Tybalt and Juliet Ch. 01

Amy was turning away from me now, laughing with Frankie as she reached forwards to put her towel down. Her bikini bottoms were pulled tight against her skin, revealing the pert perfection of her petite butt. I followed her curves to the gentle swell of fabric that hid her lips from my prying eyes. How I wanted to reach out, to touch her, to explore her softness with my fingers.

I took a deep breath - thank goodness I was in the pool and not on dry land.

A shadow passed between us, blocking my view. Ritchie was bending over her, whispering something in her ear, resting his hand on her back.

Indignation rose within me; that oily twat was touching my girl. How dare he!

"Ouch!" I cried as a polo ball ricocheted off the side of my head.

"You're supposed to catch it!" teased Lauren as she swam in front of me.

I lost sight of Amy as we tossed the ball around - more of our school mates were joining us in the water now. I think Rachel was the first girl to get on a boy's shoulders (unsurprisingly she chose Stijn) and James helped Becky onto his. To my surprise, Lauren jumped onto Danny's. I looked around, abandoned by my usual female teammate - Amy was sitting behind me on the poolside.

"Hey Amy," I asked, "do you wanna get on my shoulders?"

She hesitated, glancing across apprehensively to where Rachel and Becky were trying to unseat each other.

"How does this work?" she asked. "I haven't done this before."

"Well you get on my shoulders," I explained, "and your job is to grapple with one of the other girls and try to push her into the water."

"But I'm not very strong," she protested.

"It's not really about being strong," I said, "it's about balance. I'll stay low in the water to keep you stable. All you have to do is redirect the other person's strength, so if they make a lunge at you, don't try to resist them, just pull them forward so they topple over. It's easy really."

Amy looked a little doubtful.

"It's alright," I said, "they won't hurt you. Just try it for a couple of minutes and if you don't like it, we'll stop."

"OK," she agreed hesitantly.

I turned and manoeuvred myself between her legs, placing my back against the side of the pool.

"Try to sit as far forward as you can," I advised, as she gingerly shuffled forwards.

I felt her transferring her weight onto me as I gripped her ankles gently but securely. She was light, much lighter than Lauren.

"Let's stay in the shallow end for a bit and you can get used to being on my shoulders."

"I'm not too heavy for you am I?" she asked, as I took my first few steps.

"Light as a feather," I replied.

We crossed the width of the pool twice, returning to the side nearest the house. I explained the remaining 'rules' and Amy had a chance to observe the others.

"There you go," I said. "Told you it was easy. Now you're an expert rider, let's go do battle!"

Amy murmured in protest, but I headed towards Lauren and Danny, the nearest couple to us. They would be good first opponents, not least because Danny had the poise and coordination of a new-born foal on sheet ice, but also because I was hoping that Lauren would play along.

"Oi Lauren," I shouted. She turned her head towards me and I winked at her, as Danny swung round with the agility of a pirouetting elephant, almost sending her flying backwards into the water.

"They're not going to last long," I muttered, half to myself and half to Amy.

Whether it was Danny slipping, Lauren deliberately falling in, Amy's newfound wrestling skills, or a combination of all three, our opponents were soon toppled. Becky and James were a more formidable pairing, especially as Becky was almost a head taller than Amy. Unseating her required me to wait until the two girls had a firm grip of one another, then I launched vertically upwards, catching them both by surprise. Becky, whose position on James' shoulders was fairly insecure to begin with, was easily caught off-balance and tumbled, shrieking with laughter, into the water.

Our third opponents were Rachel and Stijn and, had I had the choice, I would have avoided 'fighting' them. They'd been together as a couple for so long, they could anticipate each other's movements and tactics. Rachel, who played volleyball for the county youth team, was also considerably stronger than Amy and knew how to hold on securely to her man. We held out for about twenty seconds, before superior strength overwhelmed Amy and she fell sideways into the water, almost taking my head with her.

She emerged spluttering, but managed to find her feet on the bottom of the pool.

"You OK?" I asked.

Amy nodded back, her eyes shining in excitement.

"Two wins out of three," I said. "Not bad for a first time."

I was about to invite her to get back on my shoulders to tackle Nick and Frankie, when behind her I caught sight of Becky and James. They were facing one another in the corner of the deep end, staring deep into each other's eyes. It was difficult to tell, but it looked like they were holding hands under the water. My jaw dropped as James leaned forward to kiss her. Clearly it wasn't the first time.

Stijn was standing next to me in the pool.

"Did you know?" I asked, indicating the newly revealed couple with a jerk of my head.

He nodded. "I was going to tell you, but..." his voice petered out.

Danny! I swung round, wondering if he'd witnessed the same thing, but he was horsing around with Lauren in the shallow end and was either doing a brilliant job trying to ignore it, or was still oblivious.

There was a splash behind me and I turned to see Ritchie surfacing.

"Hey Amy," he said, "why don't you get on my shoulders?"

'Why don't you fuck off instead, Ritchie!' I thought. 'That was my game.'

I lost interest as Amy climbed aboard and waded back to the shallow end to join Lauren, Danny and a couple of others, who were throwing a polo ball between them.

"Lost your partner?" Lauren asked, arching an eyebrow.

"She upgraded to a taller horse," I replied, jabbing my thumb towards Amy, who was now balanced on Ritchie's shoulders.

"Sometimes two extra inches makes all the difference," she quipped.

I shrugged.

-

Although it can get fairly hot in southern England in mid-April, the sun is never very high in the sky and the air turns rapidly chilly as evening approaches. And so, after an hour of messing around in the pool, we started to troop back into the house to get changed, with a few pausing to polish off the food remaining from the barbecue.

Getting changed at James' house was something of a ritual for our female friends, if not for the boys. They were assigned the Masters' large guest bedroom at the far end of the house above the kitchen and, we assumed, took full advantage of the precious time away from us to exchange notes and gossip on the first half of the party. They'd spend well over an hour on hair, makeup, you-name-it, before they'd rejoin us.

For the boys, changing normally meant throwing on jeans (or chinos if we were trying) and then a shirt. For the extra keen, there was the opportunity to add aftershave, deodorant or hair gel. Since there were invariably more of us than the girls, we were given James' brothers two bedrooms, which looked out over the pool. Later in the evening, it wasn't uncommon to find an amorous couple seeking refuge in one or other, and there'd been several occasions over the past few years, when I'd had to retrieve the holdall with my clothes whilst trying not to disturb a pair of lovers.

I slipped on a clean pair of socks and looked over to Danny, who was leaning on the windowsill clad only in his boxer shorts. He was staring intently at something in the back garden. I walked over and stood beside him, trying to work out what or who he was watching.

Beyond the pool, half-hidden by the bushes, Becky and James were standing together, kissing passionately, locked in a tight embrace. They'd attempted to be as discreet as possible, and they'd chosen one of the places that couldn't easily be seen from the ground floor of the house or most of the patio.

I put my hand on Danny's shoulder. "You alright?" I asked cautiously.

"Yeah," said, "more surprised than anything."

"She's not worth it. Plenty more fish in the sea!" I said glibly, "There's a special lady out there waiting for you and I'm sure you'll find her really soon."

"Thanks Jake," Danny replied, still looking a little crestfallen and ignoring my insincere optimism.

"You alright to stay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," he smiled weakly. "It'll just take a bit of time to get used to."

"Come on," I said, "put some clothes on and I'll whip your ass at table tennis downstairs!"

-

"I'm getting hungry," James announced, as he put down his bat. "Can you give me a hand with the food, Jake?"

I nodded and the two of us made our way to the kitchen. We'd developed a system over the years for cooking the pizzas, honed during the years when we'd catered for James' older brothers' parties. It was a scheme that we'd been excessively proud of as thirteen- or fourteen-year-olds and was based on an old lateral thinking puzzle. The oven in the Masters' kitchen could only cook three pizzas simultaneously, which meant that waves of pizza would be served with ten minutes (the cooking time) between each one. The wheeze was to remove each batch after five minutes (filling every available space on the working surface with half-cooked pizzas) and then to return them to the oven to finish them, thus halving the interval between servings.

James set to work on removing the pizzas from the packages as I assembled the various dips, crisps and other nibbles. I was about to interrogate him about his newly revealed relationship with Becky when Amy appeared in the doorway.

"Can I do anything to help?" she asked.

"Er, you can help cut some carrots into battens," I said, a little awkwardly, indicating the open bag. "There's another chopping board down there." I pointed to the cupboard. I snuck a quick glance at her butt as she bent down, fighting the urge to reach out and give her a cheeky squeeze.

Amy and I set to work cutting up the uncooked vegetables for the dips as James coordinated the cooking. Together, the three of us worked efficiently to accomplish a task that really only needed two people maximum, leaving us waiting on the oven.

"You decided on your uni offers?" James asked Amy.

Amy looked a little shy. "I'm going to pick London as my first choice, but I'm still torn between Bristol and Exeter for my backup," she replied.

"Exeter's my second choice," James said, "but I wanna go to Bath, for the rugby mostly," he added. "Bristol's your second option isn't it Jake?"

I nodded, "Yeah, I was thinking about Nottingham. Trouble is there's not much choice if you wanna be a vet."

What grades do you need?" James asked Amy.

"It would be an A* and two As for London or just three As for the other two," she replied.

I flipped the penultimate batch of pizzas out of the oven, replacing them with one final half-cooked pizza. James deftly cut slices, then picked up the plates.

"I'll take these in, then I'll go round with drinks," he said. "I'm sure the two of you can manage the last one." He winked at me then turned and disappeared down the hallway.

"You don't have to hang around if you don't want to," I said to Amy. "I can finish up here on my own."

"That's OK," she said, "I'll give you a hand."

A silence hung in the air, which became a little awkward.

"What are you doing this holiday?" I asked. "Just revising or..?"

"Yeah," she replied, "pretty much. You?"

"Yeah, same," I said.

Another awkward pause. Why was I so tongue-tied?

Amy looked through the glass oven door. "It's just about done," she said, straightening up to turn off the power.

She bent down again to take the final pizza out of the oven, my eyes falling once again to her pert backside. My arm stretched out, commanded by a primal urge, driven by a hitherto unknown part of my subconscious, and touched her - the lightest, briefest stroke of her right buttock. I took a step back, startled by my own action, but Amy turned her head and looked back at me over her left shoulder. She smiled, before blushing and breaking eye-contact. My heart skipped a beat and I swallowed nervously.

Amy turned back to the oven and retrieved the final pizza, dropping it onto the plate that I held out. I turned away, not really sure what to do, half of me wanting to apologise for what I'd just done, while the other half willing me to make contact again. But instead I placed the plate down on the working surface and deftly cut the pizza into slices with the wheel.

"You take that in and I'll bring the jelly," I said to Amy as I handed her the plate, too embarrassed to make eye contact.

She nodded and turned to go.

"Hey," I said, "save me a spot on the sofa."

Amy smiled and disappeared down the hallway. I turned and retrieved the vodka jelly from the fridge, then, carrying a stack of cheap paper bowls in the other hand, I conveyed our creation to the sitting room.

Amy was just sitting down as I entered. At the opposite end of the same sofa James and Becky were entwined, like kissing was going out of fashion.

'Oh well,' I thought, 'at least Danny has a chance to regain some kudos with the vodka jelly.'

Actually, where was Danny? I hadn't seen him for well over an hour. It was definitely not like him to miss an opportunity to make a song-and-dance about his fucking jelly. My eyes scanned the room, trying to pick him out of the mass of moving bodies in the middle. No, not in here. Had he left and gone home? Was he more upset that I'd thought about Becky and James?

I checked my phone. No messages - nothing - not even a sarcastic taunt. It seemed a bit unlike him to just disappear. I knew he wasn't upstairs. Amy was looking at me hopefully, but I raised my hand to indicate I'd be back in a minute. Was he outside?

I slipped out of the back door. The pool area was deserted, but I spotted a couple of empty glasses on one of the tables and headed over to pick them up. It was chilly now and the earlier heat of the day was long gone. I stared philosophically into the still water of the pool.

'Be honest Jake,' I told myself. 'The only reason you're pretending to look for Danny is 'cos you're too chicken to go and talk to Amy.'

I took a couple of deep breaths and was about to turn to go back, when in my peripheral vision I saw a shadow moving at the bottom of the garden. I stared into the gloom, trying to pick out the form. Yes, there was definitely someone there.

I skirted cautiously round the pool, then quietly descended the steps at the side of the patio, following the hedge line downhill. At the bottom of the garden there was a line of tall conifers, behind which was a rough, scrubby area with a couple of sheds, a compost heap and open ground that was occasionally used for bonfires. We'd spent a lot of time down there building dens when we were younger. I pushed through the trees.

"Danny!" I exclaimed. "What the fuck?"

Danny was hunched on an old bench, his head in his hands. There was an empty bottle of vodka beside him. I squatted beside him and put my arm round his shoulder. He reeked of alcohol and vomit.

"Danny mate, you OK?" I asked.

He looked up at me. He'd obviously fallen over at some stage and there was a gash above his left eye, which was still bleeding.

"It's not fair," he moaned, "I love her."

'Oh dear,' I thought. This was no way to deal with 'losing' Becky to James.

"Listen mate," I said. "I'm going to go and get you some water, and then let's get you back home, OK?"

Danny moaned again and I offered a few words of reassurance, confirming that the world hadn't ended, that I was sure that Becky wasn't good enough for him and that there were, indeed, plenty more fish in the sea.

I got up, walked briskly back to the house and located Lauren in the dimly lit sitting room.

"I'm going to take Danny home," I said quietly into her ear. "He's a little the worse for wear."

Lauren turned, looking concerned. "Is he OK?" she asked. "Do you need any help?"

"I think the last thing he wants is to see anyone else," I replied, thinking of Danny's dignity. "I'll be about an hour. I'll see you later if you're still here."

Lauren nodded. As I rose, I glanced across to the sofa opposite. Amy was sitting there, on her own staring at the two of us, a scowl of displeasure written across her face. I smiled to her, but as I held my hand up in a friendly greeting, Ritchie crossed in front of me, sitting down in the space that she'd been keeping free. Amy turned and smiled broadly at him, engaging him in animated conversation.

I turned and walked quickly back to the kitchen, where I filled a plastic beaker with water and picked up a couple of paper towels.

"Drink this," I instructed Danny, once I'd reached him again, dabbing at the wound on his forehead with a moistened towel to clean it.

He flinched and pulled away from me.

"Hold still you idiot," I hissed.

Danny muttered something about people who disrespected him, finishing the sentence with a string of expletives.

"OK," I sighed. "Let's get you home."

I pulled him up off the bench and slung his arm over my shoulder to support him. We slowly made our way up the garden and around the pool. I manoeuvred him along the side passage into the front garden.

I'd done the walk between James' and Danny's houses at least a hundred times over the years, and must have cycled it as least as often. I knew the route like the back of my hand. Under normal circumstances, it would take about twenty minutes, but with a drunk teenager to support it was a different matter. I'd briefly considered the idea of driving him back in my car, but decided that I didn't want his vomit all over the seats and I hoped that the walk might sober him up a little before we had to deal with his mother.

So it was almost an hour later, having stopped a couple of times for Danny to throw up into a bush and to sit down for 'a rest', that we finally made it to his house. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw his parents' car was missing from the driveway. I rang the doorbell and Emma, his fourteen-year-old sister answered.

She took one look at Danny and burst out laughing. "Mum's going to be so mad at you, when I tell her," she taunted.

"Emma," I said sternly. "One day you're going to come back home in a state like this, and then you're going need Danny to be on your side. So if I were you, I'd keep your mouth shut and give me a hand with him!"

Despite Danny protesting that he didn't need any help, that he wasn't drunk and that he could manage fine on his own, he still managed to trip over the step up to the front door. His sister and I manhandled him inside and up to his bedroom, where I managed to help him out of his vomit-covered clothes. I sat him up in bed and Emma brought him a glass of water, most of which he promptly spilt down himself.

"Can you put these in the washing machine?" I asked her, presenting her with his jeans and t-shirt.

"What about your shirt?" she asked, pointing to a smear of vomit that had rubbed onto me.

I pulled the shirt off and gave it to her, then grabbed a spare t-shirt from Danny's wardrobe.

"Just check on him every half hour or so and try to get him to drink some more water," I advised as Emma and I went downstairs. "Hopefully he'll just sleep it off and all he'll have to deal with tomorrow is a headache. That cut on his forehead isn't as deep as I thought."

I said goodbye to his sister and headed out into the dark, mid-April evening. It was getting chillier and I immediately regretted not having borrowed a sweater too. I checked my phone; it was a little before nine. The party would still be in full swing when I got back to James', although I didn't really fancy staying.