You, Me and Us.

  You, Me and Us.

  Liam Hurley

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  © Liam Hurley 2017

  www.liamhurley.co.uk

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 9781973151104

  To You,

  From Me,

  About Us.

  You, Me and Us.

  Part I - You

  Prologue – City Coffee

  Fuck you for breaking my fucking heart. Just fuck you so very much. Even after all that time, and dragging myself out of the absolute pits of despair I still want to say fuck you.

  And maybe that’s what I’d say once I got to the coffee place. Or maybe not. Why on earth was I doing this? I’d spent the last eight months avoiding you at all costs and then I actively walked towards a place I knew you were. Not only did I know where you were, but I was the one who told you to go there, so I would be there too. So, we could meet. Fucking meet! Meet?! Why would I want to meet you? Seriously what deranged thought was I having when I asked to do that. What’s my reason? To show off my amazing new physique? Yes, it is amazing thank you. And yes, I am showing it off slightly. But come on I’m going out my mind. I needed to smoke. I haven’t smoked in nearly six months but good God did I need one then. I should’ve just left you waiting there. I should’ve turned around and headed straight back home. I should’ve left you on your own. You deserved that. Actually, you didn’t. You didn’t deserve the privilege of being stood up by me.

  My brain was going a million miles an hour but my feet were dragging underneath me almost as if they were trying to stop my body from ever getting to the coffee shop. At least my body seemed to have some sense. It must’ve been thinking “you’re telling us after six months of vegetables and training you’re now going back towards this black hole? Come on!” My body had the right idea. I should’ve listened to it so much more. My eyes were darting all over the packed street.

  Deansgate on a Saturday, what a terrible idea. The busiest, biggest road in Manchester is a horrendous place on Saturdays. Each side of the road is built up by huge buildings which cause the majority of the pavement to be in shadow which to be fair, was excellent for a day like today because it was roasting hot. Thankfully the weather also meant my eyes were hidden from sight, so, thanks to my £1.50 Primark sunglasses, nobody could see them flitting across every single person on this street. Finally, I spotted one. It was dangling from the mouth of a bloke in a suit who was stood up against a barber’s door. I dodged the middle-aged mum carrying twins outside Greggs and did a hop, skip and jump until I was in front of him. The smell of it was glorious. I could feel my mouth start to water. I was stood right in front of him. He must’ve been from here because he was pretending I wasn’t stood directly in front of him staring at his cigarette. I swallowed the extra saliva down and let my lips form a request.

  “‘Scuse me mate, you haven’t got a spare cig I could buy, do you?” I asked.

  Ridiculous. How could he have it to spare if I was buying it? He looked me up and down as he probably tried to decide if I would stab him or not if he said no. He was trying to decide if I was crazy or not.

  “How much?” he barely looked at me.

  Shit did he actually think I was going to pay him?

  “A fiver.”

  “What?” he laughed. “Fiver? For a cig?”

  “Yes.” I was beginning to get annoyed.

  “Why don’t you just go buy a pack?”

  “Well I don’t smoke.” Why was he asking me so many questions? “Not usually anyway. It’s just I’m about to meet my ex-girlfriend for a coffee and last time I felt like this I ended up buying a ‘wonder-vac’ and- look. Sorry. Do you want a fiver or not?”

  If he was still wondering whether I was crazy or not he probably had his answer. I was.

  “Nah you can’t give me a fiver for a cig, here just have one.”

  He pulled the packet out of his jeans and flipped it open, pushing one out with his thumb. I pulled at it, and remembered how one felt between my fingers. Glorious.

  “Err, do you need a light?”

  The laughing smoker had interrupted my chain of thought and I realised I was staring down at the cigarette.

  “Shit. Yeah, sorry mate.”

  He put the packet away and withdrew a lime green lighter. For a split-second I thought he was going to click it on for me and make me light it whilst the lighter was in his hand. Thankfully he passed it to me. This is it, no turning back now I thought. I had a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. My mind suddenly flew back to when we met in the smoking area of that club. Fuck you. Fuck this. I shoved the cig in my mouth, flicked the lighter into life and took a deep drag, lighting it in one fell swoop.

  Fuuuuuuuck-ing hell. I breathed out slowly and looked up towards the perfect blue sky. I passed the lighter back to the joker smoker and mouthed a silent ‘thanks’ as I let the smoke fall out of my mouth. God, I love smoking. Why did I ever give this up? Oh yeah, influenza, heart disease, cancer and a slow painful death.

  I continued my traipse towards the coffee shop and let the cigarette hang in my mouth. I slowly inhaled and exhaled. God I’d missed smoking. I slipped my hand into my jeans, and whipped out my phone. 1:02pm. I was two minutes late, oh, and even better there was a text from you.

  1 NEW MESSAGE- +447765412453

  I’m here. How long will you be? Shall I order? What do you want?

  Yeah how about the last year of my life back? God why was I doing this? I noticed once again that the sun was beating down on me with its judgmental glare. At least it meant I’d been able to leave my coat at home, my snug t-shirt showed off my body. I had every reason to wear it, the degree was nearly the same as my waist size. If I’d have made that comparison a year ago the entire human race would’ve melted into piles of liquidised skin and bone. Cockroaches and Nokia 3310s would be the only survivors of an apocalyptic heat wave. I’d decided not to text you back, I was only two minutes away, you could wait.

  Well that was a liberal two minutes, as I’d been enjoying the final drags of the cig whilst avoiding the typical foot flow of Deansgate circa every Saturday ever. Kids, mums, old people, businessmen and women, street cleaners, buskers, all sorts were filtering past me, left and right which made me jump back and forth every other step. Although traffic and foot flow could piss me off at times, Manchester is the greatest city in the world. It’s a fact that never really leaves me but every now and then, a day comes along to remind me of it. A day like today. I smiled, stubbed my cig out on a bin and looked around the fabulous street. The beautiful buildings, the marching millions and the sunny sky.

  The variety of buildings alone is enough to clue you in on what Manchester is all about. Culture, working classes and spirit all melt together in my city. As the rows flew past my left-hand side I took note of each individual shop, store and stall. There was a guy selling fidget spinners, a bookies, a tattoo shop, two types of bakers in a row, a retro game shop, an art gallery, a coffee shop, a second-hand bookstore. Whoops.

  I’d walked past the coffee shop.

  I turned on my heels and looked back at the coffee place we’d agreed to meet up. I looked up at the sign above the door: City Coffee: Dark, Wet and Sweet. The front of the building was classic British red brick yet the door and windows were made from faded oak. It was trying too hard to be cool, one of those places. I could almost guarantee there’d be a guy in rounded specs, socks pulled right up, with his laptop open on a blank word document writing nothing. Dickhead.
I took a few more steps towards the entrance and felt my heart start to pound against my chest like a terrified rat cornered by a cat in a cage. My feet were frozen to the spot, why couldn’t I move any further forward? The hairs on my neck were stood on end. My heart was racing, I couldn’t move and all my hairs were on end…yep I was terrified. Petrified in fact. I needed to focus. I closed my eyes, come on what does Antonio say I thought to myself? Breathing is all about control. Your breath can control everything from your heart to your brain to your balls. And right in that moment, I needed it to control all of that and more. My eyes were still shut, I took a deep breath in for ten seconds. Held for ten. And slowly exhaled for ten. The residue from my cigarette burnt my throat. I decided to breath once more to try and clear the debris from my wind pipe. My eyes were still shut as I took my second intake of breath. I was preparing to move in thirty seconds. I breathed in. 1… 2… 3… 4… 5-

  “Erm- Jimmy?”

  I coughed and spluttered at the sound of my own name. I was hunched over trying to regain my composure. I managed to gulp some air back in my lungs as I straightened up and opened my eyes, confirming the truth of my fear upon hearing that oh so recognisable voice.

  My eyelids were fully open and I was upright.

  You, Erin Poppet, were stood right in front of me.

  Fucking hell.

  Chapter One- The Smoke and The Poke

  One year earlier.

  Sam Cooke’s voice chanted over us all as we attempted to twist the night away. I was certainly doing my best Vince Vega impression with steady arm raises whilst bent at both the knees and elbow, swinging my hips left to right of course. I probably didn’t look the most attractive sight. All nineteen stone of me jiggling away. At the time though I really didn’t care. I was letting the Manchester night life whisk me away.

  Canal Street held a very special place in my heart back then. Once the other clubs in town kicked me and my friends out, we’d descend on the village and get pitched up in one of the late-opening clubs. We loved Canal Street but I’m sure the usual clienteles weren’t as fond of us. The centre of gay culture and nightlife in Manchester, Canal Street (aptly named if you remove the first letter from each word) is very much what it says on the tin. A street alongside a canal. During the day, it can be one of many beautiful spots to sit and take in a coffee whilst observing Manchester from a great vantage point. You can while away the hours from one of the many rooftop bars watching barge boats drift along the canal, couples stroll merrily down the side of the water and men in suits and dark glasses sneak out of the various homo-erotic sex stores which are dotted along the road. When night arrives, however, it becomes to gay people what the coliseum was to Christians. A place to get fucked up.

  Ryan was being the Mia to my Vince as we continued to twist away. We were both laughing and hugging as the song wound to a halt. The sweat was making a rapid escape from my skull towards my neck, drenching my face in the process. I needed more fluids.

  “Drink?” I both asked and signalled to Ryan, who returned my suggestion with a shrug and a nod.

  We began to make our way to the bar and attempted to jump around as much of the crowd as we could. Ryan was accosted by numerous men and women as we tried to plough our way to the front of the queue. Somehow, I lost him. As I arrived at the front of the bar I span around but couldn’t see him. Bollocks. That was the problem with having Ryan on a night out. Even though you claimed that you never fancied him, every other fucker seemed to. Meaning I was constantly stood making small talk with girls as their mates swapped saliva with him. Well, balls to him. If he couldn’t walk to the bar with me, I wasn’t getting him a drink. I waved the barman over and passed him a five-pound note in return for two vodka and cokes. I walked back towards the dance floor, once again there was no sight of Ryan, and I proceeded to start drinking both drinks by myself.

  That was the plan anyway until the ball of energy Tom arrived. He literally bounced into my peripheral vision, his eyes bulging out of his head and his jaw drooping like a cartoon character’s who’d spotted Jessica Rabbit. His bulbous eyes were swinging around the room until they locked on me. Within milliseconds he was flying across the room at me. You remember what Tom was like with girls? Anything and everything right? Well this shows how bad of a state he was in that night. He shoved, yes shoved with his hands, two girls out the way to get to me. After sending them both across the dance floor he came eye-to-eye with me.

  “Where’ve you been all night?” his jaw swung back and forth like Newton’s cradle.

  “I’ve been here with Ryan, where’d you go?”

  “I got stuck in the toilets.” He told me with a wave towards to Unisex toilets, which are a standard in the Gay Village.

  “How the fuck did you manage that?”

  “No idea, I locked it and it wouldn’t come undone. I had to climb over the top of the door to get out.”

  “You climbed out of a cubicle?”

  “Yeah mate, ended up on top of the little bloke selling aftershave.”

  “That’s an adventure, isn’t it?”

  He rolled his eyes and shrugged. This was par for the course for Tom.

  “Why’ve you got two drinks? What are they? Aw give us one mate my mouth is so dry.”

  I sighed, gave up on my plan of having two drinks to myself and passed one of the vodka cokes to him. He gulped it down instantly without a ‘thank you’.

  “You’re welcome.”

  He wasn’t listening; his bug eyes were now locked on something behind me to my left. I turned my extremely large cranium, causing layers of neck fat to spill over my shirt, to see what this something was. Or someone I should say. Ryan was now at the bar; however, he was not alone. Three or four girls surrounded him. All of them very attractive. Even Ryan.

  “Oh, fucking hell mate let’s go over there!” Tom pointed directly at Ryan.

  He had adopted the classic cool guy pose of leaning against the bar with one leg bent so his heel also rested against the bottom of the bar. Fuck, that looked good, if I would’ve tried that I’d look like a capital ‘R’. He looked like a sexy flamingo. I shook the thought from my head and tried to not let it foster there for long considering our location. Tom began to walk towards the bar and the bevy of beauties, he grabbed my arm to take me along. My heels jammed into the floor.

  “No, I’m fine mate, I’m gunna go for a smoke anyway, meet you over there in a bit.” I pulled my arm out of his grasp.

  Tom shrugged and nodded towards the bar indicating he’d be there when I got back, I smiled and turned towards the opposite end of the room and the exit.

  I snuck past a group of men who were entangled with each other on the dance floor. They were dry-humping each other and one of them was being rotated on his back as if he were a human version of spin the bottle. I looked away from them and focused on the furniture as I made my way towards the exit. Why is the furniture in gay cubs always made from white leather? A terrible voice in my brain popped and said it’s probably easier to clean but I shut it down with the thought of getting outside as quickly as my large frame would allow.

  I always struggled speaking to girls with Ryan and Tom. I felt like the loose change of the group. Which is ridiculous really because I’d had success with women. And by success, I mean I’d managed to get rid of my virginity around the time I could legally go into clubs and meet drunk girls. Those two facts were, of course, entirely unrelated. I certainly always punched way above my weight (which was saying something at the time) in terms of looks. If I were to punch at my weight I would’ve had the choice of about two women on the entire planet. The old woman from Drag Me to Hell and Judy Finnigan.

  Ah shit. I looked at the door to the smoking area. It was a really narrow exit. Slim people never think of that, when they go somewhere they can just walk through anything, whereas for us of the larger variety you need to take a calculated risk you won’t get stuck. The exit door was only slightly ajar and there was also a fairly large bouncer s
tood on the other side. I’d have no choice but to have my presence announced to the entire smoking area. I’d have to squeeze past him. I sighed deeply and then took a sharp intake of oxygen hoping to suck my rotund stomach somewhere near my waistline. Hopeless. I edged towards the exit and tried to make eye contact with the bouncer hoping he’d dodge out of my path with minimal fuss. No such luck, he just stood there facing out into the open whilst I was crammed up against the exit door to my left and his giant back to my right.

  “Sorry mate can I get past you?” I said.

  The bouncer jumped upon hearing me so close to him. The sign of a great bouncer.

  “Fucking hell you scared the shit out of me then!” he said in a Mancunian accent.

  He still hadn’t moved though, he just glowered down at me, the moonlight bounced off his shaven Neanderthal-like cranium.

  “Ah-ha.” I laughed very genuinely. “Sorry about that.”