Lost in Manchester - 3. The Get Out. September 2009. Adam.

Adam was in two minds whether to stay or go as Ali disappeared across the room and away for the evening. He decided he would probably just finish his pint, then head off.

Cameron came back across as soon as there was a lull in customers.

“So you staying on for the evening fun?” the barman asked wryly.

Adam looked at his glass with a third remaining and back up to Cameron.

“I’ll get you a fresh one, on me” Cameron said, answering the question for him. “And let me welcome you in to the Loom Inn dating shop. No-one leaves empty-handed.”

Adam watched Cameron walk across the bar and start to pull a new pint of the same ale Adam had previously ordered. The guy had the presence of a bar owner. He was tall, and his physique suggested he might have been a gym addict about five or ten years ago. He wore a deep tan like a badge of pride and his thin, tight top made his nipples a little too visible beneath the fabric. But most importantly for a barkeeper, he seemed like good company.

As the pub got busier, Cameron had to excuse himself again to serve customers, so Adam picked up a local paper that had been left on the bar and flicked his way through it. There was little of interest in there, but it served as a comfort blanket while Cameron was occupied.

What he needed was for a hot single guy to come in, pull up a stool and get chatting. That guy in the Superman t-shirt earlier would have done nicely. They could have a few gin and tonics, then slip away together back to the flat. Sit and have another drink, chat politely, then look at each other and without saying a word start tearing each other’s clothes off, kissing passionately, writhing together…

Another man approached the bar, and sat on a stool, a couple of spaces along. Cameron went across and greeted the man like an old friend, although it was difficult to tell whether that was just his way with everyone. He fetched the man a drink and then turned to Adam.

“Adam, let me introduce you to Mr Thomas Delaney, a good friend of mine and another lonely heart in this big city.”

Adam turned to face the man and smiled. This was a long way from the stud in the superman t-shirt. He was definitely too old; like a proper grown-up. Like Cameron, he was tall and looked about 40. He had a classic Irish look with dark hair, pale skin and an expressive face, which could almost be handsome. But no, he looked too serious. Too grown-up. And he hadn’t even ironed his shirt.

“Pleasure to meet you Adam” he said, revealing a surprisingly perky Celtic tone beneath the somewhat ragged exterior.

“Likewise” Adam said politely, and glanced back down at the paper.

“Adam just moved to Manchester after splitting up with his boyfriend” Cameron informed the man, re-energising the introduction. He flashed a suggestive eyebrow movement to the newcomer that Adam was probably not supposed to see, then quickly moved off to serve another customer.

Oh god. Cameron was trying to set them up.

Adam glanced up at the man, worried a chat-up line was about to follow.

Thomas made a slightly pained face.

“Sorry about him. We were old clubbing mates. He still thinks he owes me for all the guys I pushed his way back in the day”

Adam heard Cameron laugh aloud, and looked back to a slightly vulnerable looking smile on the Irishman’s face.

“Have you been following this story?” Thomas asked, overtly changing the subject, and pointing to the picture of a greying politician on the front of the paper that Adam had put down on the bar.

Adam looked at the picture. “No. Who is it?”

“Oh, no, it doesn’t matter, I just thought you might be following it.”

“I kind of started to read it, but…” Adam trailed off. I got distracted thinking about how much I want to have sex right now.

“It’s the Leader of the Council. He’s basically being wooed by Ministers to trial this traffic management scheme in the city – something like the London congestion charge, you know?”.

Adam nodded. How had he sleep walked into this conversation?

“It’s one of those ideas that’ll never work here, but this guy is too vain and too weak to tell that to the Government. He wants to be seen to be at the forefront of any new scheme, whether or not it actually makes any sense for the city. Bloody Labour politicians”.

Adam glanced up and caught the eye of Cameron who had been busying himself clearing a few glasses. Cameron smiled sympathetically, but was clearly used to avoiding these conversations with his old friend.

“Sorry” Thomas said, realising himself, “I get too involved sometimes.”

Thomas excused himself to use the bathroom and after finishing serving another customer Cameron sidled across.

“He’s a good guy” Cameron said, pre-emptively.

“He’s a bit intense, and possibly old enough to be my dad.” Adam said, smiling and shaking his head at Cameron’s bad matchmaking.

“Get away wi’ you. Seriously, you should see him on a good day”

“I’m definitely not going home with him”.

Cameron grinned and shook his head, moving off again as he saw Thomas returning.

“So what’s your political leaning?” Thomas asked Adam, within seconds of taking his seat again.

Adam saw Cameron smile and then raise his eyebrows in anticipation of the response.

“Well, to be honest…” he began, then hesitated. Did he really want to get into this? This was obviously a guy who liked his politics. But then again, what the hell. He could run for the hills afterwards.

“Well, to be honest, I think it’s all bollocks. They all seem to pander to whatever the majority thinks anyway. You know, I kind of want politicians to be the smart ones, the ones looking out for the big issues, but they never are. Like, you might as well use the cast of Big Brother as the Cabinet and you’d get the same decisions.”

Thomas smiled. “So what are the big issues?” he asked, sounding like a teacher probing his pupil to think harder.

This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to get trapped in. Not on a Saturday night. Not when he should be getting laid.

Adam watched as another guy came and rested his arm against the bar, looked around and then ordered a glass of wine. The guy looked about Adam’s age, dark hair, a skinny geek kind of look. The guy glanced up and caught Adam’s eye for just a second longer than you would with a regular stranger. He couldn’t run now. This guy was cute.

“You know what, forget I said it. I guess politicians probably have no choice but to do that. Politics is not really my thing”. How could he strategically move himself to the other side of the bar, to strike up a conversation with the new arrival?

Thomas held his hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go all Jeremy Paxman on you. We can change the subject if you’d like. I was genuinely interested though.”

Adam turned back to face him. His wide-open eyes invited honesty.

“Ok, fine. Well, I just feel like politicians should be the ones standing up and saying stuff like stopping climate change is more important than letting everyone in this country take as many flights as they want round the world. Or that giving everyone in Africa access to fresh drinking water is more important than lowering taxes in this country for people who think that having a hot tub in their back garden is a human right”.

He paused for a breath. Thomas was waiting patiently for him to continue.

“I hate the way they spend time researching which football team or chart band they should say they love just so that they can get more votes. Or spend their time doing surveys and making up policy based on what focus groups say is most popular. Because it totally misses the point that a lot of our biggest problems need strategy, not just pandering to self-interested individuals”.

Thomas nodded again. “I can tell politics is not really your thing”.

Adam shrugged. “Ok, rant over”.

Cameron returned to the pair and seemed amused that Adam had silenced his friend.

“Another drink?”

“Yes” they both replied quickly.

Adam stared at his drink as Thomas checked through messages on his phone.

He started to wonder about Thomas. You could almost imagine the guy brushing up well, and he did have a mischievous kind of grin. There was a sort of spark between them. But no. He was definitely too old.

Adam looked across to the other side of the bar again where the dark-haired newcomer was now engrossing himself in his phone, looking up every few seconds towards the door, hoping somebody was about to arrive. The guy registered Adam looking across again and smiled briefly before returning his gaze to the phone.

Yep, he would definitely do.

Cameron returned with their drinks and helped smooth the conversation gradually away from politics, with a story of his only moment of political activism.

“So it’s 1988 and i’ve got this cute young Tory boy back up to my room. It’s taken me all of 90 minutes from meeting him to get him there. We’re on the bed and I’m on top of him, and we’re going at it like rabbits. He’s looking up in my eyes like he loves me, and i’m getting close and so is he. And then right there, I decide to do it. I keep it going and he’s moaning like crazy and I lean down until my mouth is right against his ear and just as I explode inside him and his eyes are rolling back inside his head in ecstasy, I whisper deep in his ear, Thatcher’s a bitch.”

Adam saw the guy on the other side of the bar smile at the story. He looked hot.

A little way into the next drink they were sharing stories and debating the relative merits of eighties and nineties pop. Adam was starting to feel tipsy and he could tell Thomas was increasingly flirting. At the same time he had registered a couple of times the guy across the bar checking him out. Presumably whoever the guy was due to meet wasn’t coming now.

Thomas excused himself for the bathroom again, and with lightheaded confidence, Adam moved round the bar and took a stool next to the cute geek.

“How’s your evening going?”

The guy smiled. “Not so great. Stood up.”

“No way. Who would do that?” He accompanied it with a gesture to the guy. It was meant as a compliment, but as the words tumbled out, he realised how cheesy it had sounded.

The guy dipped his head a little, coyly. Man, he was totally up for it. If the earlier furtive glances across were a clue, this was the clincher.

The guy nodded his head in the direction of the toilets. “Your friend’s coming back. I need to go myself.”

“Sure”. Adam replied. “He’s not a friend though. I mean, he’s not…you know…”

The geek’s eyes twinkled as he disappeared to the bathroom.

Thomas returned to the bar and took up a new bar stool, next to where Adam had moved to.

“So listen. If you fancy it, we could head back to mine, grab some G&Ts and fish out that original Now album on LP I was talking about?”.

The conversation should never have got here. How to get out of this?

He saw his skinny geek returning from the toilets.

“Ah, that sounds fun” he said confidently, catching the eye of the geek as he approached, then reaching out to put an arm round the guy’s waist as he came past. “But I’ve just been invited back for a drink with this guy.”

Adam could hardly breathe. This was an unexpectedly bold move. He hadn’t done anything like this before. It could go excruciatingly wrong. But the boy whose waist he had grabbed didn’t say anything and just looked at him calmly. His body had relaxed into Adam’s arm. It felt nice actually. Shit, this might actually work.

“No worries” the Irishman said laughing. “You boys have a good night”.

Adam grabbed his coat quickly, said his farewells and headed out with the stranger.

As soon as they reached the outside, he burst into laughter.

“Shit, I’m so sorry. I just had to get out of that situation”

“No, no, it’s fine” the guy said, his eyes dancing. “Really fine”.

Adam grinned. “So you live far?”

“Five minutes”

“Cool”

“So do you want a G&T?”

“Well, sure”

In a few minutes they arrived back at the entrance to Cotton Tower.

“This is me” the guy said.

Adam looked at him. “No way. Me too”

“Well how convenient” the guy replied, his eyebrows flicking up and down, suggesting there could be a nice arrangement on the cards here.

It briefly struck Adam this could be a bad idea. But as they started kissing on the lift up, that idea quickly faded.

The guy fumbled at the lock and they fell into the flat.

“Hey” came a female voice from the lounge. It sounded half familiar. “Is that the sound of Carl shaped footsteps I hear in the corridor” the voice continued. It sounded like she was heading through.

A figure turned into the corridor and stopped in her tracks. Adam’s eyes focused on the figure of Ali.

“What are you…?” she uttered.

The cute geek looked confused at the reaction between the two. “What?”

“Who’s Carl?” Adam said, feeling suddenly very aware of how drunk he was.

“Well indeed” Ali replied, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

“He’s a guy I was dating” the cute guy answered, then turned to Ali. “I was stood up” he said defiantly.

“But, what are you doing here?” Adam asked her, his beer-addled brain struggling to understand the situation.

Ali smiled and crossed her arms. “Well, I guess you’ve met my flatmate Daniel then”.