Ross has something he wants to get rid of. A long weekend in Newquay seems like the perfect opportunity.
The worst thing about being seventeen and still a virgin was not so much the fact that he was a virgin. It was that everyone else he hung out with wasn't.
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Ross stared at himself in the bathroom mirror and frowned as he pushed his heavy dark brown fringe up. He had a spot coming out right smack on his forehead. There was absolutely no avoiding it.
'Fuck.' he said and let his hair fall back down. 'Why now?' He glared at his reflection and then picked up his toothbrush and squeezed toothpaste onto it. He brushed his teeth with a stroppiness that only a teenage boy could manage and then spat and rinsed and stalked out the bathroom. He was almost to his bedroom when he heard his mother calling for him from downstairs.
'Ross?' she called. 'They're here.' He sighed and went to hang over the bannister.
'Okay.' he called down. 'I'm coming.' Then he heard snickers and saw his cousin Francis come into the hall.
'That's what she said.' he laughed, and then looked over his shoulder. 'Unless you completely fuck it up.' The last words were hissed at Ross with a look of glee, and just for a second Ross was sure that he actually hated his cousin.
'I will fucking get you for that!' he hissed back and Francis smiled broadly and gave him the finger. Ross glared at him and then stormed off to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. He leaned back against it heavily.
Oh yes, that was the other reason being a virgin sucked balls. His friends never let him forget it. They laughed and needled and made fun of him and that was the whole reason he had cooked up this dumb-as-fuck idea in the first place.
His bag was packed and ready and he went to his bed and slung it over his shoulder. His parting look in the mirror behind his door showed him a gangly boy in black skinny jeans, converse with the toes wearing through and a red and grey and black plaid shirt over a Grateful Dead T-shirt he'd stolen from his dad. His thick dark hair was a mess, like it frequently was.
Yeah, there was no way he was getting laid this summer.
When Ross got downstairs, the group of people he actually referred to as his friends was in the kitchen talking to Grace and giggling. His best friend Demelza was the first to see him and she bounced over. She was wearing an outfit that was almost a dead ringer for his, only her t-shirt was for the Slits and her converse were hot pink and matched her thick curly hair. She was wearing a black hoodie about three sizes too big for her.
'Hello.' she said, hanging onto his arm. 'Time to goooooo!' Ross was sure that she was far more excited than all of them put together.
'You're nuts.' he said.
'What?' she asked. 'This was your idea.' Ross sighed again and looked at the other people in the room. Francis was now leaning against the kitchen counter next to George and Andrew had Verity balanced on his lap. These were the idiots he was going to Newquay with.
It had seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. The May bank holiday was looming and that meant two whole nights to chase down the girl of his dreams and do everything in his power to get her to sleep with him. Elizabeth had told him she was spending the long weekend in Newquay with her sister and her sister's friends. This information had been imparted to him in Maths class on Thursday and had driven the rest of the group into a frenzy of organisation. By Thursday afternoon, George had convinced his father to book them a camping site at Tergurrian Camping Ground and they were all set to go spend the three days there. The idea was three two man tents - Verity and Demelza in one, Francis and Ross in the other and George and Andrew in the third. They were being driven from Truro to Newquay by George's dad who had a people carrier and coming back on Monday afternoon. And in the space of those two and a half days, the idea was to get him and Elizabeth alone and in a compromising position.
'Fine.' he muttered. 'Let's fucking go.'
'Bye sweetie.' Grace said coming to hug him. 'You all have fun and for God's sake be careful whatever you're doing.'
'We will, Mrs P.' Demelza grinned. 'Come on, Ross.'
Outside George and Francis helped Ross load his fixed frame BMX onto the back of the people carrier next to Demelza's, then he chucked his back-back and sleeping bag in the boot along with everyone else's. When he got in he went to sit with Demelza who had commandeered the entire back seat for them. She produce a bag of Haribo Sour Mix from her pocket and offered it to him. Ross took a handful and chewed as she chattered on about the art project they were doing together the following week. He looked moodily out the window and missed half of what she was saying until she gave him a hard poke in the ribs, making him yelp.
'Bloody hell, Dem.' he said. 'That hurt.'
'You're not listening to me.' she said, sounding annoyed. 'You're heads all twisted up over that bubble brain.'
'Elizabeth's not a bubble brain.' he retorted.
'No, you're right.' Demelza was grinning broadly. 'She's the perfect woman.' The sweetness in her voice was contradicted by the derisive snort that followed it. Ross glared at her, his thick dark eyebrows giving him a sulky look.
'You don't have to tell me you don't like her.' he said. 'I think I know.'
'She's shallow.' Demelza said. 'And she knows she's got you wrapped around her little finger.' She flicked her pink curls. 'And you get stupid around her.'
'That's because he likes her.' Francis was turned around and looking at them. 'He loooooves her. His little virgin brain explodes every time he's around her.'
'Fuck off Francis.' Ross muttered and sank down in his seat.
**********
The trip to Newquay normally took about half an hour. But because it was Bank holiday weekend that meant tourists and so it took closer to an hour. George's dad resolutely refused to drive through the town to the caravan park and dropped them on the south side. There was a lengthy debate and then it was decided that seeing as Ross and Demelza had their bikes that they should take the three tents and the sleeping bags and get a head start. So he and Demelza set off by themselves, the gear strapped to the back of their bikes.
The town was ridiculously busy and Ross soon forgot his current dilemma in favour of riding his bike at breakneck sped through the traffic, Demelza in hot pursuit. He loved this, standing up on the pedals and careening between the cars, invoking the rage of motorists and pedestrians alike. He could just hear Demelza cackling behind him. There was a crossroad up ahead and he didn't see any imminent traffic so Ross picked up speed and headed for the road in front. His bike flew off the pavement and hit the tarmac and just as he got halfway across the road, a car came out of nowhere. The hooter blared and Ross got such a fright he skidded to a dead stop in the middle of the street. His adrenaline was racing and he whipped his head round to see that the car in question was a bright tangerine VW bug convertible. There were three occupants, two young men in the front, one dark and one blond, and a young woman with sea green mermaid hair in the back.
Ross sat there, breathing hard as the young man in the passenger seat stood up, pushing his sunglasses up on his bright blond hair. He was deeply tanned and wearing khaki shorts and a white t-shirt with an obnoxiously bright Hawaiian shirt open over it. Ross was about to shout something at him, when their eyes locked and his whole stomach suddenly felt like it had when he'd gone on his first ride at Thorpe Park.
The man's eyes were light, the same colour as the sea that stretched along the Cornish coast. Ross had no idea what was happening to him, but he felt weird as fuck. Then the blond man laughed and two deep dimples appeared at the corners of a smile that made Ross' heart skip a beat.
Ross was confused. He had never had a reaction like this before. Sure there had been other guys at school that had caught his attention, but he'd stuffed it deep under a blanket of denial. Demelza was happy and out, but he wanted no part of that at all and had always thought he was only interested in girls when it came right down to it.
However, that was not what his body was telling him right at that minute.
Completely at a loss, Ross did the only thing he could think of. He gave the occupants of the car (and more specifically the blond man that had managed to mess up his head in under a minute) the finger and then rode off the street as fast as he fucking could.
