'Alex!'

'I don't know!' He shouted. 'They know where we are! I called them. I told you I called them. They're coming. They're coming soon.' Then he went quiet and finally said in a much softer, quieter voice. 'Do you think he'll be okay? He will, right? He'll be okay. He has to be.'

Justin looked the man over. 'I don't know.' He said. 'He's alive. He's still breathing.' He looked up at Alex and was startled by how dishevelled and fragmented and distraught he looked. He noticed how white he was, either from cold or stress, or pincered by both. His eyes were red-rimmed, the remnants of tears trailed his cheeks; his skin was blotchy and streaked.

'I don't know.' Justin repeated, elongating each syllable. Seeing Alex's broken condition had made Justin soften his voice instinctively. Perhaps he did have time for his idiosyncrasies, even now.

'He's breathing. He'll be okay. The ambulance is coming.' Alex muttered. Then his voice shattered. 'I should have been quicker. I should have -.'

'When did you call it?'

'I-' He stammered. 'I think...' He trailed off.

'You disappeared a while ago.' Justin said. 'Did you follow the dog? Did you come straight here? If you didn't go the way I went you must have found him immediately - right?'

Alex nodded.

'So when did you call it?' Justin urged.

Silence.

'Al-'

'I should have been quicker!' Alex shouted. 'I know. I told you - I know! I should have just done it. But it's coming now. And it has to be here soon. He'll be okay. I told them to drive fast.'

Justin waited. 'Okay' he said, slowing down. 'So it's coming?'

'Yes... it's coming.' Alex scratched his neck, then repeated: 'It's... it's coming.'

Justin didn't know why Alex had delayed, what he had been thinking at the time, what he was thinking now even. His muscles around his mouth seemed to quiver, his jaw was locked, strain laced his voice. 'And they know it's urgent?'

Alex nodded, but it was a barely noticeable dip of his head.

'Okay.' Justin said. 'I think one of us should go to the car park. One of us should be there to show the ambulance where to go when they arrive.'

Alex did not reply. He looked so tense and fragile. 'You spoke to them.' Justin continued. 'You should probably go.' Justin knew his reasoning was weak, but he didn't think Alex was the best choice to stay behind. He was still standing away from the man on the floor, like he was repelled by this stark evidence of decline, like he could see his bitter future. He was fidgeting, playing with his hands as if to channel the angst away through his fingers. Justin thought that he might have started crying again, but it was so dark he couldn't properly see.

'I want to stay here.' Alex said. 'I want to stay with him. I think I need to.'

'What?' Justin said. 'Why?' He had expected Alex to be eager to leave, particularly given the distance with which he was standing and his seeming fear of stepping closer. 'But you called them.'

'I - I want to make sure he's okay. I want to stay here and make sure he keeps breathing.'

Justin had to limit himself. 'They'll be here soon - right?'

'Yes.' Alex said quietly. 'They should be - quite soon. Very soon.'

'Well you came straight here from the car park. You know the way. I didn't. You should show them.'

Alex nodded. Justin continued. 'And you were the one who called them? You raised the alarm.'

Alex did not respond immediately. He stood still, continuing to interlock and scratch his fingers.

'Well?' Justin encouraged.

'Yes! I called them. I told you I called them!' It emerged as a hoarse shout, like his voice box was busted and his tonsils raw. But he seemed to shock himself with the violence of this outburst and he deflated again immediately. He looked away and said gently. 'Yeah. You're right. I think... I should. I'll go - I'll go get them.'

He didn't move. He remained motionless for several moments.

'Alex?'

He waited. Alex dragged the sole of his shoe across the ground. 'Yeah?' He sounded ponderous and drowsy now.

'Aren't you... going?'

'Yes.' He didn't move. He looked up at the canopy of trees and stared at them.

'They'll be here soon.' Justin continued.

'We have a couple of minutes.'

'They might be here quicker. You never know. I hear they can be quite efficient in an emergency.'

'I'll go in a second.'

Justin tensed. His shoulder blades hunched into sharp ridges. 'I think they'll be here soon.' He said curtly. 'We don't want to waste time.'

'In a second.'

Justin broke. 'Why are you delaying? Why are you being so... so weird about it all?'

Alex looked at him. His eyes had grown wide and were wavering. 'Because they'll ask me. Don't you see - they'll ask me.'

'Ask you what? What will they ask you?'

'Why I took so long! Ask what the fuck is wrong with me!' The tears were now visible in the moonlight. 'I told you Justin. I fucking told you. I waited. I waited and the waiting killed him. It's like I did it myself. Like I stopped him breathing.'

Justin stood up and walked close to Alex so that he was only a tiny distance away. He paused and slowly reached out and lightly tapped with his finger on the top of his arm then trailed downwards. He let his finger rest just above Alex's wrist, and felt the cold of his exposed skin. 'Don't worry. You've called them now. They'll help him. They'll be here soon, and it'll all be...okay. It'll all be okay.'

Alex turned away, and Justin's arm fell languidly away to his side. Alex put his hands up and covered his face. He rubbed his eyes frantically.

'I just didn't want to be seen. I just wanted everything to stay like it was. Why do things have to change? It's like the present is being taken from me.'

'Listen it's-'

'I found him before. Before I called them.'

'Oh.' Justin said. He swallowed heavily. 'Not long before though. They're coming now. That's what matters. Not the other stuff.'

Alex shrugged. 'A few minutes. Everything can hinge on a few minutes. Everything can change.'

'Why did you wait?' Justin wasn't sure he quite understood what Alex was trying to say and didn't know how else to respond. Then he thought better of asking such a fraught question. 'Actually, you know it doesn't even matter...'

Alex interrupted. 'Because.' He stressed. 'Because I didn't want to be seen. And they would come. And they might know about me.'

'So?'

'So!' Alex grew louder. 'I can't do that to them. I don't want to do that to them.'

'But whose them?' Justin said. 'You've been saying it all night. I don't get it. Your parents?'

Alex looked at him, and Justin saw the glistening viscosity of his eyes. They rippled in a way that made them seem thick and sticky. He said softly: 'Parents?' Alex waited, then let out a hollow, shrill laugh. 'I don't have parents. Just the one.'

'Okay.' Justin shrugged. 'Your parent then.'

'No. Not her. Someone else.'

'Who?'

Alex looked straight at Justin and their eyes locked. 'I need to go. They'll be here soon. I should go. I've wasted enough time. I'll go. I'll walk up and get them.'

'Wait...' Justin began. But he stopped himself because Alex was right. They were pressed for time. He nodded and said. 'We can talk about it later. If you want to talk about it. If you want to tell someone.'

Alex smiled weakly. 'Okay.' He said. 'I guess - I think that sounds good.' Then he nodded, grimaced, before finally allowing a diluted, weak smile to push through. He spun on his heel and began to jog lightly up the path, getting gradually faster. Justin was left alone.

Justin let a long breath and turned back to the man on the floor. He sat down in line with the man's face, about a metre and a half away.

'Well I hope that didn't ruin your evening.' He said.

He looked the man over. His left-hand side of his face had drooped, like the muscles had lost their structure and turned to slush. Justin did not know much of about medical conditions, but he assumed it was a stroke - a blood clot in the brain. He listened to the hammer of Alex's diminishing footsteps. There were pebbles and gravel being dislodged on the slope and he heard them clink as they cascaded downhill.

Then there was silence. The man groaned slightly. His lips leaked a silvery, salivary froth. Justin thought he should talk to the man. A voice might anchor him.

Justin checked the man's pulse. It was still there, weak, but there was something majestic about the persistent smouldering of life that amplified it. 'You'll be okay.' He said gently. 'People are coming. People who can help much more than me. They'll be here soon. My friend has gone to get them.'

Justin looked up, startled.

'Friend?'

He said it aloud. It had happened. He had just labelled it. Was that what they were?

He smiled. 'Or lover?' He let the world hang. Did people still take lovers? He felt that had stopped about 1950, around the time beau and companion also faded into obsolescence, two words that now lay side by side in the great graveyard of discarded words, or the catacomb of forsaken words.

What was the difference? He said to the man on the ground: 'Maybe he's not a friend. You know apparently you need to know someone for a thousand hours before they become a friend. I'm hoping the tyre doesn't take that long to fix.'

The man gave no hint that he could hear him. Justin looked over the man. He was wrapped in a thick waterproof. Sturdy boots clasped around his feet. Justin decided to continue talking: 'I think my dad has those boots. Difference is you use them. Whereas he found out hiking doesn't become a hobby just because you buy the boots.'

Justin felt his ears turn wet. The dog was still there. Despite everything Justin went stiff. He leant away from the dog.

'You're still here then.' He said to it cautiously. 'Sure you're not tempted by another trip to the car park?'

The dog looked at him. Her tail was wagging slightly, and her tongue hung out, and steam swelled out from the glistening pink surface. He had never got on with dogs. Not since one knocked him over at a picnic once many years before. It had sent his drink flying. The sight of the soda bubbling and foaming away into the soil was about as traumatic as his childhood got.

The dog leant over and licked his ear again. Then she did it again. Justin stayed perfectly still. He grimaced slightly. 'So you're an ear person?' He said. He looked at the dog. 'I'd heard people like you exist. I'd hoped I wouldn't have to hear it like this though.'

He rubbed his ear dry. Then gingerly he reached out to the stroke the dog. Her tail wagged a little more energetically.

He looked down at the man. His face was the colour of old ash, and his lips were touched with a blueish, mouldy tinge.

'Your dog is very nice.' He muttered. 'I like her....' Justin looked at the dog to select a feature. 'Paws.'

He closed his eyes.

'Paws?' He said it again to himself and grimaced. 'God I hope you can't hear me.'

The dog whined. Justin patted her head again and rubbed the hard hairs of her back under his thumb. 'You're clever, aren't you? And loyal. James could learn some lessons from you.' The dog moaned and lay on the ground. She was staring at the man. 'No quite right.' Justin said, nodding. 'James isn't worth your time.'

'He'll be okay.' Justin continued. 'People are coming. Any second now, they'll be here. Then everything will be okay. And you can go home and be with those great paws of yours.'

He thought he heard the scattering of displaced stones. He looked along the path, but he couldn't see anything. There was just the rough trail lit by the spliced moonlight. The dog moaned again and started sniffing the ground where she lay.

'Sorry,' he said, suddenly remembering back to earlier in the evening. 'Not sure you want to smell there. Don't embarrass me by mentioning it.' He stroked the dog again. Thinking about it, he found that that moment which earlier had felt strong enough to disrupt him had already weakened. He felt very little now. His throat no longer felt like it was closing, his skin no longer went cold with a sweat that turned instantly to fragile crystal. The searing toxicity of it all had sweetened to neutral. It had become just something that once happened.

He looked back to the man. He was lying there so peacefully.

'I wonder what he's seeing.' He said to the dog, without shifting his glance away from the body on the ground. 'You hear about people seeing limitless light. Or rising up and floating above their bodies.' He looked up at the stars. Then he looked down again. 'People are cynical now. But I suppose you can only impress a world with everything by making them expect nothing. It's hard to impress the expectant.' He went closer to the dog and looked at her sternly. 'That's also why I don't give birthday presents by the way.' The dog was staring at him with saddened eyes. 'Are you judging me?' He smiled. 'No, you don't seem like the judging sort. You're far too self-assured. And who wouldn't be with paws like that?'

He reached out and stroked the dog and looked at the man again. 'How can this be the destination of so many decisions?' He smiled at the dog. She whined. 'He'll be okay. You'll be okay.'

The dog put a paw on his knee. 'Steady on.' He said, lifting the paw from his leg. 'Just because I complimented them.' He rubbed the dog's head some more. Her ears cricked back. 'It's lucky we were here. Sometimes it's like good luck and bad luck come simultaneously.'

They sat there quietly for a minute. 'There's a fine line between being a good listener and unresponsive you know.' Justin said to the dog. She looked at him quizzically. Then she drooled.

Justin heard movement coming down the track. 'You know for a minute there I think you were beginning to lose faith in me.' He said, standing up in anticipation, wiping granules of dirt and stone from his hands.

Alex came around the corner first. A man in green overalls followed. He carried a torch and a case plastered with a large white square and a red cross. They drew close. Alex stopped and looked down at the man. 'Is he still...' He began. He didn't continue his sentence.

Justin looked up from the ground. He smiled gently. 'He's still the same.'

Alex smiled weakly. But Justin saw how he still looked grey; how his face was still lined and shadowed.

'You were entirely right.' The medic began. 'It is probably haemorrhagic.' He had crouched down next to the man and had begun to administer oxygen. 'We'll need to get him out of here. But we can't get the ambulance any closer than it is. The paths too steep and rough, and it's iced over where it was wet. I wouldn't want to stretcher him out along it. And we need to take him to a hospital that specialises. Is there an opening anywhere? Somewhere the helicopter might be able to land?'

He was looking at Alex. Alex lifted his shoulders in a languid shrug. 'I don't know.' He said. 'I don't come here often.'

The medic nodded. 'What were you doing down here anyway? He was lucky you found him.' The paramedic didn't say this in any particular manner. Alex clearly disagreed.

'I -er. I-' He began, in a stumbled, desperate way that would immediately attract suspicion. 'We were just driving and -.'

'I know somewhere that might work.' Justin interjected. He knew the abruptness of his intervention would be interpreted as an attempt at salvation. 'There's a wide opening that way. It should be big enough.'

The medic looked from Alex to Justin. 'My colleague will be here shortly. We can look at it then and see if its suitable.' He looked up at the sky then at them both. 'Lovely night for stargazing.'

'It was.' Justin said, sensing his playful tone and eager to counter his assumptions, no matter how accurate they were. 'A satellite came down just over there. It burnt up.'

Alex looked at Justin strangely. Then he turned to the man. 'Yeah - it was in the newspaper.'

The medic waved a hand. 'I don't have time for the newspapers anymore. They just print lies.'

'That's why I read them online.' Alex muttered.

The man was still dispensing the oxygen, and fiddling with a variety of packages, pill containers, foil tabs, tubes and boxes. Justin could see the names splayed across them, long, Germanic, with so many consonants they looked like randomly generated passwords.

'How long till you can get a helicopter here?' Alex asked.

'No time at all.' The man replied. We'll call it as soon as we've identified a place it can land. You guys have done well - don't worry. He's in our hands now. You've done everything we could possibly ask. If the helicopter can't land, we'll just have to get some additional help to get him up the path, but it might take longer.'

A woman, decked in the same uniform as the other medic, came down the path. She was brandishing an even brighter torch. This one could tan the skin. The other medic went over to converse with her. She nodded and followed him over.

'Evening guys. Happy Christmas.'

'Evening.' Justin said. 'Well, I guess morning actually.'

She shrugged. 'You're right. Thank goodness. Getting to the end now. Well for us. Hopefully not...' She nodded at the man on the ground. 'Do you want to show me this opening? We can see if it is appropriate.'

Justin nodded. 'Sure.' He said. 'It's this way. It's not far.' He started to walk, and Alex started following. Justin looked back at Alex, and they held each other's gaze. Then Justin turned and continued. They walked to the opening slowly and nobody spoke for a few minutes. Alex followed at a few steps distance.

'You been here much before?' The paramedic asked eventually. Justin wondered if they received training in what to say, how to conduct light conversation as a tonic for shock or bereavement. It might even be the principal pillar of care under the new economics of the health service.

'No.' Justin said. 'Never really.'

'Have you ever seen the ice cream man?' She asked. 'He parks in the car park. He's been doing it since I was a girl. I don't know how he survives. He must sell like one ice cream a day. Must be damn expensive ice cream. Like made from Bull's milk or something. Or Gold.'

Justin shrugged. He didn't really want to talk. 'Maybe he does it out of love? Maybe he does it because he wants something more than money.'

'Wouldn't know anything about doing a job not for the money.' She said.

The paramedic finished surveying the site and stepped a little closer to Justin. 'Is he okay?' She whispered, nodding at Alex. 'He seems - well, shaken, but more than just the usual shock. Shock is common. He's shaken up differently.'

Justin nodded. The paramedic smiled. 'Good thing he has you. And good thing you found this place.' She picked up her radio and backed away. She began to garble jumbled code phrases and initialisms. The crackle of static and interference and a shredding voice answered back. She continued speaking into the radio pinned to her chest.

Justin walked over to Alex.

'How did you find this place?' He asked quietly.

'I came looking for you.' Justin said. 'There was someone here. With a telescope.'

Alex looked at him with bewildered eyes. 'You came looking for me?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Why wouldn't I?'

'I just - I guess I thought you wouldn't. I was - I was acting strange.'

'Well I agree you sort of were.'

Alex smiled a little. 'I don't know what to think anymore.'

'About what?'

'About myself.'

'What's there to think about?'

'Who doesn't call Justin?' He looked nervously over at the paramedic and dropped his voice. 'Who sees them and doesn't call? Who thinks about consequences then? In that moment, when life is... leaving.'

'You froze and then unfroze. It's natural. Not everyone can act automatically. Sometimes there's a lag.'

'No. It wasn't that. It was a decision. I was rational. I was deciding.'

'And you decided right.'

Alex looked at him in the eyes. He laughed emptily. 'Thanks.' He said earnestly. He waited. 'For coming. For everything.'

'Have you decided I am worth the risk after all.'

Alex smiled. 'I never meant that. But yes. If it helps. I guess you are.'

Justin hoped it wasn't too evident that he was slightly enjoying Alex's discomfort. 'Why are you so afraid of people finding out?'

Alex jerked his neck up. 'Not people. Not really.' He stopped and swallowed. 'Not people at all really.'

The paramedic came over and interrupted them. 'It's on its way. Five minutes out.'

'Okay.' Justin said.

'Will he be okay?' Alex asked her. His voice was jagged.

The paramedic shifted awkwardly. 'I'm not supposed...' She stopped. Justin was watching Alex, and he saw how his body clenched at her hesitation, like it revealed the worst. She must have seen too. She softened her voice, her shoulders loosened. 'I've seen worse. He won't be exactly the same, but I think he'll survive.'

Her radio frothed and she walked away again to address the burbling noise.

'He won't be the same.' Alex said quietly, almost to himself. 'Maybe if I had been quicker....'

Justin held up his hand and Alex stopped. 'Alex you saved him. You followed the dog. I wouldn't have done. It didn't even occur to me. And maybe he will be different. But everyone becomes someone different every day.'

'I followed the dog because I was scared, not because I thought I should. Wait.' Alex said shaking his head in disbelief. 'What am I saying? I didn't even follow the dog. Not until later. I ran away from it. How crap is that? I'm even more cowardly than I remember.' He laughed a thin, shrill laugh.

'Well,' Justin said, taking a short pause. 'Maybe you did screw up, but you screwed up productively. So just do what most people do. Pretend that was always your plan and tell everyone your plan was successful.'

'I don't think I can convince myself.'

'You'll be amazed what you can convince yourself about. When I was sixteen I told everyone I was going to permanently change rap and I think I really believed it.'

Alex gave a grim smile. The paramedic came over again. She seemed to be cautious about intruding. 'It's almost here.' She said. 'We should clear the area.'

In the distance there came the dulled throb of slicing blades. The air seemed to vibrate. The noise grew steadily louder, and then a penetrating beam of hot light spilled over them. The helicopter lowered downwards cautiously catching the moonlight with its glinting, studded platting, and came to rest on the grass. The nearby trees shook with the undulating air. The noise was overwhelming. Another paramedic opened the door and jumped deftly down onto the grass.

The first paramedic ran up and spoke to the man who had emerged. She was shouting in his ear, but the noise stifled her words so Justin and Alex could not make them out. He nodded, and she pointed towards the trees. The blades were gradually slowing, and the noise was dissipating.

Alex and Justin followed the pair of them. They walked back through the woods, trailing behind the pair of paramedics, who were carrying a stretcher retrieved from the helicopter.

'He'll be in hospital soon.' Justin said. 'And then we can go.'

'Yeah.' Alex said. 'I can take you home.'

'So you're not just going to leave me out here. That's nice of you.'

Alex laughed softly. 'You were keen to hitchhike earlier.'

'I was in the mood for a lot of things earlier which I am now not in the mood for.' Justin said. He winked at Alex, who scowled in his gentle, shy way as blush slightly blemished and bloodied his cheek.

They reached the man lying on the ground. The dog was still splayed next to him, drool dripping and pooling on the frozen earth, sad eyes fixated on the stilled body. The paramedics began to do their work, in time lifting the man onto the stretcher.

Justin looked at the man, traced the delicate ridges of his face, the grooves of his skin. Then the man's eyes opened. The move was sudden and startled Justin. The man let out a grim, low groan. The paramedics didn't seem to have noticed.

'What about the dog?' One of paramedics said, looking down at her. The dog had stood up and was staring intently at the underside of the stretcher.

'We can look after it.' Alex said suddenly. 'We can look after him. I have a dog.'

Justin wondered if he actually did.

'I'm not sure that's allowed.' One of them said cautiously. 'I'm fairly sure there's a section saying exactly what we can do in moments like these. And I don't think that section says send the pet off with anyone whose about.'

'Particularly whose about in these circumstances.' Justin imagined them thinking. He looked at the man, whose eyes were still open. He said, quietly. 'He's awake.'

'We'll leave our number with him.' Alex persisted. 'Please, I want to help. I've looked after loads of dogs. Bigger ones than this. Like almost illegals.'

'I don't think we can allow that.' One of them repeated, their tone lapsing into an officious, bureaucratic drawl that suggested an underlying indifference to the decision.

'He's awake.' Justin repeated, only louder this time. 'He just opened his eyes.'

The man seemed mostly unresponsive still. He seemed to be swaying through consciousness, his eyes igniting every few seconds and then fading again.

But the paramedics heard him this time. The paramedic tried to glance at the man's face from his position behind the stretcher. Unless the man had been doing a lifetime of yoga it was a hopeless ambition. They set the stretcher down. The paramedic walked around.

'Can you hear me?' He said.

The man nodded and tried to speak. There was a rasping, lisp of a sound, like hydraulics. Then he eventually managed to say: 'Yes.'

Justin watched as they asked him a series of medical questions which might help with treatment. They learnt his name was John. They then lifted him up again and began to walk to the helicopter. Justin walked slightly further back with Alex. They didn't look at each other.

Then he realised the paramedic was motioning that the man on the stretcher was trying to speak to him. His mind had drifted away, and he hadn't even realised. He sped up to come level with the stretcher.

'Did you find me?' The man asked. His words emerged faintly.

'Yes.' Justin said. 'Well - Alex did. Not me. He followed your dog. I guess he was the one who did everything.'

'Oh.' The man said, his eyes flicking over towards Alex. 'Thanks. I think \- it was so lucky. What if you hadn't been here? I don't even want to think.'

Alex shrugged. 'I guess it was lucky. So we don't need to think about it.'

'I think I saw you guys actually. In the car. Up in the car park.'

'I-I don't think -.' Alex stammered.

'Maybe.' Justin interrupted. 'We were there.'

Alex cast a look at Justin, a glance of hot, petrified fury. It was instinctive and softened within moments.

The man smiled weakly. 'I thought you guys were smoking something, or you know. Your car was all smoked up. Guess you can't have been too out of it if you found me.' He half-laughed, half-exhaled, it leaked out, sounding pained. The medical crew were moving him again, and the stretcher seemed to rock as it floated over the lumpen ground.

Justin waited to see if the man would continue speaking. It seemed he didn't want to, or maybe just couldn't. He had laid back, and his eyes had closed again. Justin turned back to Alex. But Alex seemed to be locked in a tumult of pondering agony. He was following the man's progress with tired, pitted eyes. He was pale. The cold would not be helping. Justin had been so focused until now that the violence of the frozen air had eluded him. Now he felt it, like it was a layer of grime on his skin, like his whole surface had hardened into crisp, protective scales inches thick.

'Can you look after him?'

Justin looked down. The man had opened his eyes again. He had lifted a hand and was pointing backwards. It was a general, forlorn point, into empty space. Justin assumed he meant the dog. Had he heard them discussing her before?

Alex suddenly spoke up from behind them. 'Yes. Of course. Of course we can. I've looked after dogs. Lots of them. He'll be fine. We'll look after him until you get better. Won't we?' Alex looked at Justin hopefully, expectantly.

What was he supposed to say? How had he even heard the man from so far behind the stretcher?

'Yes.' Justin said. 'We'll look after her.'

Alex smiled in that same eruptive, instinctive way he had earlier. It made Justin want to replicate it.

The stretcher continued to wind through the wood until they reached the clearing. They placed the man in the cabin of the helicopter, then the crew from the aircraft entered as well. They slid the heavy door closed.

'Stand back.' One of the paramedics said, in a plain platitudinous tone that suggested really they knew nobody there needed to be advised to avoid the helicopter blades.

They went to the edge of the wood, well clear of the steel rotors. The engines thrummed to life, and the air was so churned that Justin felt his whole body absorbing the disturbance. His ribs seemed to rattle, his lungs struggled to suck in air, his hair was curled and tugged by the hurtling wind.

The helicopter gradually lifted into the air. The search light attached to it dropped an enlarging pool of light onto the clearing, which spread until it met the tree line. The noise as the helicopter rose was thunderous. Justin wondered if skulls could splinter from resonance.

The helicopter grew smaller and smaller as it rose into the sky, growing quieter, until the light attached to it no longer felt like it could scorch retinas blind. Then the helicopter turned and jostled away into the distance, its gently bobbing, swaying gait carrying it off.

'See you guys later.' The paramedic said. She had swung her bag onto her shoulder. Then she added: 'We'll leave you to it.' Justin heard the light-hearted playfulness in her voice.

Alex clearly did too.

'You say that as if it's suspicious.' He said.

Subtle Alex, Justin thought.

The woman smiled. 'As long as we don't get a call to come straight back out here for an emergency, I don't care how suspicious what you're doing is.' She was about to walk away, when she turned back to them. 'You know there's nothing like working a late shift at Christmas to make you wish you'd done things.'

With that she turned and walked away. She started to gently hum a Christmas carol.

They were left alone. They stood together at the edge of the clearing.

'Shall we go?' Justin said quietly. He paused. 'What are we going to do about the dog?'

'God knows.' Alex said. 'I guess I'll just take him home.'

'Won't your mum care?'

'I'll say it belongs to a friends who had to go away for a bit. I don't think she'll mind. She'll probably welcome the company. I don't exactly provide much of that. Not great company anyway. Not like this guy.' Alex rubbed the dogs head. The dog licked his hand.

'She's a girl.' Justin said. He waited. 'You should tell her.'

Alex breathed out. He was still looking at the dog. 'I think it's too late. You make a mask and everyone gets comfortable with how you look. If you take it off, you're even more alone.'

'You'll have the dog.'

Alex laughed. 'That's true. There's no one with as much loyalty as this guy.'

'She's a girl.' He paused. 'And you'll have me.'

Alex looked up. 'Do you mean that?'

'Yes, she is definitely a girl.'

'No. You know what I mean.'

Justin looked down at the ground and scratched his neck. 'Well they say you need to spend a thousand hours with someone to become friends. But I think you just need to get naked with them for one or two.'

Alex laughed again. 'I'm not sure that is totally true. I did have my socks on.'

Justin smiled. 'You made up that guy earlier, didn't you? The guy you were talking about in the car?'

Alex looked sheepish and looked at the ground. 'No.' He said. 'I exaggerated.'

'Someone actually did that to you?'

'Yeah.' He waited. 'He was this guy who got obsessed with me. It's strange - you feel this mix of pride, and arrogance, and yet afraid too at the uncertainty of it all, like your character and your looks have driven someone into this obsession. It's madness, of course, but your ego makes you think you're magnetic.'

'What happened to him?'

Alex shrugged very slightly. He continued to look down at the ground. 'I got a restraining order out on him. But he sent me a text from another phone. He said he was sorry. That he hadn't meant to frighten me. He said he didn't want me. He just wanted to be me. Young, I guess, with possibility. I was just this reflection of a life that he could have had. I don't think he's around anymore.'

'Oh.' Justin said.

Alex smiled, and his tone changed. 'It's because you said found fear sexy.'

'What?'

'When we were chatting.'

'What do you mean?'

'Remember? I asked you if you had any secret likes.'

'Yes.'

'And you answered 'fear'.'

Justin looked up from the ground horrified. 'Feet. I said feet. And that was a joke.'

'Well you typed 'fear'.'

'Oh God.' Justin said, pressing a hand to his forehead and looking at his feet. 'Did you really think I meant that?'

Alex laughed. 'No, I knew it was a typo. And a joke. Or so you say. Why do you think I kept my socks on? I wanted to drive you into a frenzy.' He smiled warmly.

Justin laughed. 'People ask you what you're into and how do you say 'conventional' without sounding boring?'

'I think you just say you're a Jock so you got it partially right.'

Justin scowled. 'We should go.'

'Yeah.' He nodded. 'I suppose we should.'

They walked up through the woods. They did not speak to each other until they were quite close to the car. It was a comfortable silence, noticeable only for how easily it lay undisturbed. Only when they were within sight of the car did Justin want to break it. 'You should check the tyre.'

'Yeah.' Alex said flatly, as if it hadn't registered. 'You're right I probably should. I'm not actually sure how to change a tyre. So if it's broken the whole car is a dud. We'll have to sit here until someone can come and get us. So we had better get our story straight. Just in case.'

'How straight does our story have to be?'

Alex laughed gently. 'Maybe we can say we were watching that satellite. It was in the newspaper earlier you know. I only saw it by chance. The paper was open at that page when I came downstairs. We don't normally get newspapers. Maybe it's fate giving me an excuse.'

They reached the car. There was a tinge of light in the sky, which became noticeable only in the openness of the car park. It was a dark marine, and starlight no longer studded it.

'Do you think that's broken?' Alex said, kicking the tyre gently. 'It looks a little flaccid.'

'I don't think that's the term.'

Alex smiled. 'Let's just say it's fine and go. What's the worst that can happen? Although if you start to see sparks streaking out behind us whilst we're driving you should probably let me know.'

'Shall we go?'

'Yeah.' Alex stopped and looked around the car park. He took in its full circumference. 'This is not how I saw this evening going.' He said.

'It's gone on longer than I expected.'

'Did you not have faith in me?'

Justin smiled. 'No, it's not that.' He waited. 'I'm glad we came here, Alex. I'm happy you messaged me.'

'I think you messaged me actually.'

'It's too early in the morning to re-write history. But I mean it.'

'Me too.' Alex smiled, but then he looked away quickly, as if he had spoken automatically and now was reassessing the status of everything. It was a shy twist, and Justin thought it looked burdened with some disguised meaning. He didn't know what he wasn't telling him.

Alex walked around the car and opened the door. 'Come on.' He gestured for the dog to follow him, and it leapt up into the backseat. Alex watched on as the dog settled herself in a curl. 'That's these seats out of action for a while. Look at all the hairs he's already dropped.' He said.

'She's a she.' Justin said.

Justin waited. He looked over at the trail where Alex had disappeared. He looked at the entrance to the car park. The lane beyond it was still solidly black. The engine had flipped over and was churning gently. Alex was leaning over the front seat and looking out through the window. 'Are you getting in? Or are you actually planning to hitchhike? Because I wouldn't advise it. People here are too suspicious. I reckon the last person to successfully get a lift around here was during the war.' Justin opened the door. He gave a final glance around then bent down to get into the car. The warmth made him feel almost drunk.

Alex looked at him. 'Are you okay?'

'Yes.' Justin said. 'I'm fine. Let's just get out of here.'

Alex put the car in reverse and began to back out the car park. The gravel was crushed under the wheels. They began to drive down the lane, the headlights growing gradually less necessary as the morning opened above them. The sky was blooming into a glassy blue.

Justin looked through the window at the passing trees. The car heaters were on full, channelling heaps of hot, dry air onto their faces and knees. It felt gritty and recycled.

'Not much further,' Alex said.

'Yeah.' Justin said, without looking. 'I guess.'

They reached a junction. Alex stopped the car. Justin knew it was a right turn down towards his house. There were no cars coming and yet Alex kept the car idling there at the junction, waiting to make the turn. Finally, Justin turned away from the window. Alex was looking at him.

'What?' Justin said. 'Why are you waiting?'

Alex turned away, put the car in gear and turned left.

'Where are we going?'

'I owe you a coffee.'

'Why?'

'Because I want to owe you a coffee.'

'Where?'

'I'll show you.' Alex said.

They drove for about ten minutes in the quiet. Eventually they reached an open expanse of heath, where a small hut sat off the edge of the road. It had a gap in the side, and a weak, synthetic fluorescent light was on inside.

'It's a bikers cafe.' Alex said. 'It's like they're never shut. You can come here at any time and they're selling coffee and burgers. Even more dedication than the ice cream guy.' He pulled up on the verge of the road and killed the engine. 'Wait here. I'll get us coffee.'

He disappeared and went over to the hut and conversed with the person inside for a minute. Two Styrofoam cups emerged from the hut in the grip of hairy hands, spilling out steam like they contained dry ice. Alex took them and came back to the car. He looked extremely pleased with himself considering Justin was fairly sure his only achievement was buying two coffees.

'Follow me.' He mouthed through the glass. Justin got out. 'What about her?' He said, gesturing to the dog in the back seat. 'He can come. He is most welcome.' Alex said. Justin went and opened the back door, and the dog jumped down, her tail cutting the air with almost lethal speed.

'You need to lock the door.' Alex said.

'Where are the keys?'

'My pocket.'

'Okay.' Justin said. 'So lock the door.'

'I can't. I'm holding the coffees.'

'I'll take the coffees then.'

'No that won't work. They'll lose their heat if I transfer them. They'll be undrinkable.'

Justin laughed. 'Which pocket?'

'Completely forgotten I'm afraid.'

Justin rubbed his forehead with his knuckles, and grinned. He went over and began to feel in Alex's pockets. He found the keys and locked the door.

'Where are we going?'

'If we go this way there's somewhere we can sit.'

'We could sit in the car.'

'This is a better place to sit.'

'In what way is it better?'

'Once again we see that lack of patience of yours, Justin. You'll see. You just have to trust me.'

They walked for five minutes, to the other side of the heath. They went down some steps, through trees. At the bottom, there was a bench, and it looked out over a valley. The sun was rising in the distance. It was just a thin wedge of light still but even this threw off an infinite glow.

'See.' Alex said. 'I told you to trust me.'

Justin shrugged. 'Okay. I guess you were right. I will make sure to trust you from now on. On seating matters at least.'

Alex laughed. They sat on the bench. The cold began nipping at Justin's neck, and he shivered. They sat there in silence watching the sunrise. The tiredness suddenly brushed over him, and his body felt heavy. The cold was numbing.

'I'm going to be a father.' Alex said. Justin turned to face him. He was staring at the sun and it made his face reddish, like it had blistered. 'I wanted to tell someone. So I thought I'd tell you. I don't know why. I guessed you'd understand.'

'As in you're going to have a baby?'

'Well not have it personally.' Alex said, and paused. 'But yes, I guess - I'm going to be a father.' He took a sip of his coffee, and steam gushed out of his mouth when he had finished sipping and took a breath.

'Oh.' Justin said. He took a sip of his coffee.

'They can't know. That's why. I don't want them growing up like I did.'

'What do you mean?'

'My dad left when I was younger.' Alex said. 'I haven't seen him since. And every time I saw others with theirs it was like I was hit with this loneliness. I felt different. It makes you want to change yourself. So I'm going to make sure they get to be normal.'

'I don't understand.'

'Don't you?' Alex turned to him. 'You think having a dad like me doing.' He stopped and gestured around him. 'Doing this is going to help them?'

'Well, I-' Justin stopped. 'No.' He finally said. 'I guess it probably won't help as such.'

'They'll be different. And who wants to be different? Who wants to be different, really?'

Alex sat there watching the sun gradually rising, as if it were a heavy weight being drawn up with invisible ropes.

Justin held back for a moment then said: 'But you can't really change. It's like wanting to be taller.'

Alex shrugged. 'Well, I'll be different. I'll make it work. It'll work out. I just need to be careful.'

'That doesn't sound like a convincing plan.'

Alex shrugged again. 'It probably isn't. But it doesn't need to last forever. It just needs to last long enough.'

'How long is long enough?'

Alex waited. 'I don't know. Until they're old enough. Till... maturity.'

'Maturity? That's a creepy way to describe someone's age.'

Alex didn't laugh. Justin said: 'Does she know about you? The mother I mean.'

'No. But she wants us to get together. I think I'm sure of that. She keeps messaging me. I think she has this idea of us being a family. I think she's scared of doing it alone. She just wants to be like everyone else too, you know.'

'She doesn't have to be alone. You will still be there. Just not like that.'

'It's not the same. You must see that. I want them to have the family I didn't. It has to be like this.'

'How long were you with her?'

'Just one night. I was... you know.'

'Only one night?' Justin said. 'And that's all it took?'

Alex nodded.

'So masc.' Justin said.

Alex laughed half-heartedly.

'When did your dad leave?' Justin asked.

'A while ago. I don't know what happened. I never spoke about it with my mum. I think she realised how much I hated it, being left like that, just us two. I remember once when I was younger, I came back in tears and cried and cried at how much I hated that we weren't like other families. She grew quite reserved and retreated. She stopped going out. I guess I once thought it was her fault even though it wasn't. But things get to a point where you can't go back, and things stay as they are. I remember when he left - my dad I mean. I was listening. He said he would never live up to this other guy and that there was no point staying. His name was Chris I think. And then he left and never said goodbye. I think I ruined her life. I think we both did.'

'That won't be true.' Justin said. That was the second time he had heard the name Chris that night. He had not appreciated that it was an androgynous name; Alex interrupted the thought.

'How do you know?'

Justin shrugged.

Alex took another sip of coffee. 'Well anyway I'm not going to let anything similar happen. I refuse.'

'So you don't want anyone to see you.'

Alex nodded. 'I don't want anyone to know. Because what if they find out one day. It'll shatter the illusion.' He stumbled over these last words, and his voice cracked. 'I just feel - I feel it's the end of being young. And it makes me furious. I feel time accelerating. I feel it disappearing, like it's being taken from me.'

Justin drank from his coffee and they sat there in the silence. The sun continued to rise in the sky, and they were slowly bathed in treacly, orange light.

'Everyone is afraid of that.' Justin said quietly.

'Are they?'

'I am.'

Alex looked at him. 'Really?'

'Of course. The idea that you haven't done everything that there is to do. That life is nothing but closing possibility. I think of everything disappearing behind me and I want to claw it back.'

'Yeah.' Alex nodded. 'Like that. I think.'

Justin took another sip of coffee. 'But I guess it just depends how you look at it.'

Alex waited, like he was processing these last words. He turned and squinted at Justin. 'What do you mean?'

Justin shrugged. 'Whether you think life gathers or depletes. Whether the past is lost or a foundation. Actually I guess it says everything about someone, how they answer that.'

Alex smiled sadly. 'I guess I want a better foundation. I feel I screwed everything up so much I won't have one. And what can you build without it.? He lent forward and stared at the sun. He rubbed his face and his chin. Justin could hear his stubble grating like sandpaper. He took another drink of coffee. 'It's just hard changing. Decisions have momentum, you know. I just want to stop time before I have to stop being young.'

'I think a lot of people feel like that.'

'But you're not supposed to! Not yet. You're supposed to be so busy living that you wake up and it's over. You shouldn't see the end in the distance. You should look up one day and find you went over the line so far ago that it's finally time to stop and you actually went on way too long.'

'You have no idea yet.'

'I can speculate.'

'Quite an elderly word to use that.'

Alex laughed. 'Stop it.'

'Sorry.' Justin smiled. 'Maybe we can stop time. I'll go back to that biker's cafe and keep ordering and I'll get so large I distort spacetime. Then we can sit here and watch everyone around us getting old until we feel lonely.'

'It's stupid I know.'

'I don't think so.'

'I'll embrace it. I'll be a dad and get a proper job and wear a suit.' He laughed. 'A suit. Basically mummification. It's all approaching, isn't it? Everything. I guess you just have to ride it, whatever comes.'

Justin nodded. Then he said quietly: 'It does feel like chaos.'

'I'm not looking forward to so much chaos. I'm not sure my body can take it. I can barely sit cross-legged these days.'

They sat there silently. Then Justin said: 'Do you know where the word chaos comes from?'

'After your little temple story earlier I think we've had enough of your trivia about the Ancient Greeks for one evening.' Alex said.

Justin laughed. 'It's probably the wrong time to tell you that it wasn't Achilles in the bath then.'

Alex smiled. He glanced over at Justin. 'Do you want to do something sometime? Not like earlier. But go for a drink or something. Just spend some time together and chat.'

Justin looked straight into Alex's eyes. 'No.' He said.

Alex looked suddenly bewildered and dismayed, and he stared at Justin as if in appeal. 'Oh.' He said. Then he twisted away and moved the coffee cup between his hands and reached down and pulled the cuff of his trousers from his shoe where it had been caught. He didn't look up for several moments.

'We can go if you want.' He said finally, eyes fixed ahead of him.

'Alex.' Justin began.

'No. Don't worry.' Alex replied, cutting him off. 'I'll take you back. We should get going.'

'Alex.'

'What?' Alex turned to look at Justin. When Justin said nothing and just stared back at him, Alex furrowed his eyebrows and fixed him with a confused expression. So Justin narrowed his eyes a little in response. Maybe that would make it obvious.

And then Alex realised. He started smiling and shook his head. 'Oh.' He said, lifting his neck up. 'I see. That's one of your jokes, isn't it? Another one of your hilarious jokes. Making sure to end the evening just as we started it.' He laughed and shook his head again, then looked away.

'Sorry.' Justin said. 'It's just I assumed you would know when I'm joking by now. I mean you've had enough warnings.'

Alex turned back. 'So is it a yes?'

Justin scratched his chin. 'Does it mean we get to be seen by other people?'

Alex swallowed, then looked down at the ground for a second, before turning his eyes back onto Justin. 'If you insist, I suppose.'

'Do I have to buy the first drink because you bought me this coffee?'

'If it would stop this tortuous suspense, then no.'

Justin nodded. 'And you promise not to break the car?'

'I didn't break the car this time, remember? So is it a yes?'

Justin shrugged. 'I suppose it has to be.' He paused and faced forward again. 'I think it would be fun.'

Justin could see Alex grinning in his peripheral vision. He tried to hold back from smiling himself - dignity, always dignity – but this didn't work out.

They sat there together and watched the rising sun.

The End

Thanks for reading!

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