My Favourite Part

65(a): fancy seeing you here

Scott Kellerman

My best mate Jimi's never had much of a sense of boundaries. At times, it's one of my favourite things about him; we wouldn't even have become friends if he didn't decide to invite himself over to my house that first day we met at Scouts. At other times though...

"Kellie," Jimi hollers as he waltzes into my room from the kitchen; although, with a mouth full of biscuits of assorted sizes and flavours, the noise he makes sounds less like my name, and more like an indistinct, garbled 'k' sound.

"What happened to those ginger butter biscuits you made? I was looking through your pantry for ages, and all I could find was these flapjack ones! I'll eat them, because I'm not a picky lad, but I've gotta be honest, K," he takes a sip from my water bottle on my desk before flumping stomach-down into the settee and delivering his final critique,

"They're a tad dry."

...At other times, my best mate Jimi could use a boundary or two. But he's got a good heart – that's what counts.

"D'you want one?" He offers as a token gesture, not quite extending the biscuit far enough for me to reach it.

"One of my dry flapjacks? Nah, I think I'm alright, J," I laugh, turning back around to face my desk and the mountain of homework I've barely tackled since Jimi's arrival. I let out a hefty sigh, and put my pen down resignedly. If you can't beat 'em...

"Pass one here then," I concede, and as he hands me a biscuit, Jimi smiles with the smugness of having finally distracted me.

He's preoccupied as he scrolls through his Instagram feed, so we chew in silence for a while, and as I dig my tongue into my teeth, I realize he's right: the flapjacks are a bit on the dry side.

I'm pretty sure my dad taught me the recipe, back when he had time for petty pastimes like baking and fatherhood. Back then, all I cared about was spending time with my father – the greatest man alive. That was kind of our thing. I didn't care how many times he cancelled on me because of meetings, or how many ingredients he forgot to pick up. All that mattered was that I'd spend an hour or two baking with my dad before he went back to being the glorious Archie Kellerman, filmmaker extraordinaire.

And now, 10 years later, I can't even stand being in the same room as the prick. I let out a dry laugh at the thought, even though it's not funny.

"Whatcha thinkin' bout?" Jimi interjects, and I'd almost forgotten he was there.

"Girls," I lie, taking another crunch of the crisp flapjack so that I don't have to elaborate any further.

Jimi knows me too well to buy it, and his snort is accordingly bold and dubious.

"Bullshit," he laughs. "But since you don't want to tell me what's actually on your mind, I'll bite... The fuck's going on with you and Bonnie Wyatt?"

"Me and Bonnnie?" I frown, not sure of what to say when there's nothing to be said.

"Nothing. What d'you mean?"

"Oh, piss off about 'nothing'," Jimi dismisses, sitting upright so that he can look me in the face.

"She flirts with you like crazy every time she sees you in the corridor! Touching your arms, calling you 'Scottie'..."

"Yeah...?"

"And you don't exactly discourage her..."

I shrug and shake my head as I look for an answer, but there really isn't one.

"Yeah but... that's 'cause she's Bonnie. I mean, that's just what she does. It's what she's done since we broke up in bloody Year 10. She's just like that."