Page 94 of For Real

“Which should have been mine.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Laurie grabs his arm and hauls him upright. Jasper sways in this willowy way for a moment, and then he’s rock steady. “Buck up, you dick. And, anyway, you invited him.”

Jasper nods sadly. “I wanted to…to…congratulate him.”

Laurie and I sort of exchange Looks. Mine says, I love you. I can’t read his, but I decide it says, I’m so glad you’re basically normal, apart from wanting to put things up my arse.

“I congratulated him very intensely. Several times.” Jasper sighs, and for a moment he genuinely looks confused and kind of hurt as well. “And then I couldn’t stand the sight of him. He was just so…so…beautiful. He gleamed. How dare he fucking gleam?”

I glance round at the carnage. “So then you had a massive fight?”

He blinks. “Fight?”

For a moment I’m confused by his confusion. And then I get it and…Jesus.

Wow. That’s Olympic-standard fucking.

Laurie’s got hold of what looks like an opera cloak and is pulling Jasper’s arms through it and muttering under his breath. Finally, he steps back. “That’ll have to do.”

I can’t help staring. Everything’s changed now Jasper’s got his clothes on. He looks like he was born to stand around in a suit, a white bow tie, and a cape, austere and monochrome and all untouchable, like the grass.

As soon as we leave his rooms, Jasper’s a completely different person, leading us briskly down the stairs and across the quad, his shoes resounding on the flagstones and his cape thing flapping behind him. I’ve barely known him half an hour and I’ve got so much emotional whiplash it’s a wonder my head hasn’t fallen off.

But then Laurie takes my hand. Voluntarily. And it turns out that’s all I need to be stupidly happy.

We end up in the SCR, which stands for Senior Common Room, and believe me there’s nothing common about it. It’s sort of half library, half how you imagine a super-exclusive gentlemen’s club might look (like, not the strip-joint sort): books, oak panelling, antique furniture, red leather armchairs by the actual, real fire fire. It’s not just another world; it’s another fucking century. It’s full of people—mainly men but there’s some women too—about half of them dressed like Jasper in the robes or whatever. And there’s this table where there’s glasses of champagne laid out for people to just have, like at a wedding.

I make a beeline for it, tugging Laurie along behind me.

He’s frowning—in his worried way, not his angry way. So cute. “Toby, there’s going to be a lot of drinking tonight. Try and pace yourself.”

“But champagne. Free champagne.”

Jasper makes this sound that I think is a laugh he’s trying to pretend is a cough. “Tobermory has the makings of an academic.”

Yeah, except for the whole going to-university part. “Not my thing.”

“Agreed.” Laurie hesitates for a moment, then takes a glass for himself and chinks it lightly against mine, making them both sing.

I smile at him like a goofball because I love him so much, just for touching our two glasses of champagne together like that. Our. Us.

“It’s much better to know an academic,” he’s saying, “and then you get to experience all the advantages of academia—like free champagne—with none of the disadvantages. Like being an academic.”

“Excuse me, I think you’ve got”—Jasper leans forward and brushes a finger against the corner of Laurie’s mouth—“a touch of smug on you there.”

Laurie just shrugs. But he’s a little bit pink, and his lips are twitchy like he wants to smile.

“Urgh.” Jasper shudders in this gay, theatrical kind of way. “What have you done to him, Tobermory? I recognise that soupy-eyed look. You’ve only gone and made him happy, haven’t you?”

Wow. For a moment I just stare at Jasper, overwhelmed by the gift he’s given me so carelessly. I’d barely have believed it before today, but he’s right. I do make Laurie happy. He’s given me that power too. And, what’s more, other people can see it. See that we’re right together. I’m so ridiculously thrilled that I have to downplay it. “Yeah. Is that a crime?”

“Not at all. I’m just”—he sighs, and I can’t tell if he’s playacting or not—“terribly, terribly jealous.”

Before I can answer, we get sucked into the whole posh-people-party thing, and I lose track of all the names and faces, and which names belong to which faces, in about three seconds flat. But it’s okay because Laurie knows some of these people, and Jasper knows nearly everyone, so I just stand there chuffing champagne and smiling like an idiot. I briefly meet the president. Not like of the United States, of the college. He calls Laurie “Laurence,” which makes him sound like an alien I’ve never met, and afterwards he looks all flustered.

Eventually, though, we settle into a corner by one of those big, big windows, and I stare down into the cloisters, feeling like a king. Jasper’s on his third glass of champagne. I’m still on one because I genuinely don’t want to embarrass myself or Laurie.

It’s good shit though, whatever they’re serving. Sweet and dry and sort of buttery soft and filled with so many tiny bubbles I’m armoured in them. They fizz around my tongue stud, and I desperately want to kiss Laurie like this, with our mouths all full of light.

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