George had sat in his armchair for the rest of that day. He had turned up the cricket as loud as possible and tried to lose himself in runs, innings and the banal chatter of the commentators, but his eyes kept straying to the clock on the mantelpiece, to the half-hours and quarter-hours, the slices of time that used to bring his wife in and out with her chatter and her tea-towel.

Dan

(Hide-and-seek)

DAN CANNOT STOP THINKING about Atticus. He doesn’t want to, which of course makes him think about him all the more. He thinks about things that don’t matter, wonders if Atticus drinks the milk from the bottom of his cereal bowl. Wonders if he lines up his suede loafers at night, just so. Dan has never thought about someone else in this way. He wants to put Atticus inside a snow globe and shake him up and down. Is that a normal thing to want to do to someone?

He can’t remember what used to fill his brain before those pink suede loafers. Atticus is Dan’s last thought at night and his first in the morning. Midnight feasts with Fitz are ruined by what Atticus might think of him, eating cheese and jam crackers in his pants by the light of the fridge.

Dan wonders if this is how Luke feels when he gets a crush. The realization that he has a crush makes him slightly giddy. He wants to ask Luke about it. Deep down, Dan knows he wouldn’t be shocked, but Dan can’t. Luke would love it too much, would crow with delight, ‘He wears pink slippers!’

Not happening. He’ll have to make do with Fitz, who is great but sometimes gets distracted by his tail while Dan is talking.

Having a crush is distracting. Yesterday Dan put the milk in the cereal cupboard and forgot to lock the back door. Fitz had to remind him with his yowling bark. In bed, instead of sleeping, he imagines Atticus on his sofa downstairs with Fitz, playing video games, or running alongside him on the Beacon, tasselled suede loafers getting covered with mud.

There is nothing possible about Dan and Atticus. Atticus is an art deco mirrored dressing-table, indulgent and expensive. Curves for curves’ sake. Slightly tarnished, which only serves to make it more beautiful. Handmade for a siren of the silver screen. Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth. Atticus is James Dean. Next to him, Dan is a white fridge, buzzing, with a socket that stutters and trips. What does it matter anyway? Atticus is just a client. A job. Wages. A resource so Dan can buy bones for his dog. So why, then, can’t Dan stop thinking about him?