Out since he was fourteen, Idrys grew up hating summer, mostly because of Trystan Jackson, the gorgeous eldest son of his parents' holiday friends. After avoiding the joint holiday for five years, Idrys must now face Trystan again... or risk the wrath of his parents. Like Idrys, Trystan isn't exactly the guy he was the last time they met, but Idrys has more to worry about than Trystan's odd sleeping habits. He has to steel his—usually nonexistent—morals against the advances of the cute and innocent Josh, Trystan's younger brother.

It's only ten days, right? And afterward he doesn't have to see either of them for another year.

If only it was that simple.

Two months after the holiday from hell, Trystan gets a last minute placement in the city where Idrys lives, and suddenly both brothers are back in Idrys's life. Idrys is determined to carry on regardless, but sooner or later he might have to face the fact that summer doesn't last forever.


I Hate Summer is availible in full from Dreamspinner press - see my profile for the link


1 - DOG

The day was a beautiful one: the sky was that intense shade of blue that was almost painful to look at, there were a pair of white clouds idling their way across the expanse, and the sun was a hazy corn-yellow circle. I was driving through the Peak District, and under my control, the car wound through the narrow lanes. The landscape that slipped past was stunning: all shades of red and brown and ochre even at this time of the year. The few hints of green were rare and those that there were, were the deepest jade of wet moss.

"I hate summer," I complained to no one but myself, my thick Yorkshire accent matching the scenery perfectly as I drove through the rolling hills with my window down. Those words were my mantra for the four months that seem to send everyone else into a state of permanent bliss and happiness. It's beautiful, I get it, but last summer, when it didn't stop raining, was probably the best summer of my life.

There are several reasons for this, and my skin is one of them. My English-Rose skin is a bloody nightmare. Pale and interesting it may be, but I am one of those "lucky" people that can burn come rain or shine. Even though I didn't plan to spend more than five minutes outside of the car for the bulk of the day I was already wearing factor fifty, and just to prove my point, my arm was starting to pick up a hint of red where the sun was streaming through the open window. I can tell you that as an outdoors kind of guy it is an actual pain in the arse to put suncream on every fricking morning.

There were other reasons, too, mostly stupid leftovers of from when I was a kid. Things like: having my birthday during the summer holidays was enough to make me hate them and living on a farm completely isolated from everything except the next-door farm—ten miles away—and a local pub—only six miles, but who cares about that when you're a kid.

I had got back from Canada yesterday, and this year I spent my birthday in the middle of nowhere with a few friends from uni—which was great. Plus, clearly I could drive, and these days I live in York for university. So usually when I headed home, it was with that warm glow that came from knowing I was going to see my family and was shortly about to eat my own body weight in meat products and roast dinner.

As I turned my car into the driveway of my parents' farm sometime before midday, there was no warm glow, and there was no anticipation of meat and delicious roast dinners. It wasn't because I was jet-lagged as hell—which I was—and it wasn't because I was exhausted from staying up until three this morning fucking Ashlie —which I had done, fricking hell that boy was insatiable. I had no warm glow, because the reason I was heading home this time was the main reason I hated summer: family holidays.

The last time I'd gone I'd been sixteen. I'd got out of it for four summers, carefully avoiding being free for the customary ten days at the start of August by getting jobs with arsehole bosses and rubbish hours, getting jobs abroad, and just generally getting jobs. I'm twenty-one now and this was probably my last summer as a student, so I'd taken a flexible job, organized to go on holiday with my friends, and foolishly assumed I was old enough not to be forced into a family holiday. Especially one they all knew I despised. Clearly that had been a mistake.

When my parents found out I'd been given time off to go to Canada, they had assumed I could get time off to go to Scotland. I'd told them I couldn't get more holiday so close to returning from Canada, and they had called my boss to check. So I'd told them outright that I didn't want to go. I could still hear my mum's feigned smile down the phone when she had gently suggested, "Well, love, if ye dun fancy coming to Scotland, then maybe I dun fancy cooking ye any roast dinners for a while."[A5] Seriously, she makes the absolute best roast dinner you have ever tasted.

As I pulled to a stop in the farmyard, I reminded myself that it would be worth it. But part of me was starting to wish I'd just taken the hit.

In the middle of the yard my parents' 4x4 was currently overflowing with supplies. The trailer was already hitched to the back and piled high with bikes. I didn't have time to switch off the ignition before my door was tugged open. Two balls of fur launched themselves onto my knee, followed by a much bigger one, and then a pair [A7] of arms was thrown around my neck. Jorja ignored the dog and cats that had already attacked me and proceeded to try her best to throttle me affectionately.

"Idrys!" my sister squeaked into my ear.

"Hey, Jorja," I returned her greeting, my voice strained as I struggled to breathe properly under her hug.

She eventually pulled away, but not far. She took my hair in her hands, squealing once again, this time in jealousy. She tugged a handful in affection, but still caused me to wince.

"I want yer hair!" she lamented as she hauled my locks toward her and pressed her head in against mine to cover her dusky blonde hair with the shimmering strands that adorned my head. "Cut it off and give it to me right now."

I chuckled. "Sorry, need it for work."

My hair was also blond, in the same way that you could call gold—yellow or silver—gray. My sister's hair was a lovely natural ashen blonde color inherited from our Swedish father. Whereas mine looked like it'd been bleached and then washed through with a strawberry toner like some mutated combination of my dad's Scandinavian roots and my mum's beautiful fiery ginger. I generally kept it short because being almost six three with ivory skin and eyes the color of the inside of a glacier make me stand out enough without adding my weird-ass hair to the mix. But my well-paying and flexible summer job required it to stay at the highly androgynous shoulder-length mess it currently was.

I reminded myself how much the job paid as I pressed Jorja gently out of my way and tied my hair back off my face. I let the cats and the dog sort themselves out as I unpacked myself from my little three-door car. Jorja launched herself at me again, and she had to stand on her tiptoes to hang herself round my neck.

"Still growing I see," a gruff voice mocked from the other side of the yard. I gave Theo a wave as I unlatched Jorja's hands from my neck, only to have her tuck herself under my arm instead. Theo lived "next door" and had been my best friend since we'd been old enough to make the ten-mile journey between our homes on bikes. The dog was a collie called Tess, it was his, and she'd returned to his side and was now lying with her tongue lolling out like she hadn't just been part of the greeting party that had left my skinny denim shorts and white T-shirt covered in fur.

"Can't stop me these days," I mocked myself as my accent lengthened the vowels and wove them through the sweaty midday air that hung with the faint aromas of home that were so familiar: animals, shit, dust, mud, heather, and wind.

My height was a long-standing joke, although prior to my sixteenth Christmas it had been because I was short. Then I grew a foot in six months and eventually settled at my current height. I detached myself from Jorja and went to give Theo a brief man hug/slap.

"How's things?" I asked. "Ye need me t' stay? I don't mind if ye need a hand. It's a big farm for ye by yerself?" While we were away, Theo was going to be looking after my parents' farm on top of helping at his mum and dad's place. He'd done it before, but I really hoped that he'd take pity on me this time.

Theo just laughed at me. He knew why I didn't want to go.

"I dun think ye'd even know how t' help these days, city boy." He gave me another clap round the arm as my dad came out of the house.

"I was starting to wonder." My dad eyed me disapprovingly. He was Swedish, and his English accent was still the almost perfect Queen's English he'd learned as a child, despite living surrounded by thick northern accents for the last thirty years.

I shot him a wave and a smile.

"Sorry, Dad, traffic." Which was half the truth. The other half was that I'd woken up late and then Ashlie had looked too gorgeous to leave without a parting gift. I tried not to smile at the memory of him moaning beneath me and begging me not to go. I'd been in Canada for two weeks, and now I was going to be in Scotland for ten days with a family of beautiful yet massively homophobic people, and I'd only had one night to make up for almost a month away from my "friends."

Dad grumbled something under his breath as he proceeded to strap down another plastic box in the trailer with the bikes.

"Put your stuff in the boot and take a piss, we're off in ten minutes," my dad added at a more audible level. I rolled my eyes at my dad and looked back round at Theo, pleading with him, but he just shook his head.

"Ye like camping, Ide," he said, then dropped his voice. "And it's been what? Four? Five years? Yer adults now, t'will be fine." I grimaced at him and pressed my fingers into my eye sockets before wiping them back over my head and through my messy hair.

Theo plonked his hand onto the top of my head. "And if there's nae else, these days yer probably big enough to just twat him one." He dropped his hand and squeezed my upper arm. "Look, muscle and everything," he mocked lightly.

Theo had a point. Last time I'd been on one of these family camping trips I was dead-on five foot, and my arms were the size of an average person's wrist. I'd always been stronger than I looked and I'd usually return a few bruises, but inevitably, it had been me that came off worse. These days I was tall, and while I wouldn't exactly call me anything other than lanky, the little muscle I did have was toned and as strong as I could get it.

"Seven minutes, Idrys!" my dad called from inside the house.

"Ye gonna be around for a couple o' days when ye all get back?" asked Theo.

"Yeah, I'll text ye, let ye know I'm still alive."

I waved Theo a temporary good-bye and turned back to my car; Jorja had already unloaded my tent and rucksack and was fixing the front tire back on my bike so it could be loaded into the trailer. I held the frame still and she squatted to tighten up the bolts.

"Ye still stringing that poor guy along?" I said quietly to her. My best friend had been in love with my sister for as long as I could remember, and I had absolutely no issues with it, in fact I thought it would be about damn time. Jorja on the other hand had an endless list of reasons why they shouldn't date, the latest being because she was away at uni. The only reason I hadn't heard was that she didn't like him back, which was also the only part that Theo paid any attention to. Jorja's lack of commitment either way meant that his dating record was almost as bad as mine—okay, it was much better than mine, but by normal standards it was low.[A11]

"That ain't none of yer business, Idrys."

"Yeah it is: he's my best friend, I like him more than ye, so I want ye to stop being such a tease."

"Oi!" She straightened and slapped me lightly over the arm. "That hurts 'cause I know yer not lying." She stuck her bottom lip out momentarily, then lifted the bike easily and dropped it into the back of the trailer. "And just cause I'm not a whore like ye does not make me a tease," she mocked lightly.

"Three minutes."

"Shutup, Dad!" Jorja shouted right back with a roll of her eyes as she helped me secure the bike. "Come on, then, best use the bathroom or he'll leave us behind."

"Maybe I'll dawdle, then," I mused absently but followed her anyway. My sister shot me an arched look over her shoulder.

"Stop being such a pansy. It's been ages since ye saw them and they're really not that bad these days." She had a funny smirk on her face that said she knew something and was purposefully keeping it from me. I didn't give her the satisfaction of asking. Jorja and Theo were probably right: it had been five years, and I was sure as hell different so there was no reason that the holiday wouldn't be.

"Idrys, love," my mum cooed as we came into the kitchen. She was hastily packing a cool box with driving supplies. My dad was standing behind her, and I was sure my mum found the way he tapped his foot really helpful. She gave me an absent one-armed hug—her fiery head just about reached my shoulders—as she used her other hand to fish something out of the fridge. "How was your drive, love?"

"Hey, Mam. It were fine. I got stuck behind a couple o' tourists who slowed to twenty for every goddamn bend." There were a lot of bends on the roads around here.

"Oh goodness," Mum said sympathetically and paused for a moment to tighten her hug.

"Grace!" my dad barked, causing my mum to jump. "We are now late leaving. Can't you ask him this in the car?"

"Oh yes, love, sorry." She grinned absently and let me go to finish the last of our packing. I went to the bathroom and then sat in the back of the car where Jorja was already waiting.

I feel I should clarify. My dad isn't some kind of monster; he just stresses about traveling, he likes punctuality, and in case you don't know, the Swedish aren't renowned for their affectionate personalities.

As soon as Mum pulled her door shut, my dad's shoulders relaxed and a smile slipped across his lips. "Let's have a great holiday, everyone," he said, and he caught my eye in the rearview mirror, finally shooting me a smile. "It's nice to have the whole family together again."

People think that bleak and beautiful are two mutually exclusive things. They're wrong, or at least they are in my opinion. I grew up with bleak. Believe me when I tell you that the UK doesn't get much bleaker than the Peak District on a wet winter's day; it doesn't get much more beautiful either. You just have to know what you're looking for. The place me and my family were going to spend the next ten days in was one of those bleak, beautiful places in the depths of Scotland.

The campsite we pulled into sometime around seven that evening was tiny. We'd dropped off what was described as the "main road" in the directions—read: single-lane tarmac track with passing places—into a valley that we drove up until even the gravel gave way and turned into a grass track. Dad stopped to unlock the gate slung across the way with two half-tumbled stonewalls on either side. We locked it behind us and drove the last ten minutes up to the campsite bouncing in our seats while Jorja and me kept an eye on the trailer.

The campsite was half-full, but this shouldn't give you the wrong idea: there were two tents up. The sight of them made my heart sink just that little bit further.

"Oh, Jerry and Samantha are already here." My mum beamed.

"Cheer up, sunshine," my sister whispered. "Yer the one that likes camping, remember?" I nodded and tried to drag the scowl from my face as we were jostled for the final hundred yards of the track.

The campsite was sheltered on one side by a sparse selection of struggling trees that looked like they'd been planted with good intention but little hope. A couple of them were doing okay in the harsh climate that was otherwise only covered with heather and low-lying willow. There was a pipe sticking up randomly through the ground with a tap on the end, so there was "running water." I've been to places like this many a time. In fact, I've spent a few summers working in places like this, and I knew that the water was probably from a pipe buried into the side of a nearby stream.

The car stopped. I sighed again, gave myself a mental shake, and opened the door. I instantly regretted dressing for the "balmy" southern climate of home. I had on skinny knee-length shorts and a fitted tee, which had been fine in the air-conditioned car and might plausibly have been fine at midday here. The sun was still up, but it was definitely evening, and a bitter wind cut through my cotton top. I'm not a heat person, but that doesn't mean I like windburn any better. I tugged my windproof from the back as I slid out of the car. Then I groaned as I sank up to my ankles in a puddle that immersed my canvas Toms completely in sludgy brown mud.

"Fricking hell." I'd packed those shoes for the sole purpose of driving home—I hadn't intended to even wear them again until we were safely back in relative civilization. My much more practical waterproof/mudproof/great-for-everything-except-driving trainers were right next to me, and I'd just forgotten to change them over.

I heard someone snigger and my heart actually sank into my stomach.

Great, just fricking great. That was exactly the first impression that I wanted to make. After five years, I really wanted the Jackson family's first sight of me to be cursing about standing in a dammed puddle. I'd probably waded through more shit and mud and spent more nights in a tent in the past five years than they had cumulatively. I didn't care about mud; I just didn't want my one good pair of shoes to look like the rest of my pairs.

With another groan, I jumped back into the car and chucked yet another pair of ruined shoes into the footwell as I changed into my more suitable footwear. Mum, Dad, and Jorja had all got out and hurried across to the waiting Jacksons. I watched for a moment from the safety of the car.

We'd been going on our summer holidays with Samantha and Jerry Jackson since I could remember. Apparently they met my parents in a campsite when I was three, they'd hit it off, and since their—then only, now eldest—children were the same age they'd agreed to go together the next year for moral support. That had turned into every summer since. Samantha and Jerry had three sons: Josh was fifteen, Vince was seventeen, and Trystan was six months older than me, six precious months he had lorded over me for thirteen agonizing summer holidays. This family was the reason I hated summer, and in particular, this man, Trystan-bloody-Jackson. The golden boy who had started growing when he was fourteen, he was always faster, stronger, taller, smarter, braver. I cannot explain to you the number of times that I have wanted to throttle that boy/man.

I slid out of the car with yet another weary sigh. I knew putting it off was not going to make it go away or go any easier. I let my head drop to one side and gave a wary smile as I jogged over through the mud.

"Hey, guys."

"Oh, Idrys? Lookatyou," Samantha cooed as she wrapped her hands on either side of my arms, examining me for a moment with a look of startled awe, which is not an unusual reaction from people who haven't seen me for a while. I am, after all, over a foot taller than the last time she saw me. I've always had a unique kind of look, but I'm aware it's more noticeable now that I'm an adult, and that it is not at all diminished by my currently too-long hair. Someone asked me if I was albino once.

Samantha was dark haired like her children. She had a warm smile and dark sparkling eyes and had always been my favorite Jackson—mostly because she broke up rather than encouraged fights. "You look so well and so tall. I can't believe it's you."

"Yeah, I finally got my growth spurt." I laughed lightly and turned to shake Jerry Jackson's hand. He was just the same: tall, stern, and faintly disapproving. He was also dressed entirely in this season's most hyped outdoor gear. I stifled a sigh because I knew what he was wearing was worth at least a grand and there would be numerous outfits like that waiting to be worn.

"Aren't you cold, lad?" He glanced down at my bare legs, and I shrugged. Jerry was a homophobe, and he generally spoke to me as little as possible. When he did it was always with belittling comments like that one or to justify why his children's playing had left bruises on me.

"Not really," I answered with a shrug. My lightweight jacket kept off the wind and that did me just fine.

"Eeeed doesn't feel the cold, remember, Dad?" the youngest Jackson chimed in, stretching out the start of my name comically as he'd done when he'd been a kid and couldn't say it properly. Josh shot me a grin and held his hand out. Last time I'd seen Josh, I'd been sixteen and he'd been ten, and we'd been about the same height. Now he was about five nine and at that odd point where he didn't quite look like a man or a child. We shared a mutual grimace as I was obliged to give the standard comments on his height.

"Well, it can snow up here even in summer. You better have something other than jeans and cotton T-shirts. Cotton kills, you know," Jerry said, pulling my attention back round to him and away from the unashamed appraisal in Josh's chocolate-brown eyes—which was definitely unexpected.

"Yeah, I know," I said to Jerry. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and tell him exactly how much more I knew about what he was talking about than he did, but I was almost glad for the distraction and a reason to look away from Jerry's rather too-gorgeous-for-his-own-good youngest son.

"How you doing, Idrys?" Vince asked. I shook the middle Jackson's hand and managed to smile back. Vince was about six foot and handsome enough, but there was gleam of distaste in the brown eyes he shared with his brother—he was asking out of ingrained politeness rather than interest.

"Just got back from Canada yesterday, so I'm a bit jet-lagged, t'be honest," I answered, hoping it would give me an excuse to put my tent up and retire early.

"What were you up to there?" the eldest son asked.

I didn't let myself sigh as I turned to face the final Jackson. Have I mentioned how bloody good-looking he is? No? Well that's because it pisses me off. I could deal with everything else, but fricking hell, why did he have to look like that?

"Trys," I said by way of a greeting and shook his hand briefly. "Camping, walking, biking, ye know?"

"Doesn't that mess up your shoes?" he mocked.

I ground my teeth, flicked him the finger, and ignored my mum's outraged bleating as I headed back to the car to get my tent.

"Idrys," my sister called as she hurried to catch up with me.

"He fricking started it," I muttered through gritted teeth. I was irritated at him and at myself for getting so pissed so quickly.

"It was a joke, Ide. And yer did sound like a pansy when yer got out of the car."

I chucked my head back and stared up into the cloudless blue sky. "Yeah, well, maybe I did, but I've not had enough sleep t' deal wi' this shit. Maybe if I put my six-hundred-pound tent up they'll give it a rest, eh?"

"Or they'll think yer a poser like Jerry. Look, Ide, just chill. I know yer tired, but we're stuck here for now; at least try to give them a chance. They're really not that bad these days."

I leaned back against the boot of the car with my tent bag hooked under my elbow and pressed my fingers into my temples to squeeze them together. While I had been spending my summer desperately avoiding these holidays, Jorja had been too young to escape. By the time she was old enough to get out of going, she admitted to me that she kind of liked it—even more surprising, as she wasn't always a fan of camping—and that she got on with the Jackson brothers okay. But that was probably because she was a girl, and a pretty one, as opposed to definitely gay me.

I'm not camp by any stretch of the imagination; I've always made sure of that. But when I first came out, I'd naively made the mistake of not keeping it a secret. I'd assumed that everyone would take it as easily as my family and closest friend. And so, instead of just being picked on for being short, skinny, and odd looking, I'd been ostracized and beaten up for being gay.

With a sigh, I straightened and shot my sister a grim smile. "Yeah, yer right o' course."

I returned to the main group, and my apology was met with a ripple of understanding that I'm sure was helped by the fact that I'd already told them I was jet-lagged. Then I was finally allowed to put up my tent. I found a nice patch of ground a good way from where the Jacksons' tents were already up, and I unpacked the structure that would be my home and sanctuary for the next ten days.

I loved that thing: it had been my eighteenth birthday present, and thanks to many trips and a couple of summers living out of it, to me it was more than just a tent. I loved everything about it: from the slightly mossy smell, to the color it turned the light, and the tenderly patched up scars left by of one hell of a storm. I gave it an affectionate pat as I drove in the final peg and was squatted in the entrance to lay out my Therm-A-Rest when I heard footsteps behind me.

"Buy that specially?" Trystan was southern born and bred. To give you an idea of how he sounds, it's a lot like the new James Bond—yeah, Daniel Craig. He's a twat, right…. I'm talking about Trystan obviously; I don't know Daniel Craig, though I'd probably like to.

I smirked to myself at my internal commentary. Without saying anything, I pointed to where the carefully applied patch was.

"So you got it secondhand?" he mocked lightly.

I stood slowly, uncurling to my full height, which nine times out of ten allowed me to look down on people that are pissing me off. Unfortunately Trystan was more or less the same height as me, possibly half an inch shorter—not enough to make a difference.

"Really, Trys? Ye going to do it this way?" I kept my voice low as I stared into his smirking face.

I ran through things that irritated me to distract myself from the fact that Trystan Jackson was infuriatingly good-looking. I think I'm a masochist or something, because when I first realized I was gay, it was mostly thanks to the face currently smirking at me and the body it's attached to.

It had happened over a couple of summers. Looking back, I'd always preferred guys, but it was when I was twelve that it finally hit me that liking other guys wasn't normal. I was being beaten up for something—God knows what, maybe daring to win a bike race—but I remember eight-year-old Jorja rugby tackling Trystan off me. Then I'd dropped on top of him to hit him back, only I'd stopped, because everything had felt weird.

The next year Trystan had started to grow, and by then I'd more or less worked it out—which made trying to wrestle him off me very distracting. When I was fourteen, I came out to my family, and it hadn't even crossed my mind that I should hide it from other people. The Jackson brothers—mostly Trystan and Vince—made damn sure I knew that was a mistake.

I'm not bothered anymore, not since I've been at uni. But that didn't change the fact that Trystan was still gorgeous, and I disliked him intensely for it. He was your stereotypical tall, dark, and handsome—What? I'm easy to please—he had wayward dark-chocolate hair, matching eyes, smooth skin, a nice jaw dusted with a fashionable amount of stubble. He wasn't super ripped, but as a gym goer I could recognize another one. I'd guess he climbed and/or biked, because his arms and shoulders were covered in well-defined cords of muscle, not like body-builder ripped, but just "hey, I look after myself" toned. He'd had a six-pack when he was sixteen, so I doubted he didn't have one now, his hips were neat, and I would have put money on his legs having the same nice balance of definition as his arms. Unfortunately, personality-wise he left a lot to be desired.

"Just concerned that this isn't really the type of place a model would be used to?" he scorned with a smirk on his face.

I sighed and wondered who had told him. Probably my dad with his bizarre misplaced pride. I think he likes that I'm gay—go figure.

I cannot count the number of times I've been randomly scouted since I reached my current height. Despite my looks and sexual preference, modeling had never really appealed to me. However, this summer the flexible hours and the fat paycheck had been just too good to pass up.

"Yeah?" I cut back archly. "So if I'd not taken the two-hundred-and-fifty-quid-a-day job, then ye would've had no trouble accepting the fact that I enjoy being outdoors? I'll be sure t' bear yer feelings in mind next time I'm searching for employment."

He sniggered. "Two-fifty a day? Reckon they need someone to wear the man's clothes?"

I sighed, twisted round, and dropped back into a squat. "Ye don't really have the face for modeling," I said with my back to him as I released my sleeping bag from its tight confines—I wasn't quite as attached to the bag as my tent, but it was a close call. "You have t' be good-looking."

"Ooh, burn," he replied, and his voice was rich with sarcasm. There was a moment of silence and I thought that he was going to leave me alone. "It's so weird: you're exactly the same except for the fact that you're a foot and a half taller."

I craned my head over my shoulder and looked up at him with a condescending smile.

"Hardly exactly the same."

"Exactly the same: you're still prickly and rude and take offense too easily." He grinned. "That glare is the same too, I'm getting all nostalgic looking down on it."

"Ha-fricking-ha." I ran a hand through my hair and plucked the tie off my wrist to keep it from my face.

"So, do you still like boys?" he asked me.

I groaned and looked back round into my tent. I tried to keep my voice level and hoped the familiarity would ground me. "Aye, Trystan, I still like boys. Ye still a fricking homophobe?"

"Nah, my next-door neighbor in freshers was a fag. Listening to him bang his boyfriend every night for a year rid me of that."

"Wonderful." I didn't sound very convincing.

"Indeed, 'cause I need to share your tent."