Chapter 1: Dinner Plans
Finlay Popple sat alone in his bedroom in halls, enjoying the break from his roommate, Jack. When he had first started university Jack had seemed like a nice guy, a little bit of a 'rugby lad' for sure, but he had been pretty friendly with Finlay. At school, none of Finlay's friends had been one of the 'cool kids', like Jack was, and Finlay hoped his new roommate would help him 'reinvent' himself as anything other than a nerd.
However, it was week four now and Finlay was starting to feel that the two of them were too different to ever get on; Jack's 'banter' and all of his 'lad' mates were getting too much for Finlay to put up with.
Finlay was browsing Facebook when his phone began to buzz. After a couple of rings, he answered, "Hey Mum."
"Hi sweetie!" came Jennifer's enthusiastic voice, "How are you?"
"I'm OK," he grunted, his tone bemused.
"Just OK?" she questioned, "What's wrong, Finny?"
"Nothing," responded her son in an uncooperative tone.
"Is it your roommate again? Are you sure you can't request to move to another room?"
"I don't think they'll move me just because I find Jack annoying," he replied.
Out of embarrassment, Finlay didn't want to admit to his mum that the thing that annoyed Finlay the most was when Jack brought back women and, most of the time, was completely indiscreet about it. It really pissed him off last week when he brought back Anna, a girl that Finlay fancied. Finlay hadn't ever spoken to Anna or told Jack that he liked her, so it wasn't Jack's fault as such... It was just annoying that his stupid 'banter' could seduce someone who seemed as clever and cool as Anna. The thing that annoyed him the most though (and embarrassed him) was that he silently wanked as the silhouettes of Jack and that night's conquest - ten in the past four weeks - gently gyrated to muffled orgasms.
"Well, have you tried talking to him about the things you don't like..."
Feeling an impotent shame, Finlay interrupted to change the subject, "Mum, what did you call about?"
Sounding taken aback by Finlay's abrupt tone, his mother took a second to respond, "Well, I just wanted to know if I can still come to visit you next weekend."
Finlay's older sister had just emigrated to Australia, after living away from home for the past three years, and his dad's job required him to travel quite frequently, so Finlay anticipated his mum might take it quite badly when he left home too. At first, he had been quite reluctant to have his mum visit him at university, he didn't want to be seen as lame, but, truthfully, it hadn't been as easy to make friends as he had hoped and he had secretly warmed to the idea of a visit from his mum.
His mum told him the details of her train and hotel, followed by some idle chit chat before they ended their conversation, leaving Finlay to resume browsing the Internet. Finlay's conversation with his mum regarding Jack had reminded him of the blonde girl, from two nights ago. He had pleasured himself to the barely visible dark shape of her ass beneath the sheets rising and falling.
Finlay dropped his jeans and pants right down to the floor and began to massage his erection to the memory of Jack's slut-of-the-day. He shuffled his chair forward; it was a regular chair, rather than one on wheels, and started searching for amateur videos of girls riding guys.
Finlay was close to finishing himself off when he heard the characteristic arrogant thuds of his flatmate making his way down the corridor. Finlay's heart skipped a beat when he missed the 'x' button on the porn video and hit the window resize button instead. Knowing he had barely a few seconds, he grabbed his jeans but felt them snag. He cursed to himself when he realised that they were caught under the leg of his chair. He managed to free them and pull them up around his waist as Jack walked in the door. The sudden movement caught Jack's eye and he smirked at Finlay as Finlay slapped down the lid of his laptop.
"Alright, mate," said Jack, still smirking as Finlay rushed to do up his fly.
"Uh yeah, hi, how's things?" mumbled Finlay shamefully.
"Good mate, good," said Jack, barely paying attention to Finlay as he splayed out onto his bed, "Love Thursdays. No lectures until Monday."
It pissed off Finlay that as a mathematics student, he had to attend 25 hours a week, but Jack, who did history, had just 10 hours. Apparently history students were supposed to do more hours of self-learning but all Jack seemed to do was play rugby, get drunk and pick up women. He could even see him doing it now; the obvious flick of his finger and mumble of 'left, left, ooo right' giving away that he was on Tinder.
"Ah mate!" exclaimed Jack, "Another match, that's six fit ones today."
'Fit ones? He treats women like objects and gets rewarded,' thought Finlay, whilst he outwardly congratulated Jack.
****
Finlay was playing Minecraft, when his phone started ringing. As expected, it was his mother; she had arrived in London about an hour ago for her weekend visit and she was due to get to her hotel soon.
"Hey Mum, where do you want me to meet you?"
"Hi Sweetie, I'm actually downstairs, I think," she said, stress evident in her voice, "Door number 60, right? There was a mix up at the hotel."
"Wait, you're here? What's wrong?"
"Can you let me in and I'll explain?" responded his mother, stress turning to exasperation.
Finlay mumbled an apology for not coming down straight away and then rushed downstairs. He opened the front door of the house of student flats to find his mother standing there, with a big handbag, a travel case and a grumpy look on her face. As soon as she saw her son, her frown gave way to a smile and she went to hug him, which he awkwardly returned.
As soon as their hug ended, Finlay heard a familiar voice and it made his stomach plunge, "Alright mate, who's your friend?"
Jack was at the foot of the steps that lead to the halls's front door and was looking up at Finlay and his mother. He ascended the stairs, hand outstretched, and Jennifer reacher her hand out to his.
"Hi, I'm Jennifer, Finlay's mum," she greeted, her earlier displeasure displaced by the enthusiasm she always got when meeting new people.
