I Hate Summer (12 page)

It wasn’t like I’d never dealt with homophobia; rightly or wrongly it was just an unfortunate side effect of being gay. Even if I couldn’t deal, it didn’t matter anyway, because we needed someone to pay the rent.

“
I can’t believe ye don’t just kick him out. The shit he’s pulling is abuse.
” If the whole thing hadn’t actually been getting kind of serious I would have thought it was fricking hilarious that he was talking about us like we were some kind of married couple.

“Oh, well we’re sorted, then, I’ll just file for divorce, eh?” I rolled my eyes before sucking a long breath through my nose, because I definitely didn’t need to be taking this out on Theo. I took a moment to pull a T-shirt on so I could go downstairs and make myself a morning brew—it wasn’t like I’d be going back to sleep after this conversation. “Unfortunately it’s not that simple. We’re all in third year; none o’ us have time t’ waste searching for new people. Besides, anyone who needs a room a month into the semester is likely t’ be a dick in one way or another.”

“
Well I think ye should make time, an’ I know Jorja would say the same.
”

Exasperatingly, I thought Theo was probably right. It was for precisely this reason that I was so pissed off that she was ignoring me. Jorja was some kind of saint where homophobic idiots were concerned, she always knew what to do. Except she wouldn’t talk to me, and every time I thought about it, it made me angry about Scotland all over again.

“
So are ye going t’ stop pansying about an’ get yer ass over here? The forest track is just about looking nice again after the last load o’ rain.
” Theo continued in my ear as I got downstairs and started searching for a clean mug. I’d put four to soak last night when I got in, and all but the foulest of them had magically disappeared again. Last night’s spider scuttled across the windowsill as I snagged the washing-up liquid.

“Sure, sure. I’ll try and call Jorja this evening, and I’ll coordinate—” I was cut off by my own bleat of surprise as I turned to find James standing over me like some kind of creeper.

“
Ide?
”

“Shit. Sorry, Theo. Just a spider made me jump.”

James laughed at me as I sidestepped around him to reach the kettle.

“Anyway, I’ll call ye at the weekend. See ye.” I eyed James warily as I finished up my conversation with Theo and was left alone with the guy that was giving Trystan Jackson a run for his money as my currently most disliked person. He seemed like he was just here for the same reason as me, though, and I turned my back on him as he silently started to make himself some toast.

The peace was nice for the thirty seconds it lasted. “Another whore you call a friend? He coming to stay?”

I pressed my eyes shut for half a second and swallowed down a loud “hell no.” Instead I just shook my head and kept my back to him as I sat down to eat my breakfast. Even if Theo had been one of my hookups, I usually went to their houses anyway, and these days anyone coming here was completely off the books.

My phone rang and I answered it without looking, just glad for someone to distract me from James.

“Hello?”

“
Idrys Bjornson?
” the man on the other end of the phone asked.

“Yeah, speaking,” I answered with my mouth full and hoped James would get bored soon.

“
Good morning Mr. Bjornson, I’m Mathius from W-publishing.
” I groaned as I realized my mistake and checked the number.

“Yes, look,” I interrupted before he could go any further. When the summer holidays had finished I’d told my modeling agency that I wasn’t going to take any more shoots for a while. That had lasted all of a week before they came back and told me someone had offered an extra hundred a shoot. And well, I really wanted a new tent. Now I mostly took work for a designer called Meredith who, although irritating, thought I was worth awkward hours and a lot of money. However, some companies just wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“I don’t know how ye got my number or how many times I have to explain to ye guys that I only work through my agency. I’m a busy guy; if they say it won’t fit in my schedule, then it just won’t. And if they say I won’t do it, it’s because I won’t.” And honestly, did these guys think I was an idiot? That I was just going to say yes to some random on the phone and turn up to have my kidneys taken or end up in a gay porno at gunpoint?

“
But I think you’ll find the pay is very reasonable.
”

I exhaled obviously, because I’d momentarily forgotten about James and he was sniggering.

“I’m sure it is, but it doesn’t change my answer. Bye.”

I hung up.

“How much does a whore like you go for?” I winced as James’s hand snarled through my hair. He yanked my head over the back of the chair, binding me in place and forcing me to stare up at his sneering face.

This was getting ridiculous. The guy had been here for six weeks and he was only getting worse. He’d started just slinking around in corners and making snide comments, but now he was basically assaulting me.

“Let me go, James,” I said softly. To begin with I’d tried to meet his spiteful comments with my own. But that only made it worse so now I just ignored him and tried to be calm. Really, all I wanted to do was drive my fist into his face. But I had a job this weekend, and if I turned up with a black eye, I had a funny feeling that not only would I not get paid, but I’d also probably never hear the end of it from Meredith. I reached round and grabbed his wrist, extracting his hand from my hair and standing so I could look down on him.

“If ye touch me again…,” I let my hand tighten on his wrist until I could see him wince. I kept my voice low and furious because shouting didn’t work, sneering didn’t work, nothing worked. But I was starting to get really,
really
pissed off. “I’ll bend ye over the table and fuck ye like a girl, then we’ll see how cocky ye are.”

A mixture of fear and anger battled across his face as he tried to tug his hand away. I let him go, grabbed my half-finished tea and cereal bowl in one hand, and went back upstairs to my room. At least James was on the ground floor and I was in the attic, so he had no excuse to follow me upstairs. But I wasn’t really hungry anymore as I leaned back on my bedroom door and turned the lock. I ate anyway and got ready for another long day.

I was definitely going to call Jorja this evening.

D
ESPITE
BEING
woken up two hours earlier than intended, I somehow managed to end up running late for my first lecture. I was almost jogging to campus when my phone rang again. It was another unsaved number so I sent it straight to voice mail.

“Suze, Patrick,” I called as spotted the people I usually hung out with on my course. I hurried through the packs of people that were heading into the recently vacated lecture hall. They paused by the door and smiled warmly at me as I finally reached them.

“Late night?” Suze said as she tucked her arm into mine to walk into the massive lecture theatre.

“Not in an exciting way,” I answered honestly. We found three seats and I rummaged round in the bottom of my bag before pulling out a small pot of makeup. “Was this the stuff ye were after?” I offered it to the small Asian girl and she shrieked and threw her hands around my neck.

“Oh my God, Ide. I can’t believe you actually got it. This color is limited edition.” Over her head I met Patrick’s eye and gave a small shrug. I may have been gay, but I’d had to ask the makeup artist last night to find it for me. She’d been new and she had handed it over with a suggestion that I might go for drinks with her—when I told her I was gay, she said she would bring her boyfriend.

“How’m I supposed to compete against that?” Patrick complained as he took the small pot of eye shadow from Suze’s hand to examine. He gave a puzzled smile as he passed it back.

“Sorry, mate, I’ll give it to ye to hand over next time,” I said with a wink and then the lecturer was arriving. I gave an irritated huff as my phone vibrated silently in my pocket.

My exasperation melted into a warm pool of relief as I saw it was Jorja. I gave silent thanks to Theo and a curse at the bad timing as the lecturer called for quiet.

“Go ahead, guys, I’m going to try and call my sister,” I said to Suze and Patrick as the first of our lectures came to an end. It was a five-minute walk to the next one so I hoped I could call Jorja quickly, tell her how much I loved her and wasn’t ignoring her, and that I would call her back properly as soon as I finished for the day. In case you’re wondering—Jorja hates texts. Suze and Patrick nodded and waved as they hurried off with the rest of our class.

“Ide!”

I wanted to groan as I dropped the phone away from my ear as my name was uttered by a slightly too high and overly camp lisp. A small gay guy appeared in front of me, the kind you can tell is gay just by looking, with big eyes that were framed with suspiciously black and full eyelashes, an affectedly high voice, and feminine clothing. “Have you been avoiding me, Idrys?”

I sighed and slipped my phone back into my pocket.

“Of course not, Ashlie.” I leaned down and pressed a kiss onto his forehead. Ashlie was one of my fuck buddies, but in all truth he’d been low down on my list of late because I was going through a phase of liking to bottom—which kind of limited my options to either Dan or Echo. “I told ye about my new housemate, and ye know I don’t fit on yer bed.” Which, while not the main reason, was a bloody good one because I could hardly stand in the small guy’s room.

“Good.” His mock scowl slid instantly into a grin and he clung to my arm. “A few of us are going out tomorrow night, you going to come?”

“A few of us are going out” was Ashlie’s code for a gang bang, which I wasn’t really in the mood for at the moment and definitely didn’t have the energy for. Plus I’d already arranged to meet Dan, and I had to work on Saturday. The latter was the excuse I gave him as I slipped away. In the end I had no time to call Jorja and I had to run across campus to get in before the lecture started.

I then had a two-hour lecture followed by a one-hour lecture, and I had to eat in the short break in between. Leaving four and a half hours before returning a call from my sister was always a bad idea, and I was hardly surprised when it went through to voice mail.

“Boy trouble?” said Patrick. He had an understanding smile on his face; he had clearly clocked my frustrated sigh as I dropped my phone from my head for the third time on our walk home.

Suze giggled. “Ide would have to have a
boyfriend
to get trouble from.”

I ran a hand through my unruly hair, then remembered it was long enough to tie back and tugged a hair tie from a packet I had stuffed into the bottom of my bag.

“Sister trouble.” The irony that I refused to settle down so I didn’t have to deal with this kind of stuff was not lost on me. “Seriously, I’m gay for a reason: girls are a nightmare. I don’t even know why she’s pissed at me; well, I do: she’s pissed right now because I didn’t call her back, but I mean why she was pissed before she called.”

“Well,” Suze paused to laugh, and ruffle a hand through my already messy hair. “That wasn’t convoluted at all. The easiest way to work out what’s wrong is to remember the last time she wasn’t annoyed with you.”

“Meh, I know
when
she got pissed off; I just don’t know why
she’s
pissed. I didn’t do anything to
her
. Plenty o’ other people, but not her.”

“You stole a boy from her again, Ide?” Suze said with a smile because I’d told her a few of the more entertaining and E-rated stories of my childhood.

“Well, it did include boys, but not ones she was interested in; she was encouraging me.”

“Boys—plural?” Trust Patrick to pick up on that. I shot him a grim smile; he knew what I was like, but he didn’t necessarily approve.

“Yeah, well, it was an eventful holiday.” Which was an understatement and a half.

“I thought you went to Scotland with that family you hate? Weren’t you complaining about it for the whole of July?” Patrick asked. He was likely to know because he’d been in Canada with me and I’d sat next to him on the plane home and drowned my sorrows at having to go.

“Yeah, I did.” His eyebrows flicked up his forehead, and I could tell even he was a little curious. But at that moment my phone rang again. My jubilation was cut short when I realized it wasn’t Jorja’s name flashing across my screen but yet another unrecognized number.

“Look,” I snapped as I answered the call, my tone low and dangerous. “I don’t know how many times I have to explain to ye that I’m not fricking interested in the damn job. No matter how much ye pay me or who it’s for or how many new kidneys ye’ll be able to buy yer dying daughter wi’ the commission. I’m not taking the fricking suspicious-ass job, understand?”

Patrick and Suze were looking slightly startled because I didn’t usually lose my cool. And I had definitely lost my cool. But it was turning into a stressful day and I could really do without the endless phone calls when Jorja could be trying to contact me.

“
Ide
?” I paused before I could continue my rant because only people I knew called me Ide; the dodgy modeling jobs called me Mr. Bjornson. And more than that, I realized I recognized the way that suspiciously irritating southern posh-boy voice said my name.

“What the hell! Trys, is that ye?”

“
Yeah it’s me, what the fuck was that about?
”

I opened my mouth to explain and apologize, but then I remembered who I was talking to.

“No. What the hell, Trystan? Why the hell are ye even calling me?”

This was worse than talking to a modeling agency, and I didn’t want Jorja to get an engaged tone. And then I realized… that my sister had probably been calling me for Trystan Jackson. Which pissed me off all the more.

I hung up.

We’d come to a stop and I realized Patrick and Suze were staring at me with slightly shocked looks on their faces.