I feel Gregor bristle beside me. I know he’s going red.

Gregor hates it when people talk about sex, or do anything sexy.

He’s not a big fan of Alistair.

And Alistair knows it.

“My eyes are up here, Gregor Sharpe,” Alistair says in a husky, sultry voice, catching Gregor staring at his bum. I mean, you can’t not, when someone’s practically shaking it in your face, but still…

I can almost feel Gregor burning.

Alistair nods at me. “And you, Ethan.”

I laugh and look at Gregor, and sure enough his whole face and neck are bright red, almost as red as his hair.

“Shuddup,” he mumbles, pretending to check his phone.

Alistair rolls his eyes and sucks his teeth again, flicking his scarf back off his shoulder, and goes back to twerking and flirting.

Some of the other lads are laughing.

Liam, our goalie, who’s the size and shape of a wardrobe, all broad shoulders and Daveed Diggs hair, is filming Alistair for his Snapchat story and cracking up. Alistair, loving the attention, spins around in front of Liam.

Liam skelps him on the arse and Alistair squeals.

“Eh, can you keep it down please?” At the front of the bus, Helen pulls an earbud out and turns around to face us. “I can hardly hear my podcast. And Alistair Rowe, please feel free to have a seat.”

“I’m just going for a wee wee, miss,” says Alistair. He sashays off towards the toilet at the back of the bus, flicking his scarf back off his shoulders again.

Helen tuts and shakes her head, but she’s laughing. She sticks her earbud back in and goes back to her podcast.

Helen’s sort of a mix between our coach and our babysitter. She works at the college in student services, sorting people out with money or counselling, or helping them fill in their UCAS forms.

She plays for Mosaic’s adult team, Spectrum, and it was her idea to set up a team for younger queer people.

Apparently a few years ago there’d been an incident with a couple of sixteen-year-olds joining the team and ending up at a fundraiser in the Cockpit. Every time someone mentions it, the story gets more and more extreme, starting at underage drinking and ending up somewhere around full-on carnage.

The last time I heard it, there were police helicopters involved.

“We don’t talk about that,” says Helen whenever it comes up.

Helen’s got purple hair and piercings, and she does her make-up like a pro. I used to be pretty intimidated by her, but now I know she’s cool. She helped me figure out what I wanted to do at college, and went through some of the information on the different courses that were out there with me.

And she’s the kind of nerd who listens to podcasts.

Helen’s girlfriend Mariam is our driver today. She works for the bus company, so she gets us the bus for cheap. She’s pretty quiet, but she laughs a lot and she’s always cracking up at Alistair.