The Latterson List

Chapter Three - The Invitee

Before Tom and I had made it anywhere near his house, the heavens opened in a shower of rain the likes I had never seen before. Deep, deep puddles formed in seconds along our path. Leaves that had been shredded from their branches by lashings of raindrops littered the ground, forming a slippery layer over the concrete. Spray from cars dashing by splashed up at us as we ran, drenching any part of us that had somehow remained sheltered from the wet. Thunder boomed ahead of us, and each time Tom flinched, ducking into an almost crouch.

The rain hammered down in sheets almost horizontal. It took Tom almost a minute to fumble with the lock on his garden gate. Partly because of how slippy the greasy metal was, but mostly because his hands would clench and retract every time there was a flash of lightning or a boom of thunder. We hurried down the garden path and in through the heavy front door.

The Wilders' house was a cottage made of grey stone and covered in ivy. It had a thatched roof, a log burner (thank God) and a huge red barn door. Mr Wilder had died several years ago in a car accident, and it had just been Tom and his mum since I'd known him. Mrs Wilder, Heather, was a kind lady with Tom's hair and eyes. And if you caught her in the right mood, she allowed flecks of humour just like her son's to shine through as well.

Mrs Wilder met us at the door, a worn pink towel at the ready. She dived on us both the second we were through the threshold. "Bloody hell, what did you two do? Swim home?"

"Well, duh!" Tom yelled, his voice battling to be heard over his mother rubbing his hair dry with that pink towel. "Have you seen the weather? It's like the sky is falling."

"There was nothing about this on the news," Mrs Wilder attacked my hair next, shaking my head until my vision blurred. "Oh look at the state of you both. Into the bathroom and strip."

Excuse me?

"Now! Go on, boys! You're getting my carpet wet!" Mrs Wilder began shooing us up the stairs towards the bathroom. She bullied the two of us into the tiled room, lobbed the towel at her son and the wandered off in search of dry clothes.

Tom peeled off his jumper like it was an extra layer of skin. I slumped over the bath. Grabbing the front of my jumper and shirt, I rang it out. The water poured off of the clutch of clothing as fast as it would have out of a tap. After rinsing as much out of my tops as I could, and turned to face a nearly naked Tom.

I blinked.

He smoothed a new towel over his torso, the material sliding over every defined lump in his abdomen. Even freezing half to death, his skin was an enviable olive tone. He pushed the towel down his front, drying right down past the teasing of trimmed hair pulling up from his soaking black boxers. With his other hand, Tom shook out the damp in his now slightly curly thick blond hair. He dragged his hand through his hair, and then smoothed it down the opposing side of his neck and across the broad expanse of his shoulder. Then, he wrapped the towel around the bottom of one of his legs and dragged it up his calves and then thighs and laid it rest just under his, quite frankly, obscenely bountiful lump in his dripping boxers.

Thankfully, before I could begin drooling, a crash of lightning lit up the entire house in a pink glow. Tom leapt four foot from the ground, one hand finding mine in a spat of panic. Seconds later, a roll of thunder shook the walls of the cottage, and with each barrage of sound, Tom clenched my hand tighter.

"Are you okay?" I finally said as the thunder disappeared. Tom glanced at me, and let go of my hand.

"Yeah I'm okay. I just don't do well with thunder and lightning," he whispered.

"I can tell..." I smirked. Mrs Wilder appeared again with a further fresh towel, and a couple of sets of dry clothes. I stripped down to my underwear, and when Tom had left the room, I discarded my pants as well. I dried myself down with the new towel and then slipped into the jogging bottoms and hoody that Tom's mum had left for me.