He flicked a glance my way. “They just reminded me of you. I don't know… I-”

“I love them, thanks. A nice apology gesture from a new friend,” I interrupted, taking into consideration what Tate had just said and exaggerating our platonic status.

He looked slightly confused but chose to ignore it. “So, what are we watching? Is that Tim Currie in latex and suspenders?” he leaned forward to get a closer look.

I laughed. “Sure is. Keep watching, big boy. You’re in for a real treat!”

He fell back and shuffled closer to the popcorn bowl between us. “I have a feeling this will be educational, Tash.”

I winked. “Like I keep saying, if there is one thing Natasha Munro can do, it’s teach!”

And so the afternoon went on, involving lots of jokes and friendly banter and absolutely no touching or all-consuming stares from Tudor. I’m going to be honest and say that I was a tad gutted about the lack of physical contact or affection, but at least we were friends. When Tudor loosened up, he was actually really nice to be around.

The rest of the week went by in much the same way. Tate would come over to see Tink, Tudor would tag along, and we would chat and watch TV or play games.

Our favourite topic of discussion was linguistics. Tudor introduced me to Canadian slang words and ribbed me about my accent. He tried to imitate me, but, like most non-Geordies, he ended up sounding like a dodgy version of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

He laughed at my pronunciation of his name, ‘Chew-da’, and informed me that beanie hats in Canada were ‘Tuques’ (pronounced ‘Toook’) and woolly hats in no way resembled beans, thus ‘beanie’ was a stupid name in the first place. I couldn’t believe he thought ‘Tuque’ was any better.

He explained that Canadians say ‘eh’ at the end of practically every sentence, and he laughed when I told him us Geordies say ‘like’ at the end of ours. He explained that a ‘loonie’ was a dollar coin and a ‘toonie’ was a two dollar version, and I made him say ‘out house’ over and over again until we could barely breathe from laughing. I explained what the difference between a ‘bonny lass’ and a ‘canny lass’ was, and introduced him to the staple terms of ‘alreet’, ‘Aye’ and of course the obligatory ‘howay, man!’ Tudor vowed never to go to Newcastle without me there as his personal translator.

As the days passed by, Tudor was turning out to be a close friend, something I learned he didn’t have too many of, and I was happy with our new friendship. I was still not immune to him by any means, and when he flashed the dimples or when he first walked into a room, I admit I drooled a little and had to fight to keep my composure. But he was completely stunning and my body couldn’t deny that, as much as I wished it could.

Chapter 13

Blurred boundaries

Time passed quickly in our new life and it was soon November. The school show was just over one week away. It was snowing non-stop and I had on more layers than a Pass the Parcel present. Work was crazy–busy, the show taking up all my free time during the week, and weekends were filled with activities with my new bud, Tudor.

Saturday morning came, and my slumber was interrupted by Simple Minds’ ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ coming from my phone – the personal ringtone I had assigned to Tudor.

“Piss off, Hollywood!” I answered as politely as I could at seven-thirty in the morning on my day off.

“No can do, you lazy grouch. Get up, Tash, I’m coming for you in half an hour, and its minus-fifteen and snowing, so dress warm.”

“Ugh, what are you doing to me? Where the hell are we going at this time?” I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

“It’s a surprise. Chop, chop,” he ordered cheerily. Well, as cheery-sounding as someone can be when they have a moody, brooding, and gravelly voice.

After a hot shower, I dressed in my pink snow suit, applied my truck-load of make-up, combed through my hair, leaving it down, and made my way to the kitchen to grab a slice of toast.

As I turned the corner I stopped dead at the sight of Tate buck-naked apart from a small towel wrapped tightly around his waist; actually it looked more like a face flannel.

“Well hello, Mr. Muscle,” I quipped in my best seductive voice.

Tate whipped around to my direction, obviously embarrassed and clinging to his miniscule loin cloth with all the strength that he had.

“So, did you finally give up the goods and stay the night?” I asked light-heartedly.

“Erm, yeah, is that okay?” Bless, he was so embarrassed.

“Ha! Totally, chuck. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before now. Tink is not normally so… restrained.”

“Wil! Stop grilling my lover,” trilled my sex-happy fairy, appearing at his bedroom door. He turned to ‘Pookie’, “You find the whipped cream okay?”

Tate held up the can and ran back into the bedroom without looking back at me. I laughed and gestured a thumbs up to Tink, who in turn pursed his lips and used his hands to create a distance of about ten inches, winked and walked backwards into the bedroom, firmly shutting the door.

Lucky bastard!

I quickly gobbled down my breakfast, and just as I was putting my plate into the dishwasher the doorbell went.

I opened the door, and there was Tudor in a black North Face jacket, black beanie hat and dark jeans, holding up white ice-skates with leopard-print laces in one hand and coffee in the other,