Page 28 of One Last Try (Try for Love #1)

Mathias

My social battery runs flat during lunch. I’ve somehow been roped into sharing a table with Tom and Bryn, their two kids who are somewhere between the ages of six and ten, and Bryn’s mum Cerys who’s visiting her son, son-in-law, and grandkids for the weekend.

Like almost every Welsh mum I’ve ever met, Cerys is of course a massive rugby fan.

She talks nonstop about how fucking stupid the Bengals are for not signing me this season, but how everything works out in the end because she wouldn’t be eating roast lamb with me today if it weren’t for their terrible oversight.

I have chicken, because I don’t like lamb. It tastes how shoes smell. I can’t explain it any better than that. Though I do opt for mint sauce on my peas because spearmint and petit pois is a god’s tier combo.

She’s desperate to talk about that game.

The one where I broke Owen’s leg. I can feel it in the way she hesitates and casts her eyes over to the bar to scout him out.

Bryn obviously senses it too, and steers the conversation away to life in Wales, and once Cerys gets started on that, nobody can shut her up.

“I used to be a tour guide at Caerphilly Castle,” she says.

“Did that for about thirteen years. School groups, biddy tours, you name it. What primary school did you go to, Mathias? You might have had me as a guide. You know, I once gave a tour to King Charles. Mind you, this was in the early nineties, long before he was king.”

And while Cerys chats away, Isobel, the older child who I suspect is autistic too, tells me about her special interest—ASMR blind bag videos on YouTube.

I have no idea what any of it means, but she seems genuinely shaken that an old person such as me enjoys YouTube.

The younger kid, Rafael, is still very much in his everything is poo, farts, bums, and willies phase.

It started out funny, but there’s a limit to the number of times you can hear the word bumhole during dinner before it gets old.

That limit is four, I’ve decided, and Rafael has exceeded this threshold at least tenfold.

I’m so overstimulated I feel like I’m walking the tightrope edge of losing my shit, or curling up into a ball and weeping. I keep stealing glances at Owen, but he’s rushed off his feet busy, and can’t spare me a second look.

I just need to be alone so I can think about him and what happened—or nearly happened—in the showers earlier, but I can’t see any way out of the situation that doesn’t involve me pushing to my feet and storming away. Though it wouldn’t be the first time.

A teenager I’ve never met wearing a Little Thatch apron clears our plates and brings out the dessert menu. Less than five minutes later, and before the server’s returned to take our order, Owen is beside the table. He hands me a takeaway box. It’s warm on the bottom .

“Right, everybody say goodnight to Mathias. He has an important Zoom meeting in . . .” He pretends to look at his watch. “Two minutes.”

Nobody’s buying it, but I don’t deny his claim, and they don’t insist I stay. I seize my opportunity and whip out my wallet to pay my share.

Cerys waves me away. “Absolutely not. Not every day I get to buy Mathias Jones a roast chicken dinner. I can’t wait to tell Jo about this, she’ll be beside herself with jealousy.”

I thank Cerys for her generosity, and bid everyone else a good evening. I promise Isobel I’ll look up what blind bags entail and agree to make her one for the Sunday after Easter, and I whisper “poo-poo pee-pee” to Rafael. Then I head back over the road.

Dessert is bread and butter pudding with custard.

I turn the TV onto some YouTube video about 3D printers—my next research project because I think it’d be really cool to have a 3D printer—grab a spoon, and settle down in the dining room.

There’s a message from Sim on my phone. She’s read the one I sent last night.

Call me when you get a chance. I’m free until 4, and then after 6:30.

I call her and put my phone on speaker.

“Babes, hi.” She answers on the second ring.

“Alright?” I reply.

“ Soooo. ” She draws out the word. “You’re staying in Fernbank Cottage, then?”

“I’m so sorry. I feel like I’ve wasted so much of your time.” I cut a decent chunk out of my dessert and shovel it into my mouth.

Ho. Lee. Fuck. It’s perfect. I have to hold back my groan so that Sim doesn’t think I’m touching myself. The bread and butter pudding is biblically good, and the custard is one up from that.

“Not at all, babes. It’s what I’m here for—what you pay me for.” That’s not true. Not by any stretch of the imagination. “I’m just happy you’re settling in okay. So how are things with you and Owen Bosley? Are you friends yet?”

I swallow my mouthful and smother my smile. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. ”

“Aw, could it be my baby’s all grown up?” she jokes.

“We’re the same age.”

“I’m forty-two,” she reminds me, and something churns in my gut. Owen’s forty-five. Is that too big an age gap? Fifteen years?

I suppose it doesn’t matter that much. If we’re only ever fuck buddies and nothing more, what difference will it make?

Sim keeps talking, unaware of my inner panic. “Actually, if you have become friends, being seen in public with Owen could do wonders for your image. If people see that he’s forgiven you for the accident, maybe they will too.”

“Bye, Sim,” I say, but I make no move to end the call. In fact, I scoop another mouthful of bread and butter pudding into my face.

Fuuuuuck, it really doesn’t get better than this.

“Oh, Matt, don’t go yet. Celebrity Traitors called and they want to know if you’ll consider starring in it.”

I’m smiling again. Not that I plan on doing any TV programmes like that, but it’s nice to see the offers coming back in.

“Call me when Celebrity Pointless come knocking.”

Sim laughs. “Okay, will do. Speak soon, babes. Buh-bye.” She hangs up before I can return her goodbye. Can’t blame her, though, she’s an incredibly busy woman, and I keep adding to her to-do list with my stupid predicaments.

I realise I don’t have Owen’s number, so I reach for my phone and bring up Daisy’s Instagram account.

It’s the first time I’m looking at it and Owen’s face smiles up from a photo at the bottom of her grid.

I click on the picture to enlarge it. He’s sitting in his pub, and his head is thrown back in laughter.

In front of him is a birthday cake covered in black fondant with yellow and neon-pink nineties-style decorations.

White iced text spells out: NOT OLD, JUST RETRO.

The date is the sixteenth of March and the caption simply reads: Ily Dad.

Most of her other photos are of herself, or herself and Lando in various shiny-faced states of inebriation, but as I scroll down, I’m occasionally rewarded with a picture of Owen. Always smiling, like some patron saint of jolliness. Like fucking Father Christmas or something .

I click on “message” and send her a DM.

Hey, Daisy. Can I have your dad’s number pls?

Her reply comes almost instantly.

Ofc.

Followed by a mobile number. Then immediately after that I get another one.

Sorry about Lando, btw.

Moments later, another message pings through.

What happened in the shower?

I leave her on read and text Owen.

Hi Owen, it’s Mathias. I hope you don’t mind, Daisy gave me your number. Can’t stop thinking about earlier. Was wondering if you want to finish what we started?

I delete it—too formal, too weird—and write another.

Hi Owen, it’s Matt. Got your number from Daisy, hope that’s okay. Maybe we could go out sometime?

Urgh. No. I delete that one too.

Hi Owen, it’s Mathias, the boy who wanked in the shower for you. I have a horrific case of blue balls and I’m wondering if you’d like to come over tonight and finish in my mouth.

I laugh out loud and delete it before I have some kind of sneezing fit in which I press send.

Hi, Owen. It’s Wild Card.

Done. Sent. It’s simple. Probably too short, but I’m gonna overthink it otherwise.

It takes him over an hour to read the message and text back.

Hi, xx

I spend the rest of the day smiling like a little kid at a unicorn farm.

At half past eleven, I head upstairs and get ready for bed slash watching Owen’s window for any sign of life.

I throw on jogging bottoms and an old Cardiff Half Marathon finishers T-shirt, and take up my position at the end of the mattress.

But he’s already there, as though he’s been waiting for me .

The lamp light from his room illuminates his entire body. He’s still wearing the clothes he changed into after sevens—jeans, and a long-sleeved, unbranded shirt.

Owen waves, and his cheeks stretch into a smile that I can see even from across the road. I don’t wave back, though. I’ve been counting down to this moment.

Instead, I stand up, manoeuvre myself right in front of the window, and strip my T-shirt off.

I don’t know how well illuminated I am, or how good Owen’s eyesight is, but what I do know is that I want him aching for me. Want him to want me as much as I want potatoes. Need him to think of me as more than a snack, as a meal, a piece of meat for him to wrap his mouth around.

I drag the fabric over my body slowly, teasingly, stretching out my muscles the way I had in the showers. My shirt drops to the ground. Owen is still. He’s watching me but hasn’t responded by removing his own shirt. The ghost of his earlier smile lingers around his mouth.

Good. I need to put on this show for him. I dip my hand below the waistband of my sweatpants. Owen’s lips part, and I give myself a few lazy pumps before I wiggle my trousers and boxers down to mid-thigh, revealing myself to Owen, the pub, and the street below.

The lights are off downstairs at The Little Thatch.

Everyone’s gone home, and I almost never see cars driving past after kick-out time.

Still, it’s exposed as fuck and no doubt illegal, and if anyone were to walk by now, they’d have one hell of an eyeful.

But it’s so desperately hot. I’m rock hard and leaking everywhere.

It’ll be over in seconds unless I take this slowly.

I haven’t yet figured out where I’m going to come—I don’t want to mess up the windows—but none of that matters as I grip my cock and start to stroke it.

The blissful release of tension has me moaning into the empty room, closing my eyes, steadying myself against the window frame with my other hand.

Owen palms the front of his jeans and my heartbeat falters. Is he going to join me? He’s so close to his window the glass is fogging under his breath. He starts to unbutton his belt . . . but then he stops, frowns, shakes his head. And shit, shit, shit, I’ve taken this too far.

It was my idea to wank in the showers, and my idea to wank in front of him now, and I’m suddenly realising I might be a pervert.

Okay, there’s no might about it. I’m a fully fledged, certifiable pervert.

I stop my motions, pull my pants and trousers back up, and when I look over at Owen’s window, he’s not there.

Fifteen seconds later, he’s running out of the pub’s side entrance . . . literally running across the road. Great, I’m about to get a bollocking as well as being utterly humiliated. Through all my own doing this time—even worse. It did not play out this way in my mind earlier.

Damn, I thought I did a pretty thorough risk assessment.

Owen bangs on my front door. He forgoes his usual knocker tune in favour of striking the wood three times with his fist.

I gather up my T-shirt and go downstairs to meet him.

“Mathias.” He’s out of breath, his chest heaving, face red and blotchy—no doubt from anger, but he still looks fucking delicious. “I can’t . . .”

“I’m sorry, I thought, fuck—”

“No.” He silences me by smashing his lips against mine, knocking the T-shirt out of my hand, and plunging his tongue into my mouth.

Then just as ferociously, he pulls away.

“I can’t be over there and just . . . watch, and not .

. . I need . . .” He takes a deep, steadying breath.

“I need to touch you. I need to fucking taste you.”

And then Owen drops to his knees. “Damn, I have been wanting to do this for so long.”