Next morning, Rory’s alarm clock went off with a bell like a . . . like a really loud thing, which was just as well cos he usually slept like the dead. He reached out blindly and managed to turn it off on the fourth or fifth attempt.
Then he yawned, stretched, and had a bit of a scratch. Four thirty a.m. Time to get up.
Whenever he told people he was a postie, nine out of ten would say it sounded like a great job, but they couldn’t hack the early mornings. Rory didn’t get that. It came down to what you were used to, didn’t it? Working a night shift, now, that had to be hard—sleeping in the daytime and only coming out at night like a vampire or a teenager or something. But mornings were great. How many people got to see the sun come up all year round?
Rory was heading downstairs for breakfast when David stumbled out of his room, dressed in his kecks and a burgundy T-shirt with some kind of cartoon on it. Bloody hell, he had long legs. He looked like a cross between a newborn kitten and a baby giraffe. Rory greeted him cheerfully. “Morning, Dave. You really were brought by the stork, weren’t you, mate?”
“What? And it’s Davey. Or David. Never Dave.” He stood there, swaying slightly, his eyes half-shut and his hair all mussed up from bed.
Rory gazed at him affectionately, and chuckled when he got a proper gander at the T-shirt. “Heh, you a My Little Pony fan, then?”
David glared at him from beneath his mop of tousled hair. “It’s My Little Sherlock, actually. Can’t you see the scarf?”
Rory peered at David’s chest. “Oh yeah. That’s pretty good, that is. They oughtta have done a deerstalker on him and all, mind.” He grinned at David.
David didn’t grin back. “He’s series one Sherlock.”
Maybe he wasn’t a morning person? “Uh . . . what you doing up so early? Thought you didn’t have to get round to Mark’s until nine.”
“Oh, no reason. None at all. Apart from the fact that somebody seemed to think it would be fun to assault my eardrums with a pneumatic drill in the middle of the night.”
“That’s it!” Rory beamed. “I was trying to think what my alarm sounded like, and you got it in one. Uh. Did it disturb you?”
“No, no. Perish the thought. Who needs more than three hours of sleep anyway?”
Despite the airy tone, Rory wasn’t totally convinced he meant it. David’s face was all puffy, and there were big, dark circles under his eyes.
Might be best not to mention it, though. That sort of comment had never gone down well with Jenni or Evie. “Uh, why don’t you go back to bed for a bit if you haven’t got anything you need to be up for? I’ll be heading out to work in a mo. Or, seeing as you’re awake, feel free to join me for breakfast.”
Rory probably imagined the way David’s face went kind of greenish.
“Tempting though it is, I’ll pass. You just . . . do what you do. I’ll be in my bed. Wake me only in case of apocalypse, and preferably not then.” He turned back into his room with a flash of powder-pink underpants.
“Right you are, then,” Rory told the closing door, then ambled off to get into his morning routine. He whistled the Postman Pat theme song as he jogged down the stairs cos it was nice and cheerful and his kids had always loved the show.
He stopped when David called his name from above.
“Yeah, mate?” Rory yelled, one hand on the kitchen door.
“Just a teeny, tiny thing.” He paused.
“Yeah?”
“If you don’t stop whistling, I may have to kill you.”
“Oh. Fair ’nuff.”
Rory had been right. Definitely not a morning person. He made a mug of tea, then grabbed himself some toast and marmalade and sat down in front of the telly to eat. The sports news was boring, and he found himself thinking about David. Should he tell the bloke his kecks were a bit girly? Did he know? After all, he was gay. He most likely hadn’t seen a lot of girls in their underwear. Maybe he thought everyone wore them? Nah, that didn’t work, did it? He must have seen loads of blokes in their undies. He was probably, like, a connoisseur of blokes’ undies.
Rory glanced down at his own boxer shorts and heaved a sigh of relief, his brief—heh—panic subsiding. They were the nice checked ones Jenni had bought him, not the worn-out sort-of-whitish ones from Tesco’s clearance bin that’d made her laugh out loud and call him a cut-price Casanova when she’d seen them.
Rory sighed again. It’d been fun with Jenni, while it’d lasted. He missed that. Okay, not the foot-tapping and the digs about his cooking, no, he didn’t miss those. If he was honest, he didn’t miss the sex that much. It was having someone to have a laugh with. And they had laughed, him and Jenni, and it hadn’t even always been at Rory.
Still, he had David living with him now, didn’t he? And he seemed an all right bloke. Maybe they could have a laugh together.
Only not in the mornings.
Rory made sure he was extra quiet as he had a quick shower, bunged on his uniform shorts and shirt, and laced up his walking boots, which were the most expensive bit of kit he owned. When you walked about ten miles a day, every day, you needed to keep your feet happy.
Everything was bright, clean, and quiet as Rory set out to drive the short distance from Pig Lane to the delivery office in Bishops Langley where he’d collect his mail. Hardly anyone was on the roads. It was like the world—well, this little corner of it, anyhow—was all his.
Rory loved his job. As much fresh air and exercise as a man could want, walking around the best village in the world. And the lads at the delivery office were a good lot too, although some of them were lasses, of course.
The first couple of hours were always spent at the delivery office, sorting out his mail and putting it into round order, which was when he got to have a bit of a natter with the other posties and catch up on the gossip.
Collette was having a moan about the junk mail they had to deliver and how it was killing the planet, while Rob pointed out that if they got rid of that, then half of them would be out of a job. Same old, same old. Like a faded sweatshirt that’d worn thin, with frayed cuffs and paint splashes on the sleeves, that was still the comfiest thing to chuck on to watch the telly. Rory wondered what his new lodger would wear to watch telly. He couldn’t imagine David in a worn-out sweatshirt. Maybe one of them velvety tracksuits he used to see women wearing with a sparkly logo and Juicy scrawled on the bum? He chuckled at the thought.
“You’re looking chirpy today.” Collette paused by Rory’s desk, a cup of coffee in her hand. “What’ve you been up to?”
“Not what you’re thinking. Chance’d be a fine thing.”
“Still single, then, babe? Join the club.”
“Got a new lodger, though.”
“Oh? Bloke?”
Rory nodded. “His name’s David. Young bloke, mid-twenties or so.”
“Ooh, is he single?” Collette, who’d been thirty-nine for several years now, moved in closer and perched her bum on the edge of Rory’s desk.
“Gay. Sorry.”
“Bum. At least tell me he’s ugly.”
Rory laughed. “Sorry, love. You know the bloke what plays Sherlock on the telly? Bit like that, only younger.”
She groaned. “Now you’re just being mean. Sure he’s not bi and in the mood for being a toy boy? Quite fancy myself as a cougar, and a girl needs something to warm her up on a cold winter’s night.”
“Bed socks,” Rory told her. “And a hot water bottle. And don’t forget your mug of Ovaltine before bed.”
“Even my granny never drank Ovaltine. Oh well, I s’pose I’d better see if my sister’s lad is still looking for a bloke. He’s a good catch, you know—works in IT in the City. He’s shy, that’s all. Needs someone to bring him out of his shell. You did say this David of yours was single, didn’t you?”
“Uh, I’ll find out. Better get on with the sorting now, though.” Rory put his head down, feeling a bit weird.
He’d only met David last night, and already he was supposed to be fixing him up on dates?
A bloke couldn’t keep anything to himself these days.