raid tonight. So . . .”
“So . . .” Kit slid his hands into his sleeves. “Do you want to come back to mine?”
“Yes.” Wow, that sounded way too eager, but Drew realised he was, in fact, quite eager. And if they went back to Kit’s, then he wouldn’t have to invite Kit back to his, because his was a state. He’d left most of his T-shirts (and some of his pants) all over the floor, and Tinuviel tended to wander in without knocking or, in one extreme instance, wearing clothes. And Drew was pretty sure any or all of those things would seriously kill the mood.
They got on a bus, and off again twenty minutes later outside the University of Leicester Botanic Gardens.
“You live in a garden?” asked Drew.
“In a house in a garden with three hundred other students.”
“Classy.”
Drew hadn’t actually been this far out of the city centre like . . . ever. It was a little bit like going home to his parents’, because it was quiet and leafy, and it made him feel quite distant from his regular life on campus. But not in a bad way. The sun was just on the cusp of setting, so the light was mellow and the shadows were long and golden. And then Kit took his hand, and they walked together under the trees.
Here and there, they wandered past groups of students lounging on the lawn with plastic cups of beer or playing a late-evening game of Frisbee. If he hadn’t been out with Kit or raiding, it was the sort of thing Drew might have been doing with his mates. But it didn’t seem like the sort of thing Kit did, and Drew couldn’t decide whether he felt bad for him.
“This is a really cool place to live,” he said.
Kit nodded. “I really like being so close to the Botanic Gardens. There’s this willow tree I like to read under. And sometimes I bring my laptop.”
Drew gave his hand a squeeze. “Don’t you ever want to hang out with people from your course or anything?”
“I sometimes have lunch with my lab partner, and I go to the occasional party, but I don’t really feel I’m missing out.”
And now Drew couldn’t decide whether he felt bad for himself. “Oh man, I always feel like I’m missing out.”
“When I first got here, I had this serious freak-out because I thought I was doing it wrong. I was so convinced it was going to be massively different to school, but it wasn’t. I was still the quiet guy who didn’t have many friends, and there were still the popular kids who seemed to be having this amazing time that I just couldn’t be part of.” They’d come to a sun-dappled corner of lawn that nobody seemed interested in. “Do you want to stop for a bit? It seems a shame to miss the sunset.”
Drew surveyed the area critically. “Well, there isn’t a rock and I’ve left my fishing rod in a fictional universe.”
Kit’s laugh seemed louder and brighter under the clear sky.
They got settled on the grass, side by side, Drew’s arm and leg gently brushing Kit’s.
“Anyway,” Kit went on, “I wound up having this really intense Skype conversation with Tiff and Jacob at about three in the morning, and they kind of talked me down, and told me that nearly everyone spends university worried that other people are having more fun or getting more sex or finding the work easier than they are. So the guys playing Frisbee are looking at the guys in the library thinking, ‘Crap I wish I was that into my course.’ And the guys in the library are looking at the guys in the bar thinking, ‘Why can’t I fit in like that?’ And the guys at the bar are looking at the guys playing Frisbee thinking, ‘Why am I wasting my life on beer and boring conversations, when I could be doing activities and having experiences?’”
Drew wasn’t sure if that made sense or was complete bollocks. “But what if they are having more fun, or getting more sex, or finding the work easier?”
Kit shrugged, and Drew felt it, and that was weirdly comfortable. “So what if they are? There’s nothing you can do about it, and it’s nuts spending your life feeling miserable because you think you should be doing the things you think other people are doing, just because you think that other people are doing them, whether they’re doing them or not.”
“I