Page 1 of Topped

Chapter One

Milo

Leaving me alone with a pair of hair clippers when I was bored was one of the worst things anyone could do, because it only ever ended one way.

But since I currently lived alone, there was nobody to stop me from shaving my entire head in front of the bathroom mirror. And getting rid of my moustache too.

It wasn’t like I hated my hair, I was just bored of it. And boredom was my ultimate nemesis.

It was the reason that, nine months ago, I’d given up the vaguely stable life I’d managed to establish and moved back to my hometown of Heather Bay, on the North Yorkshire coast, to help one of my best mates open an ice cream shop.

At the time, it had just seemed like another random thing I was doing with my life, but in hindsight it had worked out really fucking well. I loved helping Darcy and our other friend, Alfie, to run Lick It!. And after years of pissing around, not doing all the things people wanted me to do with my life and avoiding responsibility at every turn, it felt like I’d finally found something I could stick with.

I liked talking to people, I liked nattering about the fabulous ice cream we made, I liked getting to make graphics and dick around on social media, and I liked the fact that I didn’t have someone bossing me around because I was in charge.

Well, sort of.

Darcy was the most in charge because this was his dream and it was his name on everything, and I wasn’t going to discount that. And I was happy not to have his level of responsibility because doing accounts or making tiny but monumental decisions about the future of the business wasn’t really my forte.

I’d stick to charming our customers, online and in real life, and annoying Darcy into giving me the new ice cream flavours I wanted.

He’d already given in on the banana front, and I was sure there were other things we needed to try too.

“Hmm, not bad,” I murmured to myself as I ran my hand over my freshly shaved head, humming happily as I turned from left to right to see if I’d missed any spots. I’d kept a guard on so I wasn’t completely bald. But a three-millimetre cut was very different to the mullet-slash-wolf cut I’d been sporting all summer, the remnants of which were now littering my sink.

I kept humming as I cleaned everything up, because I knew if I didn’t do it now, I wouldn’t do it later. Then it would sit there for three days until I got frustrated and tried to rinse it away. And the last thing I wanted was a clogged sink.

Walking back into my bedroom, I pulled on a pair of jeans, one of the branded T-shirts Darcy had finally gotten us, and grabbed a patchwork, pullover fleece from my wardrobe that had been my uncle’s in the eighties. It was lovingly worn and had been repaired several times by both of us, but I couldn’t bring myself to consider getting rid of it. Not when it still had so much life left to live.

As I grabbed my boots from their spot by the front door, I realised it was also pissing it down. Again. Which meant I was going to need a hat, unless I wanted my head to freeze. Which I did not.

I knew endless rain was all part and parcel of living in England, especially in the autumn, but did it have to be so bloody miserable alongside it? I swore, if we got horrible winter weather while Darcy and Owen, his boyfriend and our other ice cream maker, were sunning themselves in Australia for three weeks, then I was going to riot.

And by riot, I meant pelting them with endless messages about how cold, wet, and long-suffering I was.

It took me ten minutes to find a beanie, and even then it wasn’t the one I really wanted. But by that point I’d lost patience with the idea of searching, so I pulled the one I’d retrieved on and headed out the door of my flat, keeping an ear on the floor above me as I reached for the handle of the outer door.

Darcy lived above me, and I’d gotten pretty good at tracking his movements, and his mood, by the sound of his footsteps. Of course, now him and Owen were practically living together, I’d also gotten good at figuring out when the pair of them were going to turn up for work based on whether I could hear them fucking or not.

Everything was suspiciously quiet. Which meant they’d either left for the shop already, or they hadn’t come back from Owen’s morning swim and Darcy’s “run.” Which we all knew was code for perving on his boyfriend in a wetsuit.

God, I hadn’t gotten laid in so fucking long.

Longer than I’d admit to anyone, even Alfie and Darcy.

I’d thought that being in town during tourist season would make it easy to find people for casual hook-ups whenever I wanted them. What I hadn’t counted on was being so goddamn exhausted that the idea of seeing anyone, even for anonymous sex, just didn’t interest me. As much as I wanted sex, I didn’t have the emotional or physical bandwidth to make decisions or deal with people.

Maybe I’d have better luck over the winter.

Or maybe I could book a weekend away somewhere—a big city like Manchester or London—and spend two days in a haze of lust-filled decadence. That would take the edge off at least.

I put my earbuds in as I slipped out of the building, putting my playlist on and letting the random selection of music carry me away as I strode through Heather Bay, the rain pouring down around me. The cobblestones under foot shone in the early morning gloom, puddles already forming in dips and cracks in the concrete.

There weren’t many people around, so nobody stared as I danced in the rain, although I stopped short of spinning myself around a lamp post. A few drops of water slid down the back of my neck, and I cursed, trying to pat them away and only succeeding in making them slither further under my clothes.

That would serve me right for shaving all my fucking hair off and exposing my skin.

It wasn’t far to Lick It!, and as I danced around the corner, I saw a familiar figure hurrying towards me from the other direction.