Free The Saving of Benjamin Chambers (The Uni Files) by Anna Bloom Page B

fine art to making coffee that cannot be rushed. I hate instant, and always go through the rigmarole of making a pot. It’s either that or dash outside and run over to the café next door, but it is December and freezing so that idea is not overly appealing.
    “I don’t see why it is such a big deal. ’It’s just sex, Ben. If you stopped beating yourself up, you might enjoy it a bit more.”
    “What, like you?”
    “Well, I left the pub last night with two stunners and had a great time. Believe me, no one was complaining.” He gives me a wink to underline his meaning.
    “You’re a dog.”
    “And love it.”
    “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you let me leave with her? Don’t we have some ‘best friend’ code where we are supposed to stop each other from making mistakes, apparently twice?”
    Dave gives a little snort and dribbles the tea he has just sipped out of his nose.
    “Mm, if only those two girls were here now, I bet they would have wet panties. From laughing so much.”
    Dave flips me the bird and really annoyingly leaves his puddle of snotty tea on the table; he knows that it is going to give me the arse.
    “What do you remember?”
    I scan through my mind to see if I can come up with any new memories, or even half a memory but I am still blank. That’s probably a good thing.
    “Nothing at all after drink five.”
    “Ah, pint five. Now that was a good one.”
    This is how we recount our evenings, always has been since we were sixteen. It is never by time passing but rather drinks consumed. Same as our time estimates are always given by inches of cigarettes burnt or measures of drinks no longer in the glass. For instance, I will walk into a pub and find Dave already ensconced at our table. When I ask him how long he has been there, instead of looking at his watch like any normal person he will show me the two empty inches at the top of his pint of beer. The two inches tells me he has been at the pub about ten minutes; five minutes for ordering and small talk, one minute for walking to our table saying hello to everyone he meets, and then four minutes for savouring his first two deep gulps of golden nectar.
    “What happened at pint five?” I ask him with a sense of dread.
    “Pint five is when we asked you the last time you got laid and you couldn’t remember.”
    “Oh, whatever, Dave. I am sure it can’t have been that long!”
    “Nope. You stood there staring at the ceiling for about, well, two inches.”
    “Oh.”
    “We then decided that we should try and find you a friend for the night.”
    “Oh for goodness’ sake. We have had this conversation before, and it is embarrassing when you do that. If I wanted to find someone, then I would. It’s not like I am short of offers.” I wish I was short of offers. Then maybe I would not find the whole thing so bloody degrading.
    “Well we don’t want you to explode out of frustration someday. Because that would be a mess none of us would be willing to clear up, no matter how good mates we are.”
    Dave’s loving this. He loves it when I fall off the wagon. It’s the highlight of his month (Yes, I am a human male. A month is a long time.) and he gloats about it for its duration.
    “So then what happened?”
    “You decided that instead of finding a girl you would be better off playing your guitar and you begged Darren to let you play an acoustic set.”
    “Oh, shit”.”
    This isn’t good. Darren, the landlord of our local pub, has not forgiven me for the last time I decided on a spontaneous set and some guy kicked off because his girlfriend sat right in front of me and stared open-mouthed the whole time I played. There was a broken window. Completely embarrassing.
    “Did he let me?”
    “Yeah eventually, but while you waited for him to decide you went off to the bar where you ordered another pint and Caitlin gave you two shots of Jägermeister, clearly on a mission to get you so bladdered you would give in to her wily