Finders Keepers

‘Welcome,’ said Davey.

But Steven noticed that for some reason Davey still didn’t look happy.

Lettie ran through the rules of non-engagement one last time: no fighting; no leaving the house; no mess; no touching the stove until Uncle Jude had had a chance to fix it. There was bread, and they knew where the toaster was. Then she and Nan left at 9.25 to catch the 9.32 bus to Barnstaple. Nan made a show of taking the umbrella, even though the sun was already scorching the sky.

Twenty minutes after they left, Shane arrived with a bag of coconut mushrooms, and he and Davey switched on the TV and hooked up the PS2.

Steven took up his nan’s old station at the window, but for a very different purpose. His heart recognized the shape of Em while she was still a blur, and he smiled. As she got closer he saw she was wearing cut-off jeans with a white vest top and her favourite shoes. Flip-flops, his nan would have called them, but they went far beyond seaside plastic. They were soft leather and had turquoise beads and little shells sewn on to them. She’d got them on holiday in Spain. Steven had never been on holiday anywhere, let alone somewhere foreign. Weston-super-Mare was the furthest from home he’d ever been and that had only been day trips. When he’d told Em that, she’d laughed and hadn’t believed him. She lived in a different world half a mile away.

Em looked up and saw him, and smiled and raised a hand in brief greeting.

He grinned and hurdled the PS2 control cables on his way to the front door.

‘What’s with him?’ Shane said.

‘He thinks someone loves him,’ he heard Davey say.

The words sliced a cruel edge off his happiness, so that by the time he opened the door, his smile had faded.

‘What’s up?’ said Em.

‘Nothing. Hi. Come in,’ he said, and stood aside, wondering if he should be kissing Em hello. It seemed a bit … familiar, so he didn’t.

They faced each other a little awkwardly in the narrow hallway.

‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘Sorry we can’t – you know – go somewhere.’

‘No problem,’ said Em.

From the lounge they heard an overblown squeal of tyres and a crash.

‘Bullshit!’ yelled Shane, while Davey laughed and called him a twat.

‘Shall we go upstairs?’ said Steven, then realized how that sounded. ‘I don’t mean like that, I just mean … ’cos of them, you know …’

‘Sure,’ said Em, and reached out to touch his hand.

Reassured, he put his head round the front-room door. ‘We’ll be upstairs. Don’t touch the stove, OK?’

‘Fuck off,’ said Davey quietly. Steven let it go.

Em had never seen his bedroom and suddenly he was aware of how small it was; how messy – and that it smelled of Lynx and dirty socks. He opened a window and sat on the bed, but Em wandered around the room, inspecting it. For the first time in his life he wished he’d tidied up. Em tilted her head to the shelf and ran her eyes over all the books he’d ever read. Steven let his eyes drift along the spines in time with hers. He should definitely have tidied those up. There were still Famous Five books up there. And The Cucumber Pony – a picture book about a green talking horse, for God’s sake! She was going to think he was so gay.

But her eyes moved on without comment. ‘Who’s that boy?’ she said when she noticed the photo.

‘My Uncle Billy.’

‘Why d’you have a picture of him?’

‘He’s dead,’ he told her, and hoped that would be enough.

‘Yeah? How’d he die?’

Steven hesitated momentarily while an entire conversation – an entire future – played out in his head; a future where Em viewed him as a curiosity instead of a boyfriend.

‘He was run over.’ He hated lying to her.

‘How awful,’ she said.

‘It was before I was born.’ He shrugged.

She turned away from the shelves and smiled at him and he was glad he’d lied instead of spoiling things.

He watched her examine his room like an exotic animal exploring a new cage. He resisted the temptation to justify his mess or to get up and hide stuff, and the longer the inspection went on, the more he realized that she wasn’t judging him, just interested. Now and then she’d say something: ‘I have one those. Did yours work? Nor mine; I don’t know anyone whose did.’ Or: ‘Oh look, your Liverpool shirt has your name on the back! Cool! Oh, it’s torn here, what a shame.’ And: ‘I can’t believe you collect these things. You geek.’

Steven relaxed into being teased and soon he was enjoying her circuit as much as she obviously was.

As she ran out of room, she slowly approached the bed, and Steven stopped laughing and became acutely aware of his own body – and hers. Finally, she sat down a couple of feet away from him, then shifted along until their hips were touching.

They kissed again, as if not a second had passed between their last kiss and this one, two days later. As if Jonas Holly was a bad dream and Nan’s birthday had yet to dawn.

This kiss was different in a whole ’nother way. They weren’t in Ronnie’s garage or outside a pair of iron gates; they were in his bedroom and on his bed. That thought alone was exciting enough for him to kiss Em harder and to put his hand on her bare thigh.

Then it all got muddled in Steven’s head. He touched Em; she touched him; she opened her mouth and there was a roaring in his ears; he slid his hand under the bottom of her little vest and touched the hot, smooth skin of her waist, and felt a bit faint.

She broke the kiss.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not,’ she said seriously.

Em slid her feet from her pretty shell-covered shoes and carefully lifted her legs on to Steven’s bed. She took his hand.

‘Can we lie down?’

He kicked off his trainers and the pair of them lay on their backs on the narrow bed, shoulders, arms, hands, hips touching, staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t believe this was the same bedroom where he’d slept for the past five years. He was lying on his Liverpool cover with a girl he’d kissed. He had wonderful things to say to her, but he could barely breathe, let alone talk, his throat was so tight with desire and nerves. The kiss had been easy, but the thought of getting actual sex wrong made him feel dizzy with horror. He wanted it so badly he was shaking, but he’d rather never have it at all than get it all wrong and have to live with that shame. A shame that Em would know all about. A shame she might share with her friends. With his friends. He was so scared his jaw ached with clenching—

‘I’m scared,’ she said in a very small voice. ‘I’ve never done this.’

Steven wanted to cry, he loved her so much.

He turned towards her.

‘I want to,’ she said. ‘I love you. But I’m scared.’

Steven put an arm around her and she turned to face him, so close that he could feel her warm breath on his lips.

‘We don’t have to do anything,’ he told her. ‘I love you too.’

* * *

Davey was in the woods with Shane.

He’d left the PlayStation revving and crashing all by itself. They were going to catch the kidnapper and there was nothing Steven could do to stop them. Serve him right for making Davey’s feather bird seem so crap that he’d needed the charity of his name on a stupid umbrella.

They hardly spoke; the plan was so simple.

The only discussion was who should be the bait. Right from the start, Shane had suspected it might be him. Even so, when they actually reached the car, he made a token protest as Davey started to unravel the reel of