The Book of Firsts

Sixty-Two

The following week involved displays of studied innocence, while the camera Bran set up gathered footage. When he uploaded it for review the next weekend, we discovered that my neglected nook was a popular make-out site. Four separate couples steamed up the lens, including a pair of teachers. There were also visits from three solo wanderers, one of whom was eating lunch there in much the same way I did, just a little later in the lunch hour. On the following weekend we discussed options over the Cheshire app, which Bran had upgraded again with more chat functions.

Kyou: I am going to feel thoroughly self-conscious next challenge, knowing that Josh Macintyre is on the other side of that wall inhaling yoghurt.

A Certain Cat: I don’t know where I found the luck to go for the better part of a year without seeing anyone in there.

Bran: Did you make that seat?

A Certain Cat: Yes—an exercise in creating something without using fasteners. If anyone tries to pick it up, it’ll fall apart, but it was fun to do.

Kyou: Is that a seat? I thought it was the beginnings of a bonfire.

Rin: Anyone recognise the person who came in on Friday?

I moved the video nearly to its end, and surveyed the shoulder of a blazer. Bran had positioned the camera to capture people who came all the way into the nook, but this person had stopped at the corner, and stayed leaning there.

A Certain Cat: Same position as the person the Friday before.

Kyou: Not eating lunch.

Bran: Occasionally checks phone. Waiting for someone, perhaps?

Rin: Possibly. But no guarantee that someone isn’t Cheshire. We’ll use the other entrance exclusively for now.

Tuesday brought a humid morning, looming clouds, and epic rolls of thunder accompanied by a few heavy droplets as we started into lunch. I pulled my umbrella from its backpack pocket and made my way around to the dovecote, paying more attention than usual to whether anyone seemed interested in my meanderings. There was no-one in sight both when I settled in to register my presence on the app, and when I emerged a minute later to follow the stone wall around to the entrance of the garden. Bran was waiting, twisting the bars free as I approached.

More fat droplets chased me through the fence, but Bran and I beat the downpour, safely shutting the summer house doors moments before deluge.

"If we’re lucky, it’ll die off by the time we need to head back to class," Bran said, brushing a few droplets from his face. "Coffee?"

"Sure."

I kicked off my shoes and curled into a corner of the couch, watching him with open enjoyment.

"I am less than comfortable with this challenge," he said bluntly, as he brought two mugs over. "Rough is not a concept I find attractive."

"Well, interpretation’s up to you," I said. "You can try to trounce me at Tyranny, if you prefer. Pity to waste the dress, though."

He looked at me over the rim of his mug, then said: "Strip Tyranny."

I laughed. "Sure. Do you wear the dress if I win?"

"If that’s what you’re into."

"I wonder if it’d fit? You have much better chest development than I do."

"Your only flaw," he said, managing to make mild mockery sound affectionate.

"What do you consider your biggest flaw?" I asked.

This won a shrug, as he sat on the opposite end of the couch. "What do you think?"

Not the easiest question to answer, since Bran seemed to have quite a few. I drank some more coffee, then said: "Being in two minds?"

His face went still, then he looked wry. "Rin was complaining about your ability to see through us."

That made me smile. "If he didn’t want me to guess what his fantasy costume would be, he shouldn’t have made it so obvious. You and Kyou, however, haven’t given much away, beyond Kyou thinking you’d prefer one of the two dresses I showed him."

"I can’t decide whether I’d prefer to see you dressed up or dressed down."

"Hiking outfit?"

He shook his head. "I’ll figure something out. The aim now is absence of clothing."

Bran picked up his phone meaningfully, and I obediently launched Tyranny. The position he’d chosen on the couch had already signalled that he was going to take the battle seriously, and so we duelled without the distraction of snuggling together. On tactics, I was perhaps more creative, but his hand speed exceeded mine, so I couldn’t dominate the matches, though I took every third game from him. That still left me with nothing left by the time he was shirtless.

"Let’s see this dress," he said, putting down his phone.

"Of the three, this is probably the one I would have bought to wear," I said, pulling folded cloth out of my backpack.

"Are you sure that’s a dress?" Bran asked, as I worked on the dense row of buttons that went all the way to a choker-style halter neck. "Looks more like a shirt."

"Technically a tunic, I think," I said, glancing down at the vivid blue material that brushed the top of my thighs. "I’d pair it with a pair of black skinny jeans, or maybe some tights." I turned, and the tunic flared from the waist down, while staying nicely tailored to my body further up. Lifting my arms, I admired the same effect in the long sleeves that left my shoulders bare, and had an excess of material to cover my hands, flaring below the elbow. There was a subtle pattern woven into the cloth that was only visible when it caught the light. "There’s a lot of engineering in this shirt. I’m amazed I got it so cheaply."

"If you like it so much, why offer it up as something to be torn off you?"

"I’d never iron it," I said. "It’s bad enough ironing the school uniform."

"Pay someone," he said, impatient.

"Even if my parents gave me that big a budget, I’m not sure I could bring myself to pay people to do my ironing. I spent too many years doing odd jobs in order to scrape together the cost of the latest game, or model building supplies, or fancy cakes."

"Start thinking of your time as a commodity," he said. "There’s no point leaving money to sit around when you can use it to give yourself more freedom."

"Believe me, I value my time, but while my parents give me enough to cover rent, utilities, food, and even disposable clothing, outsourcing labour is expensive. I’d have to spend more time tutoring to afford ironing. Besides, I’m getting the impression that this tunic isn’t in danger of manhandling."

"Come here and you’ll find out."

Bran really did like buttons. He undid every one of them extremely slowly, with an intense focus that was enough to heat me up even without the occasional brushes of fingertips against bare flesh. When there was nothing left to undo, he slid the cloth free and placed it carefully on the coffee table.

"Wear it with short shorts," he recommended, sliding his hands up my back. "Last day of classes is mufti—we don’t need to wear uniforms. I’d enjoy seeing you in that. Especially if you wear your hair up."

"Hm. Well, I’ll check the rules to see if short shorts are allowed," I said, shifting closer. "Shall I parade about somewhere you can see me? Other than the garden, I don’t seem to intersect with you three at all."

"More than you’d think," he said, pulling me onto his lap. "We’re forcing ourselves to go off on a tangent whenever we see you, much as it pains us. There’ll be a grade assembly on mufti day, so try to sit on the rightmost side as near to the front as you can get."

"I’d say I’ll sit behind your fan club, but that would put me toward the rear of the auditorium."

"Shut up," he said, and kissed me.

Kissing Bran will never get old, though I still couldn’t work out what added the extra level of tingle. Perhaps his sheer magnetism leaked through his saliva. Already heated, I allowed myself to be drawn in completely. Bran really was too too engrossing.

My alarm interrupted the encore performance, but we ignored it, and then had to rush to clean up and sort scattered pieces of school uniform.

"I definitely need to try for more Fridays," he said, as I fastened my skirt. "Tuesday isn’t long enough."

"We just took a long time to start today," I said, tucking the blue tunic away and then putting on my shirt.

"Friday allows for play before play." He finished his buttons, slung his tie loosely around his neck, and then paused to watch me. "Does your father have any plans to write another Blake Sevenmore story?" he asked as I put on my blazer. "The last came out over three years ago."

"Probably. He likes writing horror, much to the dismay of his agent, who wants him to focus on better-selling pen names. But there’s always long gaps between the Sevenmore ones, because he only does them when he thinks up a really twisty situation. Maybe that’s why those books never really take off—too spaced out to build momentum. Did he give you nightmares?"

"He gave Kyou nightmares. Do you have a favourite book of your father’s?"

"Hard to say. I think maybe his travel guide for Malaysia. His travel guides are basically my Dad telling funny stories in a super dry tone, plus social commentary. The early ones are really strange for me, because I was too young to remember most of it, but occasionally get strong flashes for the places and the food and some of the things he’s turned into anecdotes."

"What’s the travel writer pen name?"

"Eirich Mailer."

"One I’ve actually heard of," he said, as we headed for the fence. "Haven’t read them, but I’ve seen them in bookstores."

"Mailer was the first name that he got front of store treatment for, with a brief feature of the book on California. It was a huge event for us, because it brought a bunch of reprint and translation deals for his other travel books just when we were starting to try to dig my grandmother out of the money pit she’d fallen into. His subsequent books on that name haven’t quite matched the success of the California one, but it’s a respectable income stream. Have you ever wanted to write books instead of games?"

"I’ve thought of it as a way to improve my writing. Maybe I’ll novelise the plot of Echoes as a way of trying to refine it. If I have time, I’ll take some literature classes over the next few years to give myself a better structural appreciation."

He pulled the last bar free as he said this, and I waved a hand and hastily ducked through the fence, then tried to jog inconspicuously along the outer path in hopes of reaching class before the bell. Barely making it in time, I sat trying to slow my breathing, and thinking ahead to other deadlines. The most important exams in my life were now six weeks away, and I wanted them to be done already, but then all this would be over.

I wished I shared Bran’s confidence that we’d be friends after. Even ignoring all the sex, I was going to miss the conversations I had with these three boys.