Page 86 of The Fullback
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Aiden
“Why the hellam I fucking everything up again?” I asked as I slumped down against the worn wooden bar of The Nag’s Head, letting out a long-suffering groan like I’d run a marathon and then gone straight into a maths exam. The last ten days had been a non-stop emotional shitshow, coupled with endless hours of cleaning, sorting, and trying to get my fucking life together. All while trying to avoid my feelings for the two men I’d left in Lincoln.
It hadn’t worked, and I was miserable as fuck. Which was why I’d dragged myself down to the pub in the hope Bacon would take pity on me. Or at least feed me.
“Do you actually want me to answer that question?” Bacon asked, putting a pint of cider down in front of me. “Or do you just want cider and sympathy?”
“Is that an option?”
“Cider, yes. Sympathy, no.”
“What? Why the fuck not?”
“Because you don’t deserve any,” Bacon said. He walked down the bar to pull more pints for other patrons, pausing to yell across the packed room. “Ollie Bates, don’t you dare touch that fucking TV.”
“But I wanna watch the Liverpool game,” Ollie moaned. He was nineteen and a little dickhead, but that was pretty much my opinion of all nineteen-year-olds.
“Tough shit, we’re watching Leicester. This is a Leicester pub, so we’re watching Leicester. Touch it again and I’ll have your fingers. Don’t like it, then go somewhere else.” He glared at Ollie, who returned to his seat with his mates while cursing Bacon out. “Fucking teenagers, man,” Bacon muttered. “Twats, the lot of them.”
“Remember when we were nineteen?” I asked with a wry smile.
“We were fucking saints compared to this lot.”
That was a lie, but I wasn’t going to point it out. Not when I was trying to wrangle sympathy out of my best friend. I picked my cider up and took a long, slow sip as I looked around the pub. It was busy and noisy, as it always was on a Sunday afternoon, the smell of roast dinners mingling with the lingering cigarette and vape smoke from people’s clothes.
All the old wooden tables were full, the battered stools and chairs digging into the threadbare red and gold patterned carpet which hadn’t been replaced since the late nineties. There were a few prints of various beer and Guinness ads on the off-white and wood-panelled walls and random beer paraphernalia stuck up above the bar, but again none of it was new.
The outside of the pub was just as battered, with chipped, whitewashed walls, a wooden door with flaking black paint, a swinging sign that had once had a horse’s head painted on, and gold-plated metal letters spelling out the pub’s name, two of which were missing and had been for close to five years.
Bacon had tried to make a few improvements over the years, but they were always met with resistance by the locals. Their argument was that if Bacon made it look too posh, then other people, those from the large houses on the nearby new-build estate, would start coming and take it over. Bacon’s argument was that he’d like the pub to not look like there was an eighty percent chance you’d get stabbed when you walked in.
The compromise seemed to be Bacon could do up the inside first, fix anything that was structurally important, like the roof, and maybe replace the missing letters on the outside. But there wereneverallowed to be hanging baskets.
There could, however, be a small safe space sticker in the window and two small Pride flags behind the bar. Bacon had added those himself and dared anyone to argue about it. The ones who’d tried had been immediately kicked out and had their photos stuck up on the Banned For Life wall near the bar.
One guy had tried to pick a fight with Bacon about it but had backed down swiftly when Bacon had pulled out the golf club from behind the bar. I hadn’t been here at the time, but I wished I had. Only because the story kept growing in the telling, and last time I’d heard it, Bacon had taken on a gang of sixteen single-handedly, armed with nothing but a golf club, a bar rag, and a pint.
It gave people something to talk about when they were bored at least.
“Can I have lunch, please?” I asked, smiling sweetly at Bacon as I put my drink down.
“Maybe.”
“What the fuck is maybe?”
“It means if you stop being a wanker, then perhaps you can have some.”
“You’re being a right dickhead today,” I muttered into my pint.
“You’re the one who came in here moaning about how you’ve fucked your life up and asking me why the fuck you’re doing it,” Bacon said as he pulled a few more pints then began to measure out a couple of glasses of wine. It was the sort of stuff Devon would faint at the idea of being called wine. “I’m guessing this isn’t just about the kitchen?”
“No.” I took another long drink, needing some courage for what I was about to admit. “I miss them.”
“And who would that be?” Bacon asked innocently. Like he didn’t know. I’d ended up spilling my guts to him the day after I’d gotten back from Lincoln because I’d been wearing a Knights T-shirt I’d pinched out of Bailey’s wardrobe like some sort of fucking trophy. He’d known I’d slept with them in the past, but he’d been far too fucking delighted to discover I’d stayed with them for two days.
“Hunter and Bailey.”
