More Than Friends | ✓

Chapter Three

After school came. We met at the school gates but then ducked back into the sports block to change out of our uniforms. There were separate changing rooms. Alice came back outside in a thin baggy rusty red wooly jumper, a tartan mini-skirt and black leggings. She was wearing vivid red lipstick. She was transformed! Still carrying a bag and hugging a binder, she looked every bit a mature college girl easily.

I steered her towards home. She pointed out that it wasn’t the way to the town centre, but I assured her I knew that. She seemed doubtful, half distrusting, half nervous, but she followed with me anyhow. I stopped outside our local. I don’t know really why I did this, why I’d brought Alice there. Now Alice looked really nervous. She bit her bottom lip. She looked invitingly vulnerable. She looked gorgeous.

I opened the door and she stepped inside. It took a couple of seconds to adjust to the darkness. Right in front of the door was the bar where the landlady Brenda stood, cleaning glasses. I went up to the bar and ordered a pint.

Brenda was still cleaning a glass. “And what will your girlfriend be having, Sam?”

Alice said sharply. “We’re just friends!”

Brenda didn’t miss a beat and asked again “And what will your friend be having, Sam?” Brenda thought it funny.

Alice asked for a coke. Brenda asked me if that would be a rum and coke. I nodded. Alice seemed a bit shocked, but she kept quiet. I put it on my dad’s tab and we took our drinks around the side into the salon. It was mid afternoon and it was quite quiet, almost empty.

We sat in a booth next to each other on a bench seat sipping our drinks. Alice asked me if I drank a lot, and asked how the landlady seemed to know my name. I kind of talked myself up a little bit, but a bit of me never wanted to lie nor exaggerate to Alice, so I kept it real.

Alice’s cheeks flushed almost immediately; this was very clearly the first alcohol she’d ever drank, and the first pub she’d ever been in, and the first naughty thing she’d ever done!

Suddenly Alice looked up across the salon and froze. She looked shocked. I followed her gaze. It was Mr. Davis and a lady friend sitting in a booth against the opposite wall, kissing.

“That’s Miss Brady, the Geography teacher!” Alice whispered.

“They are enjoying themselves.” I laughed, disinterested.

“But they’re married!” Alice whispered back indignantly.

“Well that’s okay then!” I couldn’t see the problem.

“Not to each other!” Alice clarified.

Ah.

At that moment Miss Brady glanced up, saw us watching them, and pushed Mr. Davis away. They hurriedly tried to adjust and straighten their clothing. I raised my pint to them in salute, brave on the outside and panicking on the inside.

So here were two under-age school kids caught drinking in a pub by two teachers caught having an affair by two school kids in a pub ... I now realised that neither pair wanted this to become public. I pointed this out to Alice, and she seemed ever-so slightly reassured, but she was still really uncomfortable. I think she was more worried what the teachers thought of her than what she thought of other people I guess.

To break the tension I suggested to Alice that we play pool. She hadn’t ever played pool before so I promised to teach her. So we got up and took our glasses over to the pool table, slotted in ten pence and racked up. Then I broke and, when it was Alice’s turn, I stood behind her and reached around her to show her how to hold the cue and line up and strike. The smell of her shampoo was intoxicating. The beer I’d drank, and it being my local, was giving me my a mega dose of my cocky builder charm, at the same time as I was so sensitive to every gentle touch of our bodies, brush of her hair, as I guided her.

Our game was going slowly. That suited me. I forgot about the teachers. And then Alice needed to go powder her nose and I pointed out where the ladies was.

After Alice left another movement in the bar made me remember we were not alone. Miss Brady was following Alice to the toilets and Mr. Davis was heading straight for me. Obviously they were taking this chance to straighten us out one-on-one.

Mr. Davis came over and asked if I came here often. I nodded. I had my builder bravado and it was my local and it was outside school hours and I had only been at the school a couple of days so I didn’t have any ingrained fear of him. He seemed to be casting around for something to say.

“Nice to see you with Alice.” was all he came up with.

I grinned. “Nice to see you with Miss Brady.”

Mr. Davis sucked in his cheeks. He didn’t know how to say whatever it was he needed to say.

I guess this awkward conversation was taking longer that it seemed, because the girls were already heading back towards us. Miss Brady and Alice arrived at the same time. They had obviously been chatting but when they reached us there was another pregnant pause. And then my builder bravado kicked in and I suggested a game of doubles.

Alice tried to escape by pointing out she couldn’t play. Mr. Davis tried to say they really ought be going. And Miss Brady jumped up and down with excitement and said it was an excellent idea and so it was settled. It turned out Miss Brady had never played either, so a reluctant Mr. Davis had to coach her too! I guess Miss Brady had been watching Alice and I intently earlier. I swear Miss Brady was wiggling her butt and pressing back into Mr. Davis and doing everything to tease him. Even Alice was lightening up, the danger over and the rum and coke working their magic.

I figured I had pushed our luck far enough for one day and, as soon as the game finally finished, I said to Alice that we’d better be off. Alice reluctantly agreed, and we left the pub and turned towards home.

Alice suddenly stopped dead in her tracks and looked really scared. “My mum is going to smell smoke! She is going to want to know where I’ve been!”

Alice seemed distraught. I cast around for a solution. Suddenly, quick as a flash, I saw a way out. I suggested she change back into her school clothes at my house, and she could keep her trendy clothes at mine ready for our next outing. Alice jumped at the chance.

So I let her into my house. Dad and I live in a tiny mid-terrace house, two up two down. The front door opened straight into the living room which had a TV and tired old sofa and a pair of armchairs. The walls were chocolate brown in best 90s style.

As soon as we were in the hallway Alice thrust the binder at me. “Here, hold this.” Then she asked where the toilet was.

I told her and she took her bag and went and changed. She emerged a six-former again. She came up to me, grabbed her binder and hugged it, and stood in front of me, a foot apart.

“Thanks for today, it was, eh, interesting.” she said with a lop-sided grin.

“Don’t forget you’re wearing lipstick.” I said as she turned and let herself out.

I should have kissed her! Was she waiting for it? Should I have tried? What had she meant with Brenda, ‘Just friends?’ I beat myself up and shouted at myself all evening.