I opened the front door to find Guy grinning at me broadly, his son Simon following right behind. I showed them through to the sitting room, where Jake introduced Simon, who he'd been to school with, to Marcus, his friend from university.
While I was busying myself collecting in coats, gloves and scarves from Guy and his son, I was pretending not to notice the interest which Marcus obviously had in Simon.
"Well, hello there!" he chirped in a way that could have been passed off as jokey, but which sounded, to my ears, almost predatory.
He kept grinning at Simon, almost leering at him, and I wouldn't have been surprised to have heard him saying to Jake, "You didn't tell me that you had such... an attractive friend."
I glanced over at the two of them before I took assorted outerwear to be hung up, and saw Marcus eagerly asking Simon which university he was at, what course he was taking and the like. I fully expected to see the front of Marcus' dark blue trousers tenting upwards, his flagpole flying at full mast for his new firm favourite, but it seemed he was able to keep that aspect of his excitement more tactfully obscured.
When I brought some drinks in, I heard Marcus trying to persuade Simon to stay over with us all.
"Sorry but I'm driving my dad's car back over to mum's," Simon told him. "He's bunking up here tonight."
"Oh, right," Marcus said, and then, turning to Jake, "Simon's dad's staying here tonight?"
His eyes were full of interest: he knew full well what was might be on the cards. I'd already told him that Guy and I were rather more than just friends.
Jake nodded, looking distinctly unimpressed by Marcus' obvious attraction towards his old schoolmate.
Marcus turned back to Simon. "Well, if you fancy having a few drinks with us, I'm sure you could stay over too."
"Sorry, mate, but I've got a job at the Post Office for the Christmas holiday. I'm due in at the sorting office at five. So I'll probably just have a coke or something here and then I'll head back off to mum's."
Marcus turned away from him and looked glumly at his drink.
I smiled to myself at how blatant he was being. Simon was a nice, sweet lad with hair neatly parted hair; the type of young man who wore button-down collars for fear he might end up with one collar tucked into his jumper and the other poking out. There was no way Marcus was going to get his leg over him, no matter how hard he tried. Even if Simon was gay or swung both ways, and I felt he was far too boring to do either, he'd probably want at least a civil partnership before he would be prepared to prize his arse-cheeks apart.
Guy broke the silence by saying, "Yeah... I always stay over when I've had a few. Can't risk getting caught by the fuzz, eh?"
And Marcus' eyes brightened up again at the prospect of having Guy in the house and at being in the next room to two men who were likely to have sex before sleeping.
===
Guy was helping me in the kitchen with some microwaveable pizza slices and oven chips. I say 'helping', but his main contribution was to stand back with his backside against the freezer, chatting while he swigged from his beer-can.
"Does Simon ever ask you about why you sleep here so often?" I asked him, taking the half-baked chips out of the oven and shaking them around a bit on the tray.
"I always tell him, just like I did out there, that it's so I can drink without worrying about how to get home," Guy informed me. "If he asks - which he won't - we'll say I always kip in your spare room."
"Of course," I smiled, sliding the chips back into the oven. "But what if he asks where you're going to sleep tonight, while Marcus is here? I've only one spare room after all..."
It was interesting to note that, in spite of there being two male friends staying over in the house with Jake and me tonight, the bed in the spare room would remain completely unslept-in.
Guy considered the question before answering, "If he does ask - and, again, he won't because that sort of thing wouldn't cross his mind - we'll say that I'm sleeping on the couch. Marcus must be in the spare room, I assume."
"Actually, he's not," I said, closing the oven door. "He's bunking up with Jake in his single bed."
"Really?" he asked with an interested grin. "It's like that is it? I kind of suspected as much from how touchy-feely they are around each other."
"It's very much like that," I replied, returning his smirk before taking a sip from my wine. "The two of them were getting very cosy together the other night after you left us."
Guy laughed and continued to look distinctly interested that my son and his friend were, like him and me, rather more than just friends.
"It's quite funny hearing them say such sweet things to their girlfriends on the phone," I went on, "before they both head to Jake's bedroom to have some very noisy fun together."
"When the girls are away, mate," he said, laughing again, "the boyfriends still need to play!"
"Like us," I said.
"Exactly," he grinned.
"Boyfriends playing around," I mischievously added, succumbing to the temptation to use the word 'boyfriend' deliberately provocatively just to gauge his reaction.
His smile vanished and his posture became more guarded.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked coldly.
I shrugged innocently and maintained my smile. "Just what you said. When the girls are away, the boyfriends are going to play around together."
"Well... yeah... okay," Guy said hesitantly. "I don't mind that. But I'm not your boyfriend in, like, a couply of sort of way."
"Oh!" I laughed, as if suddenly understanding the reason for his unease. "You mean like Marcus said the other night. That joke he made."
"Joke?"
"Yeah, you remember! When he said it was like I was your boyfriend."
"Oh, yeah, that," Guy said dourly. "I don't mind stuff like that being said as a joke, but we're just two blokes with added benefits, Rob. There's nothing more to it than that."
I felt a peculiar twinge of upset at the indifference of his manner. It was almost like an echo of when Linda had told me she was leaving me.