not coming out tonight is he?’ asked Karen, collapsing onto the sofa, her short skirt riding up her firm but chunky legs. Her question sounded more like a hopeful statement and told Jennifer everything she needed to know.
‘Don’t know,’ she replied, immediately on edge. She wished Karen would get over her dislike of Tim once and for all. ‘Why?’
‘No nothing,’ said Karen, ‘I don’t mind either way, I just assumed it wouldn’t be his bag. That is to say fun. Joking!’
‘You going to that karaoke thing?’ enquired Pete, his eyes not leaving the screen.
‘Yeah,’ said Karen.
‘Do you want some draw?’
‘Why not?’ said Karen.
‘OK, you sort that out and I’ll go and find out if Tim’s coming or not,’ said Jennifer, pointedly ignoring her friend’s dig.
She thundered up the stairs to the third floor, taking them two at a time in her platform trainers which she was wearing with a crop top which showed off her flat belly and an A line short skirt.
‘Are you coming out tonight or what?’ she panted, having banged on Tim’s door and received a ‘Come in.’
‘I’m not, my precious,’ replied Tim, not looking up from his desk. ‘Sean’s coming over to show me the code he’s written. We’re having a meeting.’
‘Ooh,’ she moaned. ‘Please come?’
Tim turned and gave her an approving look followed by a lopsided grin so endearing it made her want to run over and kiss him. Not that she did. Tim’s demeanour was generally one which encouraged people to keep their distance. But while they didn’t tend to go in much for spontaneous affection, what they both did relish was sparring with one another verbally.
‘Hmm, let me think about it. My options are A: stay here and see all my ambitions and dreams come to fruition. Or B: go out in the rain to watch you and Karen murder what were perfectly decent songs to start off with in a shitty karaoke gay bar on the sea front. You’re all right thanks.’
‘Vicky’s coming,’ joked Jennifer, grabbing the life-size cardboard cut-out of Posh Spice which Tim had pinched from Blockbuster Video the previous week when he was pissed.
Ms Adams was wearing the white mini-skirt and bra top she’d worn for the Brits. Ginger Spice was downstairs in the lounge too, in her iconic union jack dress, casually leaning against the wall, only with an extra black moustache and glasses which someone had thoughtfully drawn on.
‘Well, that’s a different story then,’ said Tim. ‘If old lovely legs is going.’
But he didn’t mean it. His attentions were firmly back on his computer.
Jennifer tried not to feel put out. She’d been going out with him long enough to know he wouldn’t change his mind and that there was no point grumbling given that his drive, ambition and clever brain were the things that had attracted her to him in the first place.
Admittedly half the time she didn’t entirely follow what he was on about when it came to his plans to cash in on what he felt was going to be a huge surge in terms of internet usage but his passion for the subject was infectious. His latest idea was to create some kind of platform on the world wide web for people to find old university, college or school friends, that then allowed you to find out how they’d done in terms of what jobs they’d gone on to, whether they were married or not, and if they’d had children. It would be called ‘reUNIon’ and was less a social networking experiment than a way for people to be utterly nosey. It would allow you to link up with people and then, once they’d given their permission, you’d be able to see their page which would be formatted almost like a CV. However, before you could see it, the site would ask you to predict what you thought those people were doing. In other words, if you’d signed up to it you might receive an email from an old classmate asking if you wanted to see what they had predicted about you. Tim was convinced that people’s natural desire to know what others thought of them would be the key to its success.
‘So what’s Sean bringing round?’
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Tim bluntly.
‘Try me.’
‘He’s been developing some programs. I told you. He’s written some code.’
‘For reUNIon?’
‘Yes,’ Tim said, sounding exasperated, which in turn made Jennifer feel sad.
Just then, Pete yelled up the stairs.
‘Tim, someone here for you.’
‘Great,’ said Tim, bounding into action, brushing past her in his eagerness to get to Sean, practically flattening her as he did so.
Jennifer gave up and sighed. She’d lost him so she might as well get on with her evening. Karen would be pleased anyway, she thought, as she picked her way across the landing which had piles of dirty laundry strewn all over it.
Later that night, or rather, in the early hours of the next day, Jennifer and Karen staggered home. After five minutes of taking it in turns to stab the front door with their keys they finally made it into the house. Giggling like schoolgirls, cross-legged and clutching one another in an attempt not to piss themselves laughing, it took them an age to get up the stairs. Once they had they both raced to the loo and then reconvened in the lounge,they peeled their coats off and Karen got out all her skinning up paraphernalia.
‘I’m going to see if Tim’s still up,’ said Jennifer, who couldn’t be bothered with pretending she wasn’t dying to see him.
‘Fine,’ said Karen, only slightly huffily. ‘No doubt he will be because he hasn’t taken over the world yet.’
As Jennifer bounded up the stairs she decided it was probably time to have it out with Karen once and for all. Her constant jibes were getting on her nerves. It wasn’t her fault Karen was single at the moment.
‘Tim,’ she said, banging on his door, having seen light coming from beneath it. There was no reply but there was music playing, Oasis by the sound of it. She barged in.
Tim and Sean barely looked up, so engrossed were they, huddled over the wretched computer.
‘Er…yoohoo, hello, Earth calling my saddo geek boyfriend.’
‘Oh hello you,’ said Tim looking up. Despite looking exhausted and having the pallor of someone who hadn’t had any fresh air all day, his eyes were shining and he looked excited and thrilled. As he leaned back his shirt rode up exposing a glimpse of his lean hairless stomach.
‘How’s it going?’ said Jennifer, suddenly feeling slightly queasy. Running up the stairs probably hadn’t been the wisest of moves given that she had litres of various spirits swooshing around in her belly. She swayed across the room and sank thankfully down onto the bed. She reached down to pull off her trainers and once she’d manhandled them off, chucked them across the room. They made a huge thudding sound as they made contact with the wall.
‘Amazing,’ said Tim. ‘We’re doing fucking amazing, thanks
