As the days rolled past, Ste began to feel weird about what happened with Brendan. He should have been with Rae. He'd left her early, made some poor excuse about needing to give Brendan the left over money back and thank him again so that they weren't in his bad books. She'd been too ecstatic to notice his lies and he'd been too desperate to see Brendan again to care.

He told himself he hadn't gone in the office with the intention of sleeping with Brendan again. But he couldn't quite believe his own lies, no matter how many times he repeated them.

It had been wrong, against the unwritten relationship rules, but Ste had never been very good at following the rules. There was too much of a thrill in being bad. He felt his cheeks pull into a goofy smile as he remembered just how bad he and Brendan had been.

'You alright mate?' Joel asked, he was waving a flour covered hand in front of Ste's face.

'What? Yeah, fine me.'

'Well, do something then,' Mickey groaned. 'Look at the mess Spike's made.' He nodded towards the tomato puree which was partly over the counter and mostly over the floor. 'We need a bit of help here, innit.'

'Sorry,' he smiled. 'Joel, you just keep needing the doe. Mickey, you and Kevin grate the cheese.' He continued to delegate the boys of House 16 and House 4 around the kitchen. The Blue Zone turn to cook always came around quickly, but Ste didn't mind. He really enjoyed his role as boss of the kitchen. The other boys constant grumbling and endless errors were the only downside, and even that wasn't too annoying.

'That looks crap,' Kevin said casually glancing over at Mickey's attempt to grate the cheese. He looked more likely to grate his own fingers and he kept moaning about how much his arm was aching.

'Like this,' Kevin suggested. He was better at grating, but only slightly. It amazed Ste that the lads could be so crap at something so simple. Bart was the worst, he wasn't even able to open a tin without leaving half the lid attached or dropping the lid into the tin and shoving it almost to the bottom in an attempt to retrieve it, usually cutting his finger in the process. Ste had sent him away. He now had to join the nine skateboarders who crammed themselves into House 14 with the washing up. That was a crappy job. You had to wheel the plates and dishes up to this weird trough behind Brendan's house and wash them with a host, a dirty sponge and some cheap washing up liquid, which was more like slightly coloured water.

'Ste,' Mickey snarled, waving the cheese grater about. 'Tell Kevin to do one innit, or I'll grate him up.'

'I'm not scared,' Kevin replied calmly. 'You'd only mess it up and grate your own finger.'

'You epic tool, Mick,' Spike joined in happily, as though he was somehow better. Perhaps he was ignoring the fact that he had half the pizza base down the front of his West Ham football shirt. It started a scrap that Joel and new-boy and endless suck-up, Rhys tried to stop. Mick and Spike were still squirting each other with ketchup long after everyone else had calmed down and gone back to their roles.

'Well, Brendan's not going to be pleased when he sees that,' Doug muttered in Ste's ear, pointing towards the pair of London muppets wasting all the red sauce in a ridiculous fight to the tomato-flavoured death.

'It'll be alright,' Joel muttered. 'If we shoved Spickey,' that was his name for the two of them, 'on the table like that, they'd still make a better meal that the crap Green Zone cooked up last night. You know Dodger from Red Zone found a finger nail in his bolognaise.'

Ste just rolled his eyes. Just like last week and the week before and the week before, it would be up to him to fix this car crash of a meal, with only Doug to help him. The others would all find something incredibly important to do soon enough.

Ste was right. It wasn't long until it was just himself and Doug of them cooking away in a comfortable symmetry.

'So,' Doug whistled eventually, when they were putting the final slices of pineapple on the Hawaiian pizza. 'Have you and Brendan had any more rendezvous?'

'Rhonda whats?'

'Rendezvous,' Doug repeated, as though it were actually a word. 'Secret little dirty meetings.'

'What do you know?' Ste asked, swinging around sharply.

'Nothing,' Doug chuckled, all shiny and bright, like nothing on earth could bring him down. 'It was just a question.'

'Oh.' Ste went back to his pizzas. He was throwing some extra cheese over the vegetarian option when Doug spoke again.

'But I take it from that outburst that something has happened.'

'No,' Ste shook his head. 'Well, yeah,' he admitted, before turning to Doug. 'But it don't mean nothing like, 'cause see, I'm with Rae, me. And I ain't gay, not proper like not like….' He pointed feebly towards Doug, before turning back to the pizzas. He wished he'd just said "no" and carried on with his work silently, but stupid old Ste, he just talks his mouth off as always. And here was some more unstoppable word-vomit:

'See the thing is,' he continued. 'I don't even go there thinking that it's gonna happen, right? And then suddenly, it's all I can think about and even when he's telling me to stop like, it feels like he's telling me to keep going. It's like he's put some voodoo round my brain or something.'

'Or maybe you're just attracted to him,' Doug suggested. 'I get it, I guess. I mean he's important around here, he's rich and dangerous, that's sexy right? And he looks pretty smart in a suit, I guess … I'm not sure about the moustache, but that's just personal taste. Doesn't it hurt when you kiss him?'

Ste wasn't sure how to answer that. He thought maybe it did, but it was like his brain shut down when he was around Brendan. He couldn't think clearly when the Irishman was near. He just reacted on impulse, on some deep instinct that he couldn't explain when he was away from him.

'I dunno,' he shrugged, and all he could hear was Brendan's accent asking "You dunno?". He needed to change the conversation:

'How are things with Old O'Shaughnessy?' he asked.

'He's getting bored with me,' Doug sighed. 'Only wants to see me every other week now. Brendan seems to think he's got a new man on the go, but I think he likes the excuse to drive in to Dublin once a week with a few of the Blue Zone boys.'

'Ah yeah,' Ste nodded. 'Probably.'

'Surprised he hasn't taken you though, eh?' Doug elbowed him in the ribs playfully. 'Great opportunity for a little rendezvous.'

'Can you stop saying that word, right,' Ste groaned, batting the elbow away. 'I never learned any French, me.'

'It's…' Doug began. 'Never mind,' he sighed. 'Are those pizza's ready to go in the oven?'

Ste just nodded and helped put the pizzas in, but he felt a bit thick for not knowing Doug's fancy words, and he felt a bit miffed that he was yet to have the chance to go into Dublin.

Thanks for reading!

Short Chapter – There will be an update later today/ tomorrow. xx