The sleepover is easy to arrange. Mum says yes straightaway when I ask if Jonathan can come over for tea on Saturday night. She even says we can order a pizza and take it up to my room if we want to sit and watch films. She says something about getting the main guest bedroom ready, but I say no, Jonathan can sleep on the floor on the camp bed. She laughs at that.
‘You boys – it’s like you’re still ten and excited for midnight feasts! Reminds me of Malory Towers.’
I don’t know what that is, and I don’t ask.
I feel a bit nervous on the Saturday morning when Mum and Dad are shopping. I wash and tumble dry all my bed sheets then put them all back on (something that’s a lot more difficult than I’d expected). I tidy my room in a way I never normally do when Jonathan comes round, then hoover the carpet of both my room and the landing, even though our cleaner, Yvon, has only just been two days before. I don’t fully understand why I’m going to all this trouble. I just want it all to be nice for the evening. It’s like I’m going to meet someone for the first time. My mind keeps wandering onto what it will be like later when it gets to the moment to settle down to go to sleep. Will it be weird and awkward? Will he expect anything more, hoping that I’ve changed my mind and I’d be open to… other stuff? Even if he hopes it, I know Jonathan will take my lead. So I decide to wait and see how I feel about it all when we get there.
The day drags by, feeling like years rather than hours. Something happens in the afternoon when I go downstairs to get a drink that makes me even more uneasy. Dad’s in the middle of unboxing a new toaster and breaking up the box for the recycling, and Mum’s sitting at the kitchen table scrolling through the Mail Online website on her iPad. She pauses on a headline about two actors who started an affair with each other after years of friendship and acting together, despite the fact they both have their own partners. The woman is really stunning, even though she’s old – about forty – and a big covert photo of her caught kissing the man on a beach somewhere fills the screen.
‘Everyone thought this would happen,’ Mum says vaguely to the room in general, probably aware Dad isn’t listening. ‘Things always get messy when friends become more than friends.’ She shakes her head, begins to scroll on, then sees me standing there. ‘Everything OK, love?’ she asks.
It takes me a few seconds to respond, causing both of them to turn to look at me properly.
‘You all right?’ my dad asks.
‘You coming down with something? You look a bit pale.’ Mum gets up and goes to feel the temperature of my forehead. I duck out of her reach, tell her I’m fine, and go back upstairs.
Even when Jonathan arrives, followed an hour after by the Domino’s, time still seems to crawl. Because Mum and Dad are around, I greet him as I would normally and try to be as natural as possible. We watch Fast & Furious 8 in my room whilst eating the pizza, just the same as we ever would, with me sharing my views on the film as it goes along, him nodding and occasionally agreeing out loud (although, for probably the first time ever, I find myself avoiding commenting on the hot women). Finally it gets to around 11pm and I can hear Mum and Dad going to their room. Jonathan and I are sitting on my bed already, with our backs to the wall and our legs stretched out, facing the TV across the room. Silence falls as the credits come to an end and I turn the screen off. ‘So…’ I say, looking at him.
‘So…’ he replies, then gives me a small smile, which makes me smile and laugh a bit nervously.
‘Shall we… er… get ready for bed then?’ I ask. He nods.
I tell him he can go and use the bathroom first, so he goes off with his toothbrush from his little overnight bag and I sit there on the bed. My heart starts to pound a little. I’m suddenly aware I haven’t planned what to wear in bed. I normally sleep in just boxers for most of the year, or naked during the summer. Should I find some proper pyjamas, I wonder? Just keep my pants on? I’m thinking about this all when it’s my turn to go and brush my teeth. When I get back to my room, Jonathan is still fully dressed, so I can’t even go with what he’s doing.
‘Shall we get into bed then?’ I say, a little awkwardly. He nods, and takes off his top. I do the same. It’s clear we’re both watching each other as we move to unzipping our jeans. We tug them off, followed by our socks, until we’re both standing in just our underwear, unsure of what to do next. I go over to turn the main light off, to give me something to do, although the desk light is still on, so when I turned back to him I can see quite clearly that underneath his white Tommy Hilfiger boxers, Jonathan is standing very much to attention. I freeze as soon as I realise this, and then Jonathan must have realised too as he turns around and walks towards the bed.
‘Go ahead… er… get in,’ I say, if only to stop him standing there awkwardly, obviously embarrassed. He gets in under the duvet, and I do the same. The temperature is a lot cooler today, so getting into bed next to another warm body feels instantly comfortable and relaxing. It’s like the awkwardness has eased slightly now that we’re both in here together and we’re over the first bit. Now all I realistically have to do is sleep, and I do that practically every night without issue. Or is that all? Even though I’m still fairly sure I’m not up for doing anything too major with Jonathan, all this lead-up to tonight – whatever tonight is – has made the thought of just drifting off to sleep a bit of an anti-climax.
As if reading my mind, Jonathan says, ‘So, do we… just go to sleep now?’
I take a deep breath. ‘Yeah, I think so…’ It’s clear to me that Jonathan has been hoping it isn’t just sleep that’s on the cards, and after our kissing incident in the woods, I can’t blame him. That whole experience certainly felt like the start of something, not a one-off thing in itself. I turn onto my side to face him. He does the same, so we’re both looking at each other, like we were when we were sitting up against that fallen tree. We stare into each other’s eyes. I shift myself a bit closer to him until I feel my foot brush up against his leg. He moves a little too, so that we meet in the middle, our faces almost touching, our bodies close together.
After some minutes like this, Jonathan says, ‘Can we kiss again?’
I think about it, the question reverberating around my head. Do I want to kiss him again? Or shall I just turn over onto my side and tell him we need to sleep. I feel a pang of pain, realising I don’t want to reject him in this way after he’s shared so much of himself with me, after he’s shown me something that he’s clearly been freaking out about for these past couple of years. I don’t want to hurt him like that. I want to make things OK. Make him happy. And then I realise that there’s quite a simple way of looking at all this. It means a lot to him, and it doesn’t really ask for a lot from me. So I just say yes.
‘Yeah, OK.’ I roll towards him a little.
It isn’t as disorienting as our time in the woods, when it felt like my heart was about to beat out of my chest with the surprise of it all. This time it feels quite calm, once I get used to the rhythm of it, the spearmint flavour toothpaste both of us have just used, the weight of his arms and legs as they mingle with mine. Although I keep my hands around his back and shoulders, Jonathan’s start to roam along me, like they did in the woods. I don’t stop him. I find the whole thing oddly interesting, like I’m going on an unusual safari. I wonder, as his hands start to get more adventurous, if what we’re doing will just eventually make him more upset when he wants to go further and I reach a point where I say no. But all of that feels like a future problem and I let my mind grow blank as Jonathan continues.
What if my parents hear us? Will they think we’re watching porn?
Afterwards, Jonathan comes back up to lie next to me. ‘You all right?’ he asks, a little breathlessly as he lies back next to me, our bodies touching.
‘Yeah,’ I say, also breathless.
‘Yeah… me too,’ he says.
I don’t know what to say to this, so I just keep quiet. I became aware Jonathan is looking at me, so I turn my head to look at him. ‘You sure you’re OK?’ I ask.
He smiles, looking a bit shy. ‘Best day of my life.’
I laugh, though not in a nasty way or laughing at him, just because it surprised me.
‘This won’t make things weird between us, will it?’ he asks, sounding a bit worried.
I shake my head. ‘No.’
He seems satisfied with this answer, and then rolls forward a little so he can rest his head on my shoulder, with an arm entwined in mine. We’re just like any other teenage couple in bed together. After a few minutes of silence go by, I wonder if he’s gone to sleep. Then he says something I really hadn’t expected.
‘I think my dad has a thing for your mum.’
It takes a moment for these words to sink in. ‘What? You mean… what, like, he fancies her or something?’
I feel Jonathan nod slightly. ‘Yeah. I caught him watching her from the window as she was going on her run. Then he went back to the window a bit later to watch her finishing the run and going inside. Like he knew how long it would take her to do a lap around the streets. Like he does it often.’
Why, of all times, Jonathan has decided to talk about my mum now, when we’re cuddled up in bed together, I have no clue. The idea of his dad, who I’ve always found a bit stuck-up and rude, having the hots for my mum makes me feel a bit sick. ‘I… haven’t noticed anything, but, well, I suppose if all he’s doing is looking from the window… I mean, it’s a free country.’
Jonathan doesn’t reply to this straightaway, just makes a little grunt as if to say ‘yeah’ and sighs. Then, after a pause, he says, ‘I just noticed it… then, and some other times too. Because it’s like…’ He stops halfway through the sentence, like he doesn’t know how to finish it.
‘Like what?’ I prompt.
‘It’s like… how I sometimes watch you. When you’re going for a run, or doing your exercises on a Sunday morning in the lounge if it’s raining.’
This makes my brain spin a bit. ‘But… how? The running machine’s in the room at the back. How do you…?’
‘You do some stretches and cool-down stuff in the lounge while watching TV. I can see across the street.’
He’s right. I do. And I don’t quite know if I like the idea of being spied on. Then I find I can’t stop thinking about my mum, off for her run, not thinking about someone watching her. An older man like Richard Franklin, staring at her from an upstairs window across the road.
‘Sorry, I don’t mean I spy on you…’ Jonathan’s body has become tense, and he tries to sit up.
‘It’s fine,’ I say, encouraging him back down with my arm, and bringing him closer to me. I’m not sure why I keep trying to comfort him, to make the world better for him, but it just feels like the best thing to do. The only thing to do. ‘I think… I think we should sleep now.’
He gives a small nod. If he expected us to do anything more that night, he doesn’t say. And although my world has been rocked and turned, I find falling asleep with him held close next to me even easier than when I’m alone.