When my college housemate Jamie first suggested going on holiday to Tenerife together I jumped at the chance. “Really?” I said eagerly. “That’d be really cool, we can go and see that cave I was telling you about, you know, the one with the fossils…” I was amazed at the offer, and chuffed at the same time. I mean, Jamie and I weren’t even that close friends…

“Whoa, hang on a minute,” said Jamie, laughing. “It’s not just us two going, and I’m not sure it’s supposed to be that kind of holiday.”

He explained that one of his football club regulars had broken an ankle during a nasty tackle and was going to need to stay in England for treatment. That left a place free on the holiday, at a discounted cost of course and he had thought I might enjoy a break after studying so hard for our first year exams.

“Oh” I said, a bit put out that I was being added on to obviously make up the numbers, “well, I suppose I could make it, but there’s no way I’m playing footie all week…”

“You don’t have to,” said Jamie, rolling his eyes. “It’s not a team holiday, just a week away in the sun, bunch of mates, you can do what you like, go where you like, do whatever. I just thought you might enjoy it.”

“Alright” I said, a bit mollified. “Who else is going?”

Jamie reeled off four or five names, blokes I didn’t know, but whom he said were “a really good laugh.” I was still not sure. I mean, what would I have in common with a group of football playing meatheads, just out to get pissed every night and shag as many girls as they could get their greedy hands on. Jamie wasn’t really like that, at least not every weekend, but even he and I probably wouldn’t have automatically become friends if we hadn’t been thrown together by the university in the same student house. But he was pretty laid back and un-laddy for a sports mad historian, added to which he was seriously fit with a physique worthy of the drool that (I felt sure) must have been dribbling out of my mouth when I watched him trotting off to the gym or to play football in his favourite red satin shorts. The way they clung to his solid thighs and stretched to breaking point on his meaty bum was quite often my wank image of choice on a lonely night in bed. Not that he knew any of this, or at least I didn’t think he did. But I had caught him giving me a quizzical look from time to time, his beautiful green eyes narrowing, furrowing that spotless brow, and recently he’d taken to ruffling my dark hair on his way out, a gesture that both annoyed me (like he thought I was his kid brother!) and had me sprouting a stiffy under the kitchen table.

But anyway, I reasoned to myself, it was cheap, I had been working pretty solidly on my exams, and as Jamie said, I could do what I liked once we were there. So I said yes, and spent the next week alternating between dreaming of the trips I could take (unlike most of my friends I actually enjoyed my subject, geology, and was determined to do some exploring when we were away) and day-dreaming of Jamie’s bulge in his (very small) red Aussiebum swimming briefs that I had sometimes seen