Published: 28 Sept 2017

Isn’t Life Strange?

It had completely gone out of my head to recharge my phone, it had been dead since when? Sometime Sunday night I think, two, no three days ago, counting today. I plugged it in and switched it on as Matty came down to join me. He had a blanket over his shoulders and just a T shirt and pants. I could’ve picked him up and taken him straight back to bed. How did I suddenly become so obsessed?

I finished laying the table, poured him a coffee. Luckily I’d managed to find a jar of instant in the cupboard, Gareth was more a tea person. The toast popped up and the phone started going crazy!

I took my coffee over to look at the messages. My parents, my parents, my parents, again my parents, Jonathan, more from my parents and even one from Michael. I didn’t much feel like reading them, at least not the texts from mum and dad, it’s obvious what they would be saying. I just left it there and joined Matty for breakfast.

I told you before my life was a helter skelter of highs and lows, but now I was on a high, counting last night a real high, a stoned high. We didn’t talk much, just ate breakfast, looking at each other over mugs of coffee and between bites of toast, smiling, happy.

“Where’s Gareth?” Matty asked.

“He went into town, he’ll be back later.”

“So what’s the plan now?” He grabbed the last piece of toast.

“You want some more?”

“More what?”

“More sex… toast imbecile” I blurted out chuckling.

“I think I like the first better.”

“Ha ha, maybe we could do both. How about I eat a slice of toast off a your sprawled out naked body.”

“I prefer you eat my cock,” he replied.

“Yeah, I bet you would.” The toast popped up and I put a slice on his plate. “That’s all you’re getting for now,” I told him.

“You are… such a tease.”

“Rubbish, look at yourself sitting there half naked.”

He couldn’t reply, he was eating the toast.

We finished breakfast, cleaned up, washed and Matty got dressed. I decided we needed some air, some outside fresh country air. He agreed, and we ended up climbing the hill behind the farmhouse, right to the top. The view was superb, you could see in every direction for like miles and miles. It was all farmland and hedge rows, there weren’t too many trees. The one point of interest was towards the end of the ridge where an almost round hill peaked above the height at which we were standing and it was crowned with some sort of building. Definitely a building, it was grey, but too far away to make out any details.

We’d kind of lost track a bit of time, but I thought it couldn’t yet be midday, though I wasn’t too sure, anyway I suggested we go back down and see about making a meal, it would be nice to do for when Gareth got back. Running and screaming down the hillside scattered the sheep in every direction, then they regrouped behind us and looked over like as if they were contemplating a couple of idiots. Then they lost interest, short attention span sheep, they quickly returned to eating the grass, and we clowned our way back to the farmhouse, saw to the fire, and set about cooking.

It was actually nearly two, I checked on my phone, which I unplugged because it was fully charged, but I still didn’t bother with the messages, I muted the volume so I wouldn’t hear it ring. That was another world, this here was our time, our adventure, our life, the only link between the two was the phone and I didn’t want to have to deal with all that shit.

You couldn’t miss hearing Gareth arriving back, motorbikes are loud, but when Matty looked out and I followed, peering over his shoulder, it wasn’t just Gareth, there were two other motorbikes in the farm yard.

Gareth led the way in through the back door, followed by another guy with short black hair, probably about Gareth’s age, scrawny, he had a leather biker’s jacket on. Behind him was a big guy, I mean heavily built, longish wild blond hair tied in a pony tail, moustache, cut away denim vest revealing huge tattooed arms. On his upper right arm was an American eagle with a banner scroll underneath, it said ‘SoS’.

“This is Aled,” Gareth introduced the scrawny guy, “and Steve.” That was the well built one who looked like he could have been in the hells angels, not that I knew anything about them except from movies. “That’s Alex… and Matty.” Introductions over they moved through into the lounge dining room.

“Something smells good,” Steve smiled in my direction. Funny, you could almost imagine he was the gentle giant when he smiled. A definite movie character I thought, especially because I got a glimpse of a gold tooth. Couldn’t place his accent though, it wasn’t local.

“We cooked up a stew,” I said, looking over at Gareth. “Thought you might be hungry when you got back.” He smiled and winked. “There’s enough for everyone,” I added.

“I wouldn’t mind eating,” Aled was half looking at me, but posing the question to Gareth.

“Okay,” Gareth replied. “Alex, Matty, if you could like give us ten minutes, we’ve just got a bit of business to sort out. Then… well it would be great, thanks.”

Matty and I put our jackets on and wondered out through the backdoor leaving the three of them alone in private. Of course I couldn’t help being curious, but it really was none of our business, no point spoiling a good thing, we are only guests after all.

“Matty,” I said, “don’t go doing your Sherlock technique on them, not like that time with Brandon and Jonathan, when you got it all wrong anyway.” “I don’t think I got it all wrong,” he defended.

“Whatever, let’s not spoil what we’ve got here.”

“Yeah, okay,” he replied grabbing hold of me and leaving his arm round my waist.

It was chilly standing around outside waiting, but it wasn’t long before Gareth poked his head outside and said, “Thanks guys.” He was smiling again, “Let’s eat.”

It was good we made a large pot, it all got polished off, and I think appreciated, although it was only vegetables with some seasoning. Still no one was complaining.

Matty looked over to Steve and said, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

Oh no I thought, he’s not going to do his third degree on him, not after we just spoke about that outside.

“Depends on the question,” Steve smiled back.

“Well… I… was just wondering.” Here we go I imagined Matty ruining everything.

“Yeah, okay, what?” Steve was still smiling or smirking, perhaps just grinning.

“That tattoo.”

“Which one?” Steve asked.

“The one on the top of your right arm.”

“This one,” Steve turned his arm towards Matty holding his other hand just underneath the eagle. “This is the motor cycle club I belong to.”

“What’s it mean… SoS, I thought it was like ‘help’?”

Steve smiled at that. “Well it could mean that, but it don’t.”

Matty waited expectantly for an explanation and so did I.

“It stands for Sons of Silence, the club name.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” Matty replied. “Where is that club?”

“America, southern California, which explains why you might not have heard of us… until now.”

“Are you American?” Matty continued.

“Matty,” I interrupted. “Leave the guy alone will ya.”

“It’s okay Alex,” Steve replied. “He’s curious, but you should be careful Matty, because you know what they say.”

Matty looked at him, “No what do they say?”

Steve got up from the table, walked around to him and put his huge arm around Matty’s head to hold him in a headlock. He tousled his hair, then let go. I was holding my breath. He went to sit down in the armchair nearest the fireplace. “Curiosity killed the cat.” He sat down. “That’s what they say.”

Everyone had finished eating so I started clearing the table. Gareth and Aled went over to sit on the sofa, in passing Gareth put another log on the fire. Matty helped me put the plates in the kitchen.

Then Gareth said, “Leave that, we can do it later.”

So Matty and I joined everyone else, we squashed two onto the other armchair with Matty half on one arm and half on me. Gareth picked up his ‘tobacco’ tin and the afternoon rolled mellowly into the evening.

Drugs … coming up in chapter 13.

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