Page 124 of Pansies

“I’m new at this, remember.”

“Just, haven’t you ever noticed?”

Now he thought about it, while Greg and Fen didn’t have much in common in some regards, in others they were quite similar. Especially when it came to showcasing…their assets. Alfie was actually pretty pleased to learn that, at the age of thirty, he had finally discovered his type. And that it was men with great arses. Which was when something else occurred to him. “What about me?”

“No, you’re fine. You’re pretty good, actually.”

“Really? Cos skinny jeans really aren’t my thing.”

“Alfie, you look like a Levi advert.”

“Not the one from the eighties?”

“No, the recent one. Where his jeans fit really well and he’s implausibly sleeping with a woman. Now stop fishing for compliments.”

The drive was a little bit hairy—the van was lurchy and growly, and Fen grew very quiet, picking at the dry skin around his fingernails. But still, Alfie got them to the garage in one piece. Except for a new coat of paint and some fresh signage, Brown’s Auto Repair was pretty much exactly like he remembered fromwhen he used to hang out there after school with Kev and Pete. The same squat building, its wide, rolled-open doors giving it a sort of surprised look. He parked on the forecourt and jumped down, assailed by the familiar smells of oil and metal. Made his way inside with a confidence he was far from actually feeling.

He was barely over the threshold when a cry rang out: “Shit me stupid. Alfie. Alfie Bell.” And the next thing he knew he was being hugged and backslapped. Responding was instinctive. As was reciprocal backslapping. Though, for the first time in his life, it felt ridiculous. Why couldn’t men just…hug each other? Without this pantomime of masculinity.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s me. And I’m gay.”

“You wha?”

“I’m gay.”

Pete did a balletic leap away from Alfie’s contaminating body.

“And I’m kind of with him.”

Alfie gestured. Fen was standing in the doorway, highlighted like a Click Me button by a shaft of dusty sunlight. And he looked…completely fucking delicious, all lean legs and sinewy arms, those long-lashed, pretty-as-a-girl eyes of his, accentuated rather than obscured by his glasses. Alfie wanted to throw him to the floor and bitemineinto every gorgeous inch of him.

Fen lifted his hand and waggled his fingers in the campest imaginable way.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Pete had gone a grey-greenish colour as he stared between them. He took another step back, tripped over a jack stand, and landed arse-first on the concrete.

It was hard to know whether to laugh or cry. So Alfie just blinked. “Calm doon, man.”

After a second or two of scrabbling, Pete managed to findhis feet again. He wheeled round, pelted all the way to the back of the garage, and vanished into the office, slamming the door behind him.

“Wow.” Fen looked as bewildered as Alfie. “I’ve never seen anyone succumb to homo panic quite so literally.”

“What do we do now?”

“I have no idea.” Fen slipped his hand into Alfie’s. “Shall we go back?”

“Not sure the van’s up to it, to be honest.”

At that moment, the office door opened. A new figure emerged and started coming towards them. It—or rather she—turned out to be a tiny woman, in a boilersuit and a…whatsit…a hijab?

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Leyla Brown. Can I help?”

“Um, yeah, is there another mechanic around?7 Got a busted van out front.”

There was a really long silence. It was weirdly uncomfortable.

“I mean, if there’s not, it’s cool. We can wait or go somewhere—”

“Alfie, sweetheart. Shut up.” That was Fen. “What my socially challenged partner means is: there’s something wrong with the van. Can you help?”

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