Tybalt and Juliet Ch. 01

Our mobile numbers are here," she said, showing me a card, which she replaced behind the cordless phone. "If there are any, erm, difficulties this evening, you will call us, won't you?"

"Yes, of course," I reassured her, not only wondering what potential difficulties were envisaged, but also still baffled by what she meant by 'sensible'? Was I the boring one? What did she think might go wrong?

In truth, perhaps this wasn't so unreasonable; James' parents had absented themselves from their house during our parties before, but previously at least one of his older brothers had been around as a 'responsible' adult. Now that we were all eighteen, perhaps they felt compelled to leave us to our own devices.

-

James' parents had a strict policy on eating, drinking and swimming, rigorously enforced after two of his eldest brother's friends had chundered into the pool after drinking a teaspoon of vodka. Although I generally joined in the communal moaning about how unfair this was and how much more responsible we were, these iron rules actually suited me. Sunshine and alcohol were a pretty bad combination for me, and I tended to get a headache if I started drinking too early.

I grabbed a burger and sat down on one of the wooden garden benches that lined the patio between the house and pool. Stijn plonked his tall, lanky frame down next to mine - he'd arrived with his girlfriend Rachel (one of Becky's 'Ibiza beach photo friends'). Stijn (pronounced Styne rather than Stidgin) had moved from the Netherlands when he'd been seven or eight, and he still had a wonderfully laid-back Dutch accent. He and Rachel had been the first students in our year at school to 'couple up', and three years later, they were still going strong.

I looked across at Stijn's muscular frame - he'd bulked up considerably since the previous summer and his chest, like mine, now sported a light covering of blond hair.

"Hey, nice pack!" I said, punching his arm. "Been working out recently?"

"Yeah, I got into the gym in a big way", he smiled goofily. "Rachel seems to like it though," and he extended his arm as his girlfriend bounded over to him.

I shuffled across to give her room to sit.

"You're alright," she said as she perched herself on her boyfriend's knees.

Stijn made an exaggerated 'ooff' noise as his legs took her weight. She turned, beamed at him and tickled his nose.

"Can I sit here?" asked a small voice. I turned to my left - it was Amy - I hadn't actually noticed her arrive.

"Yeah, sit here," replied Stijn indicating the space between him and me.

"Oh, hi Amy!" I said, trying to sound casual, my heart beating nineteen to the dozen. "Your parents enjoy the play?"

I didn't actually know if her parents had been at the play, but thought it was a safe bet that they had.

"Yeah," she replied. "My step-brothers really enjoyed the fight scenes! Actually, my mum took some photos from the audience. You wanna see?"

I nodded and Amy dug in the pocket of her denim shorts and fished out a scratched smartphone, leaning towards me as she tilted the screen. She scooted a little closer as she opened the first photo, her bare left arm pressing against my right. I leaned towards her to avoid the reflection.

I paused. Was that too close? Unnaturally close for two people looking at photos on a phone? She was pressing against me quite firmly. She began scrolling through the pictures; they were mostly of her and, understandably quite a few also included Ritchie. We'd got to the end of the first half and there were some shaky action shots of the fights.

"Oh Stijn!" laughed Rachel over to my right, jolting me back into the present. "Your legs are just too bony!"

She got up and squeezed herself onto the bench between Amy and her boyfriend.

Amy pushed even closer to me. The right side of my body felt simultaneously numb and electrified, as if my brain had shut down my sense of touch anywhere not in direct contact with her arm or leg. Her skin was soft and smooth, yet cooler than I was expecting.

"I think that's the last one," she said as she swiped her thumb across a photo of the whole company at the final curtain call.

I gasped, hopefully not audibly. The next photo was of Amy, lying on her side on the beach, her upper body propped up on her elbow, legs pointing away, her head turned forwards, directing a radiant smile at the camera. Her long, dark, curly hair was tied back, clear of her face and chest, the red-and-white striped bikini showing off her breasts, which looked considerably fuller than I'd appreciated before. Stunning, a true picture of beauty!

"Oh that's just a photo of me on the beach in Tenerife," she said, trying to sound casual. There was a slight strain to her voice - she sounded a little nervous, but didn't immediately pull the phone away from my gaze.

"Hey Jake!" called James, as he strode across to our bench carrying a bottle of lemonade. "Want a top up?"

I bent forward, picked up my glass from between my legs, and offered it to James to refill.

"Hey Stijn," asked Rachel. "Do you need a glass?"

"Yeah, please," he replied. She got up and walked towards the house, returning a minute or so later, clutching two plastic beakers.

I sort of expected that, with Rachel gone for at least a minute or two, Amy would shuffle back across towards Stijn. She made a couple of half-hearted wriggles, as if attempting to move away from me, but the contact between us hardly seemed to lessen.

James moved away to refill others. I looked straight ahead, desperately trying to think of a way of engaging Amy in conversation. The sides of my leg and upper arm, throbbed with an exquisite intensity where her limbs were pressed against mine. Inside I was beating myself up. I was normally so good talking to girls. Why on earth was I suddenly tongue-tied?

I reached for my phone and flicked through some of my own photos from the play, tilting the screen so that Amy could see. There were only a dozen or so, mostly taken during rehearsals and none of them featuring me. Then there were quite a few shots of members of the cast, taken before the dress rehearsal, having their makeup applied. I always liked the 'in makeup' shots - there was something almost magical about observing the transition from real life to the world of the play, as actor became character.

I reached the end of the play photos and I paused. Should I show her the photos of the Danny and me on our cycling holiday to the Lake District? Like she showed me the photo from Tenerife? Or was that just lame? Lame, because it was directly copying what she'd just done? Lame because it was the fucking Lake District and not Tenerife? Lame because it would look like I was trying to force photos of me and Danny wearing tight cycling shorts on her?

I panicked for a second. What if she started liked the look of Danny in cycling shorts more than the look of me in cycling shorts? What if she started fancying Danny? Or was it obvious that Danny only had eyes for Becky? And did she fancy me anyway? Didn't she want Ritchie? Did the body contact between us mean anything? Or was this just two 18-year-olds sitting on a bench? Or rather four 18-year-olds attempting to sit on a bench designed for a maximum of three? And more importantly did I fancy her?

Was I more interested in a quick fumble than something meaningful? Was she interested in a quick fumble or did she want something more? Should I just drop being a sanctimonious arsehole and get the first notch on my bedpost?

I decided to press on and mumbled something incoherent about more photos and flicked through the shots on my phone. Rachel returned with two glasses of lemonade and deposited herself on the bench; Amy jammed herself up against me, even more tightly than before.

She leaned in to peer at my phone with undeserved fascination, giggling generously at my long-winded description of Danny grappling with his inner tube as we'd repaired a puncture in the rain. Finally, I reached the photo that I was most proud of.

I'd stood on a rocky outcrop, side on to the camera, one hand on the saddle of my bike, head turned away staring out across the valley below. My lycra shorts compressed my tackle into a prominent bulge and I'd squeezed by butt cheeks together to give myself the perfect rounded behind. It had taken me quite a few goes to marshal Danny into exactly the right position for the shot.

I'd joked at the time that I'd use this photo for my Tinder profile, but it seemed to be having the intended effect on Amy. She gave an audible intake of breath as she studied the photo intently, before turning her head to give me a cheeky smile, her eyes dancing in excitement. My cynicism melted away as I held her gaze for a few seconds, her cheeks reddening with, what I hoped was excitement.

A dark shadow passed across us, blocking the sun.

"Hey Amy," Ritchie said, ignoring me completely. "You alright?"

"Oh, hi Ritchie," she replied. "Jake's showing me some of his photos of the play."

Ritchie fished in his pocket for his phone. "Hey Jake," he said, "my dad videoed our fight, you wanna see?"

'Not particularly,' I thought. 'Why can't you just fuck off and let me hit on Amy in peace?'

"Uh, yeah sure," I replied, noncommittally. I'd seen almost endless videos of the fight at various stages of rehearsal, filmed from multiple angles in the audience, so we could get it to look right for everyone. I was thoroughly bored of watching myself die.

Ritchie scooted round behind the bench and leaned forward, extending his arm as he held the phone out for us to view. His head was perfectly positioned to look straight down Amy's cleavage and she could almost certainly feel his breath on the back of her neck.

He pressed play. Two blobs, who could have been anyone, darted back and forth across the stage in the pattern we'd rehearsed a million times. The phone was shaking around a fair bit and almost everything was out of focus. But Ritchie's message was clear: He was the winner and I was the loser; he, the prince, rescuing Amy, the damsel in distress, from me, the villain.

"Oi Jake!" Danny shouted.

Perfect timing!

"Get your swimming stuff on! We're going in the pool."

I leaned in front of Amy and looked across at Stijn, who had his arm around Rachel.

"Coming Stijn? Coming Ritchie?" I asked.

Stijn nodded and began to get up as I rose too, squashing my way past Amy's leg. Ritchie didn't move, he was still leaning over Amy, leering at her cleavage. The hand holding his phone was perfectly positioned for an 'accidental' collision with her left breast.

"What do you reckon to Ritchie and Amy?" I asked Stijn as we headed inside.

"I think he likes her a lot," he said in his cool, laid-back accent. "But I'm not sure she's so into him." He winked at me.

I shrugged.

-

There'd been bad blood between me and Ritchie for a long time. We'd actually started off in the same nursery class, but the only reason I remember him from back then, was the hot-headed tantrum that he'd erupted into when I beat him, aged five, in the sack race on Sports Day.

When Danny and I had started at Primary School at the age of six, Ritchie's dad had secured a promotion at his job in London, and he'd moved to a fee-paying independent school in the neighbouring town. But at the age of eleven, under somewhat shady circumstances, his father's city career had come to an abrupt halt and Ritchie had landed in our Secondary School with a chip on his shoulder.

For reasons I never could quite work out, he had taken a particular dislike to me from the very start and would sometimes hold his nose or ask his coterie if they could smell manure whenever I walked past. Things had deteriorated between his friends and mine, after he'd had a fight with James in the school playground in Year 9. (James had been excluded for a week and, needless to say, Ritchie had walked away scot free.)

Despite being a bully, Ritchie did have his strong points. He was certainly a talented sportsman, particularly strong in both rugby, football and athletics, although he shared my dislike of cricket. He was also bright, one of the most academic in our year group, although perhaps not quite as intelligent as he liked to think he was. He was also a confident public speaker and good looking with it as well. (His height, two inches taller than my six foot, certainly helped.)

His greatest asset was his ability to charm anyone in any sort of authority, especially teachers, but behind their backs he was perfectly comfortable playing to the student crowd. He was a cunning backstabber and I often thought he'd make a consummate politician. He was the kind of guy to drop you as soon as you outlived your usefulness to him, in such a way that you thought he was doing you a favour.

But the worst thing about Ritchie was his snobby mother, who ran the school's Parent Teacher Association and from whom her son had inherited his ability to schmooze and manipulate. It came as no surprise to anyone that Ritchie had been made Head Boy at the start of our final year and that had made the pair of them even more insufferable. My Mum had first met Mrs Gasson for when waiting to pick me up from nursery one day and recalled that when she found out that our family lived in one of the tiny farm workers' cottages at the edge of our village (we swapped to the farmhouse when my grandfather retired), she refused to speak to her!

There'd been one fly in the ointment. The term he'd been crowned as Head Boy, Richie had applied to Oxford to study Politics, Philosophy and Economics, the flagship undergraduate degree studied by future prime ministers. Had he got in, Ritchie would have been even more insufferable than he already was, but fortunately the tutors at Oxford saw through his bullshit and rejected him. The pill was made even harder for him to swallow, by the fact that I'd been awarded a place at Cambridge to study Veterinary Medicine, the first student from our school to be heading for either university in three years.

Of course his mother told everyone how PPE was the hardest course to get into at Oxford and how the tutors had told him to reapply the following year, when they we certain to give him a place (the first part wasn't true as Computer Science and Medicine had more applicants per place and if the second was the case, then why didn't hadn't they offered him a guaranteed deferred entry for the following year?).

I looked back again at Ritchie as he bent over Amy and my heart sank. She was listening intently to his patter, as he scrolled through photos on his phone.

'Oh well,' I thought. 'If she's falling for his crap, she's not the girl for me anyway.'

-

Danny and I bounded down the stairs in high spirits, almost colliding with Lauren and Alicja in the hallway.

"Oh hi Danny!" Lauren said, "you about to get in the pool?"

"Yeah," he replied. "Coming to join us?"

"Sure thing," she responded. "Give us five minutes," and the two of them sprinted up the stairs to change in the guest bedroom.

Danny charged through the patio doors into the garden. There was something about the combination of water and sunshine that made him go even softer in the head than usual. It wouldn't have surprised me if the clumsy fool ended the afternoon with a bruised elbow or scraped knee.

I followed a little more calmly. My heart sank as I saw Ritchie still in conversation with Amy. I watched them for a few seconds. Perhaps Stijn was right, maybe he was keener on her than she was on him. Time for a rescue mission?

"Hey Ritchie," I called as I approached, "you coming in the pool?"

He twisted his head over his shoulder, curling his lip in annoyance at being interrupted. I'd reached the bench and was beside them now.

"You bring your swimming things too?" I asked Amy. She looked up at me and nodded.

"You can go up and change in the guest bedroom," I explained. "Lauren and Alicja should be up there."

She smiled and rose from her seat, then walked back towards the house, pursued by the Head Boy. I watched the pair disappear through the patio doors and into the sitting room.

'Oh well,' I thought. 'At least Lauren and Alicja will give her some time away from Ritchie - if she wants it.'

A violent splash shook me from my thoughts. Danny... Danny desperately trying to impress Becky, who was in deep conversation with James and not paying the slightest bit of attention.

"Will there be anything left in the pool for us to swim in?" I asked sarcastically, "or are you just going to water the plants instead?"

"Fuck off Jake, you miserable git!" he bantered back. "By the time you get in, the water will have evaporated."

I flung my towel down on a bench and dived in. I swam a couple of widths as I adjusted to the temperature of the water.

James fetched a couple of water polo balls from the summerhouse and tossed them to us. I noticed he was wearing a particularly tight pair of black speedos, rather than the more usual board shorts that I'd seen him in when we arrived. I watched, transfixed, as he jogged across to the pool, noting that, like Stijn, he'd bulked up quite a bit since the previous summer. His broad shoulders offset his narrow, muscular waist and his pecks pumped lightly as he ran.

"Get a grip, Jake!" I muttered to myself under my breath. I wasn't gay, was I. Was I?

We'd had so many parties at James' house and there was a well-rehearsed pattern to the time we spent in the pool: The girls (normally half a dozen at most) would sit on the side, with their legs in the water, gently declining our entreaties to get in, on the grounds that they 'didn't want to get their hair wet'. We (the boys) would horse around, generally trying to prove how macho we were, while the girls would disinterestedly tap away at their phones, and giggle. Occasionally one of the lads would swim over and try to chat one of the girls up (almost always Becky), only to be politely toyed with and then dismissed.

Every ten minutes or so, two or three of the girls would retreat to the sun lounger, rubbing sun cream into each other's backs. Of course, we'd generously offer to help apply this vital protection, but we'd always be firmly, yet respectfully rebuffed. The whole choreographed routine would then repeat until it got too cold to swim, at which point, the boys would heave themselves out of the water like a pack of walruses to dry off in the sun's dying rays.

Today felt different, it was different. I couldn't put my finger on it. Maybe it was just that Becky had already changed into her bikini and wasn't hanging back with the main gaggle of girls, maybe Lauren's presence affected things - she'd always revert to her tomboy type where sporting activities were concerned, particularly if there was an opportunity to compete with her cousin. Or maybe it was different because we were all finally eighteen - older, uninhibited, high on the freedom of adulthood.

I glanced back towards the house. Ritchie and his snivelling satellite, Billy Smythe, were slithering towards the pool. Amy was a few paces behind talking with Frankie, the girl who'd played the part of the Nurse in the play.

I slid under the water and swam across to the other side for a better view. By the time I resurfaced, the four of them had reached the wooden bench where we'd been sitting earlier. I watched discreetly, keeping my shoulders below the waterline.

Frankie wasn't bad looking, but Amy was beautiful - there was no disputing it. She'd caught the sun a little, and the delicate features of her face had a healthy red glow. Her long, black hair was tied up, ready for swimming, revealing her tall, slender neck. Her breasts, small yet pert and perfectly framed by bikini top, gave the lightest bounce as she walked.

My eyes slipped lower, across the perfect flatness of her stomach, to her slender, boyish hips and smooth elegant legs. My heart skipped a beat and I felt my cock twitch in my swimming shorts.