it’s your “favourite shoes”,’ I suggested. ‘You could not have sounded more camp.’
‘They are my favourite shoes,’ he replied, defensive. ‘Maddie bought them me for my birthday. They’re Church’s.’
I looked at him and didn’t say a word.
‘They’re nice shoes,’ he muttered. ‘Shut up.’
Minutes later, we were in the pub with two pints, two packets of crisps, and the Arsenal game Tom had made vaguely interested noises about playing on a screen above the bar.
‘They are nice shoes,’ he said again, sticking out one leg to admire his lace-ups. ‘I wear them all the time, they’re not gay.’
‘She didn’t think we were gay because of your shoes,’ I said, opening my crisps with a satisfying pop. ‘But I don’t think it helped when you called me amazingly sexy.’
‘Brad Pitt, George Clooney and then you,’ he replied, stacking his hands one above the other over the table. ‘And then probably David Beckham. He’s a good-looking bastard.’
‘I am better looking than David Beckham,’ I confirmed with a thoughtful nod. ‘That’s fair. George Clooney though? Really?’
‘I’m a mug for a silver fox,’ Tom said, craning his neck to check the score.
‘Just as well.’ I pretended to squint at his temples while inhaling salt and vinegar crisps five at a time. ‘Going a bit at the temples there, son.’
‘I am not.’ He looked back at the TV, brushing his hair when he thought I wasn’t looking. ‘I’m not sure what we were doing in that ridiculous shop in the first place. Have you come into some money or something?’
‘Just looking,’ I replied, wincing at a particularly nasty tackle. ‘Bored with everything in the wardrobe and I haven’t bought any new clothes for ages.’
‘I know I’m supposed to hate shopping,’ Tom scooted his chair closer to the table, as though he were about to impart a great secret, ‘but I actually really like it. Maddie won’t even go with me any more, we have to go our separate ways as soon as we step foot into Selfridges.’
‘And you wonder why she thought you were gay,’ I said, brushing crisp crumbs off my jeans and accepting the punch in the arm as due course. ‘I’m joking, I’m joking. I don’t hate shopping, I don’t have the time or, quite frankly, the money.’
‘How are things going with work?’ he asked. He tore open his packet of crisps as I folded my empty bag into a neat square and wedged it underneath the condiment holder. ‘Not that busy?’
‘Busy enough,’ I replied. ‘But there’s only so much I can do on my own and I can’t afford to pay anyone else full-time. I’m doing the interior design and build for a new bar not that far from here, actually. We can have a look on the way back to the car if you want?’
‘Yeah, cool,’ Tom said. ‘You going to be down here working on it then?’
I nodded.
‘In a few weeks. I’m building everything in my workshop up at home but I’ll be coming down to install it, obviously. It’s going to be cool – the sign’s up already, Camp Bell on Norville Street? It’s a brother and sister who own it.’
‘I think I’ve seen it.’ He winced at a nasty tackle on the TV. ‘You should come and stay next time you’re down here. I’m really glad it’s working out for you, Ad. You’d have been miserable if you’d stuck with the law.’
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