The Watch – Part 82:

He was gloating all the way home by describing how he had won by the width of a single hair.

‘I mean, I didn’t even think that was possible,’ he said excitedly. ‘I mean, I’ve heard of photo finishes, but you could hardly see the difference between our two karts even in a photo.’ I was just letting him get his smugness out of his system, even though I knew it would be a while before he was calm. The day was getting on a bit, nearing the end of the afternoon and entering the evening, so the sun was nearing the horizon as it sat between the ground and thin layer of cloud that was gradually making its way from the south.

He continued, this time adding some exaggerated body language in to make his words that much more dramatic. ‘Every race was incredible, I must say. The way we both threw our karts around and shot down each straight, crossing the start-finish with one of us on the other’s tail, and the amount of times we overtook us, the people who were watching would have been out-cold drunk by the end of it.’ Why would they be playing a drinking game based on how many times we overtook one another? ‘But the millimetres don’t lie, I’m afraid.’ He paused and looked at me with a confused look about him.

‘What?’ he questioned.

‘The millimetres don’t lie,’ I repeated succumbing to full on laughter. ‘What sort of sentence is that?’

‘An accurate one, if you may ask,’ he said. ‘I won, two to one, and no you must do your end of the bargain.’ I had almost forgotten the deal that I had made. I was too confident in my victory that I had said I would describe what my first kiss with Amy felt like. I stopped laughing immediately as the memory of our deal came flooding back.

‘And you’re not going to stop being smug until I tell you,’ I said, knowing how Tom works.

‘Nope,’ he said simply.

‘Fine,’ I said, giving in. I knew that if I tried to argue my way out of this one, the situation would only get worse for me and I would probably end up doing a lot more than what I had already agreed, so I might as well just get this over and done with before I regret it. ‘I’ll tell you when we get home.

‘I’ll make sure I have some popcorn ready,’ Tom said.

‘Don’t try and rub it in,’ I said.

‘I’m not trying,’ he said, smiling. I looked at him with a look that told him he had better run or stop talking. He chose to run and I sprinted after him. We ran all the way home. I tried to catch him before he got near my home so I didn’t have to follow through with my end of the bargain, but he was just a little bit too quick.

‘Don’t allow me to win this race either,’ he said mockingly.

‘Right, that’s it,’ I said, pushing myself to run faster with the aid of all the adrenaline in my body. He knew that he had better stop talking and focus on running away from me – I was about to grab hold of his T-shirt with my outstretched arm. My fingers brushed up against his flailing T-shirt as he ran, but I couldn’t grab hold and he slammed on his brakes and slowed down enough allowing him to turn sharply into my front garden at the same time I shot off past my gate where I had to slow down and turn back.

‘I’m in the safe zone,’ he said, holding his hands up.

‘I was this close to grabbing your top,’ I held up my forefinger and thumb as close as I could without them actually touching as I walked by to unlock the front door.

‘Don’t you just hate when it’s only millimetres,’ Tom said, shaking his head with his hands on his hips. We were both out of breath and nearly bent double with a stitch, but we were able to fight it off before it grew. I pushed open the door and walked inside at a fast pace. Tom made sure to walk as close as he could behind me as he knew that I would shut him out. I’ve done that before, but obviously not in an enemy motive, but in a you’ve-jokingly-annoyed-me-so-I’m-going-to-jokingly-retaliated-like-the-good-friends-we-are motive. We know how to push each other’s buttons. He’s locked me out of his bedroom before, so I’m not the only one that’s retaliated in that way. He shut the door and followed me into the living room where I had already taken off my bag and settled down on the sofa. Tom sat down beside me and waited a couple of seconds to set the atmosphere before jumping straight into asking the question.

‘So how was it?’ he said enthusiastically.

I sighed as I struggled to know where to begin. ‘It was… Awesome,’ I said.

‘Well, I kind of already knew that,’ he said.

‘But you asked how it was and what it felt like, and I said it was and felt awesome.’

'Yeah, and, you also said that you wouldn't spare any details. The word awesome isn't enough detail.'

'I think you find,' I argued, 'that the word awesome is packed full of a lot of detail. It's telling you just how it was.'

‘Are you really trying to get out of this one via a loophole, if you can call it that?’ Tom said quizzing me.

‘But you can’t argue that I didn’t tell you, though,’ I said.

‘But how were the details,’ he said.’

‘That’s not what we agreed on.’

'I think you find we did,' Tom countered confidently.

'Ah, but you beat me two-to-one,' I said just as confidently back.

'And that means I beat you,' Tom said wondering where this is going.

'You didn't beat me two-to-nil. I beat you as well.'

'That's not how it works,' Tom defended. 'That's not how it works at all.'

'Technically speaking, you now have to do a forfeit,' I smiled.

'I don't think you understand what's going on here,' Tom said. 'You're digging yourself a massive hole here, and it's only a matter of time before you realise you can't get yourself out of it.'

'On the contrary, you've just fallen into the whole I've dug,' I said.

'We're not going anywhere with this,' Tom held up his hands as if to say he gives up. ‘You had this planned all along didn’t you?’

‘Actually, I didn’t.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘That’s fine by me,’ I laughed at how I had outsmarted Tom.

‘That’s not fair, you do know that, don’t you,’ Tom said.

‘You said deal before thinking,’ I said.

‘One day, I’ll make you talk eventually,’ he couldn’t help but laugh as well. Our laughter bounced off one another infectiously, growing stronger until we had tears in our eyes, and we weren’t sure as to why we were laughing in the first place as the topic of conversation wasn’t that funny at all.

When we had calmed down and wiped away our tears, there was a rather impatient knock at the door. We snapped our attention towards it, wondering who that could be and why they were impatient, if they were at all.

‘Sebastian,’ came Amy’s worried voice from outside. ‘I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.’ At the sound of Amy’s voice, I jumped up and ran towards the door, opening it quickly, letting Amy canter in, out of breath from running over here, laptop in her arms. She entered the living room and saw Tom sitting on the sofa.

‘Is everything alright?’ I asked worriedly because Amy being worried.

‘I think I had better leave you two in peace,’ Tom said standing up. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he waved before opening the door.

‘Yeah, I’ll catch up to you later,’ I said. He closed the door and headed home.

‘What’s up?’ I asked Amy, sitting down beside her.

‘You have to see this,’ she said, handing me a laptop and sitting down on the sofa. ‘But be warned, because it’s going to be quite a shock.’

‘Does this have to do with…’

‘I have no idea. Just watch and then you can start asking questions.’

I opened the laptop. Rubbing my finger on the mouse to wake up the screen, a paused video presented me. The quality wasn’t that great, but it was clear enough for me to make out enough to know that the person taking this video was standing in front of a building. It was at an angle that wouldn’t allow me to see what type of building it was, just a shot of a warehouse type door that looked to be locked with long, tough chains connected to the biggest padlock I’ve ever seen. I moved the mouse and clicked the play button. There was no audio.

‘Should there be sound?’

‘It didn’t come with any,’ Amy said, getting more anxious the closer I came to watching the video. I carried on watching. The camera remained stationary for a couple of seconds before slowly turning around. The panoramic shot eventually stopped facing in the opposite direction towards a railway station that had been closed for some time. Then, the surprising part started. Someone walked out of the station, acting all nonchalantly, with her head down as if she knew the person was videoing the station and didn’t want to be seen.

‘Oh my God,’ I said, seeing just who she was. ‘That’s…’

Amy nodded her head. ‘That’s me,’ she said. ‘And do you want to know what the strangest part of it all is,’ she said.

‘There’s more?’

‘I have never been there before in my life…’

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)