The Elephant in the Room
by Hamster
Chapter 2
Day Trip (continued)
A kid about my age who was dressed in the shortest shorts I've seen for ages, brown Adidas that hardly hid anything. And then these long, long legs beautifully tanned. Eventually I looked at the rest of him, and saw he really cute – short brown hair, brown eyes and a beautiful smile. It was lust at first sight.
I couldn't stop staring at him as he went up to two or three cars, asked something, got a quick and presumably negative reply, and then went on to the next car. Maybe he was trying to sell something but I didn't think the ferry people would allow that.
Then he came up to our truck and tapped on Dad's window. At first I thought Dad was just going to ignore him, but then he cracked open his window.
"What do you want?"
"Excuse me for asking, sir, but I was hoping you might be going near Oakbridge and I really need a lift because my parents went on an earlier boat and took all my money with them."
Normally my Dad would never give a stranger a lift so I expected him to just say no and wind up the window.
"What do you think, Mike, can we help this kid out? Seeing we are going to Oakbridge ourselves it won't take us out of the way. It means you will have to squeeze up a bit but it is only a twenty minute drive."
Wow, I couldn't believe my luck. Here is this really cute kid and I'm going to be right next to him all the way home.
"Yes, Dad, let's do that. Come round to my side and we'll squeeze you in. It's not so far."
"Thank you both SO much. I can't tell you how grateful I am."
Maybe this was the payoff for wasting my first day of vacation on a day trip to Calais! Being squeezed up with this kid was definitely not a hardship.
He came round the truck, opened the door and slid in next to me. Fortunately the truck my Dad had borrowed was an older model with a bench seat so there was actually quite a lot of room for the two of us.
A couple of minutes later we drove off the boat and straight on to the motorway towards Oakbridge. I turned to look at him close up. The view was even better than I remembered
"Hi, I'm Mike. It's nice to meet you."
"I'm John. Thanks for the lift. I'm going to be in big trouble when I get home because I was late at the ferry in Calais and they had to leave without me. They texted me and said they would not wait in Folkestone and that I had to make my own way home because we have people coming over for dinner."
"So you live in Oakbridge?"
"Yes, and you?"
"Well, we live in Oakbridge but I go to boarding school up in the Midlands. Today is my first day of vacation and my Dad here made me get up really early to go and get all this wine in the back."
"Wow, that sucks"
"Watch your language, please, young man" said my Dad.
"Sorry sir, it just slipped out."
"Which school do you go to in Oakbridge?" asked my Dad. (Typical parental interrogation of a teenager trapped in a vehicle for the duration. I always manage the sullen teenager response and stuff my earbuds in as far as they go and play really loud music. Drives parents crazy every time. Hah.)
"I go to the Grammar School, sir."
"Oh. Do you know Mr. Hetherington?" (I forgot my Dad knows half the people in Oakbridge even if I don't know anyone. I've never heard of a Mr. Hetherington.)
"Yes, sir, he teaches me English. He is very nice." (Smart kid, he knows how to make adults feel good.)
"What does your father do?" (Typical male chauvinistic approach. Why not ask about his mother first?)
"He works at University of Kent. He is some form of teacher in Economics. He used to work at Wye College until they closed it down and we decided to stay in Oakbridge because my Mum is teaching at the girl's grammar school."
"What does she teach?"
"She teaches French. She is French, so it's dead easy for her."
"So I guess you are bilingual."
"Yes. We were over in Calais visiting my cousins there. I was playing volleyball with them and forgot the time which is why I missed the ferry."
I decided that Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition had had enough entertainment for a while.
"John, you have to be very careful with my Dad. He's a lawyer and once he starts questioning you he will have you pleading guilty to murder just like that."
John sniggered, and gave me a gentle nudge in the ribs with his elbow. So I decided to take a chance and see if John had the same ideas as me. I pretended to stretch out a bit and ended up pressing against him, with our thighs touching.
I glanced over at him with a little smile. He smiled back and pressed back. YES!!.
I was in heaven. Scrunched up with this really sexy kid who seemed to be on exactly the same wavelength as me.
But sadly we were almost in Oakbridge.
When we got to Oakbridge my Dad asked John where he lived so he could drop him off. When John told him, my Dad said
"That's great! It is right near where we live. We can drop you off on our way home."
"Sir, I can't thank you enough. What I'd like to do to say thank you is to help you unload the truck and then I can walk home in a couple of minutes."
"Well, that's very kind of you. I'm sure Mike will appreciate the help."
And I did. It only took a few minutes to store everything in the garage.
I asked John if he would like something to drink. When he said yes, I took him in the kitchen and found a couple of cokes. My Dad disappeared to go use the toilet
"You said your parent texted you, so do you have your phone with you?"
"Yes. My phone and my passport go wherever I go, otherwise I'd have been stuck in France with nothing at all."
"OK, give my your phone and I'll put in my contacts. Maybe you can text me some time and we can hang out."
"Sounds good to me. Thanks!"
He grabbed his little bag he had been carrying the whole time, took out his phone, handed it over, I punched in my number and my email address, called myself so I had his number on my phone, and gave it back to him.
He nodded happily, gave me this huge smile, and after my Dad came back he started to leave.
"Sir, thank you so much for the lift. I am so grateful. Mike, thanks so much. I'll be in touch. See you soon!"
"Take care! I'll look forward to hearing from you."
He took off, and I just had to watch him walk down the street in those cure little brown shorts.
My Dad smiled.
"See, Mike, the day wasn't a total waste for you after all. It looks like you made a new friend."
That was true, and actually quite important to me. You see, one disadvantage of boarding school is that if you go to one long enough then you don't have friends at home. Unless school friends come and stay for a few days, but that doesn't fill up the whole vacation. I have been in boarding school since I was seven, so that mean I really don't know anyone in Oakbridge.
So even if John had not been really cute and sexy, it would be nice to have someone to hang out with rather than watch TV, play video games and do nothing much. But he really is cute and sexy and I really wanted to get close to him, if you know what I mean.
However, I was not going to let my Dad know all of this.
"I don't know. He probably has lots of other friends because he lives here, so I doubt I'll here from him."
Was I wrong! By the time I'd something to drink and taken a shower and laid on my bed to think about him, John had texted me and suggested he get together the next day. I told him it had to be after lunch as I was to be taken to church to be shown off to all my Dad's friends. So we agreed to meet at Costa Coffee at 2:00 pm.
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