Page 40 of The Good Boys Club

“Happy birthday, Bangers,” I whispered, walking into his room the next morning. I let Ci take the bigger bedroom at the front of the house for a number of reasons. One, I was a nice guy. Two, he spent more time at home doing coursework or whatever than I did. Three, he had more stuff than me. He had a proper desk and a chair and loads of books and artwork. I had the bed the house came with and a few bags-for-life stuffed with my clothes. That was all I needed. And four, I thought if I had the smaller room, it would be easier to keep tidy.

This had proved a shambolic lie, and it was still only the first week. We’d been in the house exactly seven days so far.

I eased the shutters open on Ci’s blind. “Wakey, wakey, birthday boy. Time to put your birthday crown on and open your birthday pressies.”

He was wearing only his pants, laying on his back, the sheets twisted around his pale legs. One partially tattooed arm stretched over his head, and his other even-more-partially tattooed arm lay over his stomach. His chest was free of ink, but I wondered how long it’d be before that got shaded in as well.

He groaned, flopped onto his stomach. “What time is it?” The words were muffled by his pillow.

“I dunno, like, ten.” I sat on his mattress. Shunted him to the left, making room for myself. “I got you presents.”

“You bought me presents?” He rolled back towards me and pushed himself into a seated position. At the same time, he bundled the sheets into his lap. He stretched as he did it, affecting casualness, but really he was hiding his morning wood and knot.

Cian had a single knot which, by the shape the silhouette made in his boxers, sat all the way round the base of his cock. It was different to my double knot, which grew either side at the bottom of my shaft—like a dog’s cheeks stretched over two tennis balls.

It was different, and that was why I was curious. No other reason.

I handed him the gifts. I’d used the same paper my presents had been wrapped in. Reduce, reuse, recycle, yada yada.

“I didn’t get you anything,” he said, peeling back the paw-print wrap on the first gift. He tore it away. “Oh.”

“Good oh, or bad oh?”

It was a book. A cookbook, actually.Borderlands Fusion: Recipes from Across the Eight and a Half Kingdoms.It was glossy and heavy and expensive. I’d chosen that one specifically because the chef slash author in the picture on the plastic flap looked just like Cian. Dark hair, pale white skin, glasses, hipster beanie, stupid little moustache—which Ci didn’t have, but no doubt he’d be getting ideas.

He flipped through the pages, sniffing them like a weirdo, and landed on the title page near the front. I had scribbled in the book.

Happy Birthday Bangers, love from Mash and Mash’s tummy.

“Good oh,” he said. “It’s actually . . . really thoughtful, thank you.”

“Here’s your other gift.” I handed him the last parcel, and he unwrapped it.

“Oh,” he said again, and I knew this time it was a bad one. I started laughing.

It was a chef’s apron. Black, with an embroidered design on the front—a white ‘I’, a red heart, and a cockerel.

“I love cock!” I clarified. “Get it? Because you’re gay.”

“Thank you. I’m certain I would not have been able to decipher that one on my own,” he deadpanned.

“I’m gonna go make you breakfast.” I jumped off his bed, left his room, and shut the door behind myself in case he wanted to rid himself of his morning wood and knot sitch.

Breakfast was croissants from the bakery by the U-Rail station and orange juice and nice coffee. I didn’t cook. I wasn’t good at it. Not like Ci.

He came downstairs forty-five minutes later after what was probably the most languid wank of the century.

“I got you a gift,” he said. He bit his bottom lip, bounced on the balls of his feet, and then slapped a piece of paper onto the kitchen table next to me.

On it, he had drawn a clawed paw print, with roses curving in a horseshoe shape around the bottom. In the centre of the paw print were the letters GBC.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That’s the design for our tattoo.”

“What’s GBC?”

He laughed. “Well, since you don’t want to be in my bad-boys club. I thought we’d start a new one of our own. GBC. It stands for Good Boys Club.”

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