Page 13 of One Last Try (Try for Love #1)

Owen

Reasons I shouldn’t have a crush on Mathias Jones:

Reason one, he’s so young. Twenty-nine. Over fifteen years difference. I lost my virginity before he was even born. I’m technically—though not legally—old enough to be his father.

Reason two, he’s out of my league. Like so far out of my league that there are scores of leagues between us. Legions, armies, multitudes of other leagues.

I once heard Orlando describe Mathias as a “ten with immunity,” and whatever that means, it’s certainly not where I am. At a push, I’d self-define as a solid five with a nice beard and a good collection of mates. So a five and a half?

Reasons three to eight, he’s my neighbour.

And tenant. And there has to be some kind of conflict of interest there, right?

Like, I should seriously look into it. If it’s illegal, then that’s my indecision taken care of.

No more waiting around for the right moment if the right moment is forbidden.

But at least I’d have closure, I guess. I could stop thinking about him and that Grindr photo of him in his underpants.

Ha!

I mean, that image is wedged in my thoughts, more solid and immovable than Stonehenge. Gonna need a forklift to the face to make me forget that any time soon.

The real reason Mathias and I couldn’t switch beds for the night is because I remembered I left my fucking wank rag—yesterday’s T-shirt—beside the bed. Okay, yeah, I’m disgusting, but I’m a guy and I live alone—properly alone—for the first time in decades. Why wouldn’t I take advantage of that?

I feel like every time I see Mathias I add new fodder to the bank.

Him waiting at the door for me in only a scrappy old tee and his boxers, and now these fucking sweatpants he’s wearing, which let’s be fair, he might as well be naked for all they cover.

Pretty sure the number of times he’s caught me stealing glances at his very obvious dick outline has reached double figures.

But then again, maybe he hasn’t caught me.

He hasn’t said anything or hidden himself. Maybe he’s oblivious.

Or . . . maybe he put those fucking trousers on because he knows I won’t be able to keep my perverted eyes off him. Could be a test. One I’m failing miserably.

Reason twenty, he’s only here for a maximum of six months. In fact, he’s actively looking for another place to live. He could be gone next week . . . tomorrow even.

Reason twenty-one, and this one’s on me—not a Mathias problem, an Owen Patrick Bosley one—but sort of relates to the previous reason: I’m demi. I only recently learned what that word means from Molly, but when I heard it, pieces fell into place .

Basically, I don’t do hookups. Don’t like them, never have. Sure I can feel attraction to people, sometimes even sexual attraction, but for me sex isn't enjoyable until I really get to know the person. Like really get to know them.

I want all in or nothing.

It’s essentially how I live. I give you everything or nothing at all. You want casual sex with minimal feelings? Tough shit, here’s my entire heart.

Rugby, the pub, fatherhood, my relationship with Kirsty . . . Everything is one hundred and ten per cent, full-throttle, pedal to the metal.

Fuck, I went into that last one so hard we got married at age twenty-two and had a kid at twenty-four.

In short, I don’t half ass anything. You’re getting the full ass, the entire package, the whole of the moon, or nothing at all. And since I have no idea when Mathias will pack up his boxes and leave this little life, I’m keeping my ass close to my chest—cards, I mean, or however the saying goes.

Reason three hundred, he broke my leg. I know, I know it was an accident. He did nothing wrong and I forgive him yada yada, but there are going to be a lot of Bathonians and Cents fans who haven’t forgiven him, and may never.

Besides, I’m almost one hundred per cent certain he hasn’t forgiven himself yet either.

And that’s kind of a big fucking cloud to be hanging over any relationship.

“Are those two going to be okay up there?” Mathias says, as he boots up his laptop. “You know, being teenagers and all. Like sure, he hit on me, but she’s . . . safe with him, right?” Honestly, Mathias makes it impossible not to have a crush on him.

He’s sitting on a hard wooden dining chair and I’m in the much more padded, low-backed leather office chair.

The room is lit only by two lamps. One of them is mine, and the other Mathias must’ve brought with him.

It gives the space a warm orange glow. It feels quiet and cosy with the illumination bouncing off the black glass.

Beyond the window, it’s impossible to discern anything.

There are no street lights at the back of the house, and what little moonlight has filtered through the clouds is blocked out by the willow tree.

The room is south facing, and in the summer it’s the best and coolest place to be.

Molly and Daisy’s room sits above this one. I glance upwards .

“As far as I know.” My voice is almost a whisper, even though the floors and ceilings here are so thick they’re practically soundproof.

“I trust them. Him. Orlando’s gay. Daisy too.

He’s a nice boy, ordinarily. You know, when he’s not throwing up everywhere or calling you Daddy.

” Mathias snorts with laughter. “His dad and stepmum own the big Georgian manor on the hill, Hooke House, so Lando can act . . . a little spoiled at times, but . . . he’s a good friend to Daze. I don’t think he’d ever try anything.

“They’ve been best friends since nursery. We always laughed about how one day they’d get married, and now Daze’s insisting they’re going to have a lavender marriage so they never have to bother with romance, because in her words ‘what a fucking faff romance is.’”

He laughs. “She’s not exactly wrong there.”

Ain’t that the truth?

“So, for this music round. What kind of theme are we thinking? A genre, an era, Eurovision? Something like that? Ooh!” He jumps in his seat, startling me.

“I’ve got a great idea. What about Glastonbury headliners?

You could play a clip from a song and they all have to guess the artist and the year they performed. ”

“Yes, I actually love that. Much better than what I was thinking.”

Mathias smirks, licks his lips, and pinches his smile between his teeth. I can tell he’s pleased as punch with himself and it’s doing absolutely nothing to dispel this crush.

“I usually do eight rounds, ten questions per round, so I guess there’ll be twenty points up for grabs here. Once every three months, I do a mega quiz where I have twelve rounds. It gets very competitive.”

“I do love a pub quiz,” Mathias says, which feels at odds with everything I’ve learned about him and his antisocialness. “What other rounds do you do on an ordinary quiz night? Like an average Thursday.”

I begin listing them off on my fingers. “There’s music, but it’s always been questions before. Be nice to involve another sense, I guess. There’s history, TV and film, science and nature, pop culture—”

He raises a sceptical brow at me.

“I’m forty-five, not eighty-five. I know pop culture. I know all about Chappel . . . Rowan? Ronan?” He snorts. “And . . . that guy who’s a bit like Tom Selleck but my age.”

Mathias raises his other eyebrow, cocks his head to the side.

I want to tell him this guy is hot, because I know he’d know who it is right away, but I hesitate.

For so long the world of rugby has been painfully heteronormative, and though I’ve never hidden my sexuality and nobody outside of internet trolls and certain trash tabloid newspapers has ever said anything negative, I still find myself filtering my words.

“Everyone is obsessed with him, even Daisy. There’s a picture of him that she taped up behind the bar. He’s at some kind of red carpet event wearing a red coat and shorts and boots.”

“Ohh, Pedro Pascal?”

“Yes, that’s him. Knew it began with a P.”

Mathias glances upwards to nowhere in particular. “Yeah, he’s hot.”

My elbow slips from the table. Not because I’m finding out Mathias is attracted to men, I already knew that part, but because he’s very open about it.

Maybe the locker room bants have changed in my time away from it all.

Maybe homophobic jokes aren’t the standard any more.

I’ve been out of it for so long, how would I know?

“You’re right, he does give Tom Selleck vibes,” Mathias says, ignoring my little moment of surprise.

“Okay, fine, I lied. Daisy writes the pop culture round for me every week. I know nothing about famous people post twenty twelve. Literally, my ability to learn new celebrity names died overnight. I think it must’ve been the Olympics that did it.

My brain was overrun with new names and it was all ‘sorry, no room at the inn.’ But sometimes, when she goes out on the piss with her best mate and gets too drunk to function, I have to write them myself. ”

“You need some help with that too? I’m not the best when it comes to celebrity gossip, but I at least know who Pedro Pascal is.”

I slap his bicep with the back of my hand. I’ve done it before I even realise. Mathias’s eyes track to the place of contact, but he says nothing .

“So, anyway,” I say, willing the heat rising in my body to stop at my neck and leave my face untouched.

“The other rounds are sport—obviously—food and drink, geography, general knowledge, and a picture round, of course. This week the picture round is identifying different piers in the UK and the towns they reside in.”

“That sounds fun, actually.” Mathias pulls the laptop closer to himself and opens a program I don’t recognise.

His laptop is silent except for the clicking of his fingers on the keyboard as he types in a password.

It’s not the retired jet engine climbing Everest noises I’m used to hearing from my computer.

“Well, tomorrow you’ll have to see how many you get right.

” It’s nothing but a shameless plea. “Come over and spend more time with me.” Sure, I’ll be busy announcing the quiz, but I’m thinking—wondering—if I can convince him to invest a little in Mudford-upon-Hooke, show him that people here don’t hate him, maybe he’ll stay.

He’s already shaking his head. “I can’t . . . no. I just . . .” He puffs out a breath.

I don’t harass him for his reason. I change the subject instead. “And if the picture round crosses over with a different category—like for instance, this week it’s the geography round too—we’ll have a wild-card round.”

“Wild card,” he repeats.

“Yep, you know, like when you’ve tried all the standard options and they don’t quite work, so you’ve gotta try something new. Something completely unique.” I realise I’m explaining a concept he already understands, and that he’s probably thinking of the other day when I called him a wild card.

He tilts his head to the side and regards me, like an animal trying to work out if the noises coming from my orifice are friendly and will equate to treats, or if I’m going to start yelling and grabbing him. He doesn’t say anything, and I need to fill the silence.

“This week’s wild card is an anagram round. You’ve got to guess ten different types of flightless birds from a jumble of letters.”

Mathias laughs, then instantly slaps a hand over his mouth, muting himself. It’s likely because the kids are asleep upstairs and he’s trying to be quiet, but I wish he wouldn’t hide his mirth. “I couldn’t even name ten kinds.” He turns back to the laptop, then back to me. “Well, you got chickens—”

“Chickens are not on there. Technically, they’re just shit flyers, not flightless.”

“See! This is why I love pub quizzes! Because you learn all manner of useless information.”

What I want to do is sit here all night and chat absolute bollocks with him whilst finding new ways to make him smile.

I want to gaze into his brown eyes—made into deep pools of chocolate under the soft glow of the lamps—and trace the lines of his face.

I want to breathe in the scent of him, of his soap and shampoo and washing powder. He smells clean. Inviting.

“What do we have to do here, then?” I ask, pointing at the screen to distract my thoughts. It’s a vast expanse of blackness with some brightly coloured stripes. It means nothing to me.

“You tell me what songs you want and I’ll cut you out a twenty second clip and put it into a playlist, so all you have to do tomorrow night is press play and next.”

“That easy?”

“Yup.”

“That’s impressive. What a handy piece of kit,” I say.

Mathias turns to me and beams. He’s blindingly beautiful when he smiles, like looking directly at the sun—it kinda hurts, and burns itself into your retinas, but once you look at him, even after you look away you won’t see anything else for a long while.

A moment later, he schools his features into something more neutral and redirects his gaze to the laptop.

“Will it work on my computer?” I ask, to stop my thoughts from tumbling into the internal “what made Mathias smile like that, and how can I recreate it?” discourse.

“Can it connect to the pub’s sound system?” he says.

“Hmmm, probably not.”

“Does it have Bluetooth?”

“Ah, yeah, no. It doesn’t. ”

“It’s not a problem. I’ll lend you my laptop. I’ll come over tomorrow after media day and set it all up for you.”

I hear the subtext in his words. “But I’m not staying.”

“Thank you.” As subtly as I can, I scoot the chair closer to him. “Question. How do you get the songs? We pay about four hundred pounds a year for a music license, but Daze streams it all.”

Mathias sighs. “Okay, you can’t tell anyone this, but I’m one of those people who still buys their songs. I have . . . a pretty extensive collection, and if I don’t have it, I can just purchase it.”

“I’ll give you the money.”

He cocks his head to the side and narrows his eyes at me.

“What?” I ask. I’m confused as fuck, but Mathias continues to stare at me like I have a scarab beetle crawling out of my nose.

“You don’t think I’m weird because I buy music rather than stream?” He hesitates more with each word.

I almost laugh . . . almost. It’s such a ridiculous notion that he’d be embarrassed about something as trivial and insignificant as this, but the set of his jaw and the crease of his brow let me know he’s earnest. Why would he care so much about what I thought?

Or what anyone else thinks for that matter?

“No, I don’t think that’s weird at all.”

After a few more moments his shoulders ease and he nods, whether in thanks or acceptance I’m not sure. “What Glasto should we start with?”