The Making of Us Read online

  The Making Of Us

  Checking Him Out Book Four

  by

  Debbie McGowan

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  * * * * *

  Copyright 2017 Debbie McGowan at Smashwords.

  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/debbiemcgowan

  This book is available in print at most online retailers.

  http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover: Licensed stock image - usage is not indicative of the model’s identity, activities or preferences.

  * * * * *

  This novel is a work of fiction and the characters and events in it exist only in its pages and in the author’s imagination. While it includes reference to real locations, these are fictional representations, which may or may not be factually correct.

  WARNING: this story contains moderately explicit scenes of intimacy between consenting adults.

  * * * * *

  When English Lit. student Jesse Thomas meets Leigh Hunter, he has to reconsider a few assumptions he's made about himself.

  Two years ago, Jesse joined Pride—the uni’s LGBT+ society—to support best friend Noah, and Noah’s boyfriend, Matty. As a straight, cismale ally, Jesse keeps a low profile—not difficult for someone as shy and body-conscious as he is.

  Leigh Hunter is Noah and Matty’s new housemate. Born with a life-threatening congenital condition, Leigh is intersex and identifies as queer—none of which alters Jesse’s conviction that they are the most beautiful person in the world.

  While Jesse and Leigh get to know each other, a new academic year begins in earnest, bringing with it the usual challenge of balancing work and play. Add in a week’s holiday in Cornwall that Jesse and Leigh half-wish they hadn’t agreed to, Jesse’s unplanned involvement in the election of Pride’s new officers, and some big decisions for Noah and Matty, it’s going to be an interesting semester all round.

  NOTE: this is a stand-alone novel, but you might wish to read the series in order.

  ***

  In the Checking Him Out Series

  Checking Him Out (Book One)

  Checking Him Out For The Holidays (novella)

  Hiding Out (novella - A crossover featuring Matty and Noah, and Josh, George and Libby from Hiding Behind The Couch)

  Taking Him On (Book Two - A Noah and Matty novel)

  Checking In (Book Three)

  The Making of Us (Book Four - A Jesse and Leigh novel)

  * * * * *

  Acknowledgements

  Many, many thanks to:

  Amy, Andrea, Bec, Claire, Jor, Nige, and Tanu.

  This book would not be without you.

  * * * * *

  Author’s Note

  Various references are made to the British education system and qualifications.

  GCSEs: school-leavers’ examinations in various subjects (including core curriculum), usually taken at age 15-16 (end of Year 11).

  A’ Levels: advanced examinations in student-selected subjects, usually taken at age 17-18 (end of sixth form / Year 13). A’ Levels are graded A*–E, and the grades have a point value for university entry.

  Entry to higher education (university) is processed by UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service). University entry is usually determined by UCAS points (i.e. A’ Levels or equivalent qualifications).

  The university degree classification system for undergraduate (Bachelor’s) degrees works as follows:

  First Class (‘first’): 70% or above

  Second Class upper division (‘two-one’ – 2:1): 60-69%

  Second Class lower division (‘two-two’ – 2:2): 50-59%

  Third Class (‘third’): 40-49%

  Pass: 30/35-39%

  * * * * *

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  By the Author

  Beaten Track Publishing

  * * * * *

  Prologue

  June

  I hadn’t the foggiest idea how I’d got home. Could’ve walked, could’ve caught a bus, could’ve floated the entire way on Cloud Nine…

  But I did make it home, because there I was, stealth-sliding my key into the lock, holding my breath as I turned it and pushed, simultaneously sliding my feet out of my shoes and silently reprimanding myself for not thinking to take them off before I’d opened the door. Oh, well. No one was going to nick a pair of worn-out size fourteen Vans, were they?

  Impressed by my forethought for at least remembering to hold the letterbox as I shut the door, I tiptoed along the edge of the hallway to my—

  “That you, Jess?”

  Crap. I always overlooked the eyes in the back of her head. “Yeah, Mum.”

  “You’re early.”

  “Am I?” I pulled my phone out and checked. “It’s five to ten.”

  “Is it?” She shuffled forward on the sofa and picked up her empty cup, pausing to stretch before heading my way. I held out my hand for the cup. She smiled up at me and handed it over.

  “Tea or hot chocolate?” I asked, already on the move.

  “Hot chocolate if you’re having one.”

  “Yeah, I am.” I hadn’t planned to, but maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. I had a feeling a sleepless night lay ahead of me. That face…those eyes…those lips…oh…mygod. Without a doubt, it was the sweetest smile I’d ever seen, cheeky and bemused, and—

  The toilet flushed, and Mum appeared behind me, then squeezed into the tiny gap between me and the cupboard and flicked the switch on the kettle.

  “Boils quicker if you turn it on,” she said and kind of took over, as in, I hadn’t even rinsed her mug or got mine out. Had I even filled the kettle? She paused to sniff me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Garlic.”

  “Oh, yeah. We went for pizza.”

  “Did you? God, I could murder a pizza right about now.”

  Me, too, I thought but didn’t say. A salad with low-cal Caesar dressing and a single badly timed cheese dough ball were never g
oing to fill me up. Weirdly, though, I wasn’t raiding the cupboards like I usually did after a wholly unsatisfying meal out. If I carried on like that, I could well lose a stone in six weeks, maybe get a new pair of jeans, new shirt…

  “…road trip?”

  “Huh? Oh… Yeah, they are.” I didn’t know what Mum had asked me, but my answer seemed to fit. I’d been out with Noah and Matty, who were heading off to the festivals, so I guessed by ‘road trip’, she meant them.

  “Spoon,” she said. I was standing in front of the cutlery drawer and duly moved out of the way. As an afterthought, I went to open the drawer and whacked my knuckles on the handle when Mum beat me to it.

  “Go and sit,” she commanded.

  “I said I’d make it.”

  “Yes, you did say that,” she agreed. She was amused by something, and I had a feeling it was me.

  “So, give me the spoon and I’ll do it,” I insisted.

  “It’s done. See?” She turned the handle of my mug towards me. When had she made that? “Think you can manage it?”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” I replied, my sarcasm lost when it scarpered after my fleeing attention. I forced myself to stay focused on Mum rinsing the spoon under the tap and wiping the cupboard, after which she shooed me away to the living room, where she resumed her usual seat in the corner of the sofa. I sat in the armchair, aware she’d turned down the TV.

  Oh…sugar.

  “So, who is she?”

  “Who’s who?” My face. My face. My super-heated, traitorous face!

  Mum turned and studied me, twitchy-mouthed from the smile she fought. “You’re glowing, Jesse.”

  Glowing? I was bloody burning up. Seriously, think head like Mars, hurtling towards the Sun as it goes supernova. There was no point even trying to lie my way out of this one, not that I often lied to my mum. She was a cool mum, and we talked about all kinds of stuff all the time. Politics, money, the state of the NHS, my studies, her job, what was going on with my mates or hers… Instant crushes in pizza restaurants, not so much.

  “Not a she,” I said.

  “OK,” Mum nodded. A frown replaced the smile, still concealed but not judgemental. She was trying to figure it out. She wasn’t the only one.

  “Leigh is…” I scratched my chin. Leigh is so gorgeous, I’ve unequivocally proven love at first sight exists. Beyond that? “Not a girl,” I said and shrugged. “I thought Leigh was a girl, but Matty said not.”

  “A boy?”

  “I don’t think so? Leigh prefers they, not he or she. And…”

  “And…?” Mum prompted.

  And my head was totally done in. I knew what I felt, and it felt good in a shivery, slightly out-of-body way. “I dunno, Mum.”

  On my behalf, she diverted her attention to the TV, sipped her hot chocolate, chewed her top lip, narrowed her eyes, sighed out of her nose, sipped, chewed, narrowed, sighed again. “Did you meet her…them, sorry. Is it someone you met at school?”

  “Uni.”

  Mum flapped her free hand to say ‘you know what I mean’.

  “No, but I think they’ll be studying there. They were in the pizza restaurant and came over to say hi to Matty. They’re moving into the farmhouse.”

  “Ohhh.” The ponderous nod returned. I knew what she was thinking. Same as me. I’d have time to get to know Leigh, if I could work around my crippling shyness and the fact Leigh wouldn’t look twice at me, and that Leigh might not be attracted to boys, anyway, or might already have a special someone in their life. But apart from that…

  “I won’t be seeing much of you for the foreseeable future, then?” Mum tormented.

  My heart sank at the reminder. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. Matty doesn’t know when Leigh’s moving in—” no, of course I hadn’t committed to memory every detail “—and he and Noah are away, on their road trip, remember?”

  For six eternal weeks.

  “Well, if Leigh does move in before they get back, you could always pop in and say hello.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed noncommittally. I couldn’t, not without Noah being there so I at least had a fall-back position if Leigh blanked me.

  “You never know, they might appreciate the company.”

  “Maybe.”

  We watched the very quiet TV for a few minutes, and then Mum said, “I suppose it’s a bit like the way we all were with Boy George.”

  I didn’t know what she meant, so I waited for her to elaborate, if she was ever going to, because she’d gone all misty-eyed.

  She laughed to herself. “Most of the lads were convinced he was a woman, and you really couldn’t tell. Some of them, when they found out he was a man, said they still thought he was sexy, and he was. His make-up was out of this world, and he was just so…mmmmm…”

  Another T-M-I moment from the mothership, but she’d got it in one. Regardless of how few of them liked me—my experience was scant, to say the least—I’d always liked girls. I wasn’t closed to the possibility of liking a boy, but I could honestly say none had ever caught my attention in that way, and I’d never met anyone who wasn’t either a girl or a boy, or I didn’t think I had. Until tonight.

  I’d seen Leigh coming towards us, and I didn’t actually have time to think. It just happened. Kapow! Instant, undeniable, so-obvious-Matty-noticed attraction, and knowing Leigh wasn’t a girl made no difference.

  I could barely get out a hello—I was literally choking on a dough ball that only seconds before had been heaven, if heaven came with garlic and mozzarella. And if it was obvious to Matty, it would’ve been to Leigh, too.

  F.

  M.

  L.

  But did it matter? Probably not. After all, in six weeks’ time, when Noah and Matty got back from their road trip, Leigh wouldn’t even remember we’d met. I could only hope, because it hands down beat forever being remembered as that fat guy who choked on a dough ball.

  * * * * *

  Chapter One

  Late September

  “You want in on a variety box?” Noah asked as we joined the queue at the campus café behind about five hundred freshers. All right, closer to fifty, but there were only three people serving, so we were going to be queuing a while yet.

  It was our first week back at university, and we were the ‘big kids’ now—Noah, Matty and me, along with the other two thousand or so in our cohort—embarking on the final year of our Bachelor’s degrees. It was daunting. Another ten months until we graduated, by which point we’d be limping to cross the finish line and glad to see the back of uni.

  For the time being, we were eager to get started. The summer break had been way too long and mostly a washout. Actually, that wasn’t true. It had been really good in parts. Noah and Matty had lasted a measly two weeks into their road trip—not their fault—and Leigh had moved in…and then moved out…and then moved back in. In between the back and forth, on the days I wasn’t melting in my grandma’s massive greenhouse, I was on the first bus over to Noah’s place, and we’d spent a fair bit of time together, the four of us. Lots of walks and visits to local tourist attractions that Noah hadn’t seen, never mind Leigh. Better still, all the walking meant I had to dig out a pair of old jeans that were a size smaller, and I’d felt so much fitter.

  We got on brilliantly, which was Leigh’s doing. They were so open and chatty, and they had a wicked sense of humour. They were starting an engineering degree, so it was understandable they were geeky in that way, the same as Noah and I were about books, and Matty was about his dancing, and Leigh wasn’t in the least apologetic. There I’d been, trying to impress them with my pretty extensive knowledge of Norfolk’s geography, and they’d piped up with the full history of The Broads, and how the waterways were the work of a Dutch engineer, and…yes, I was hanging on their every word.

  There were so many moments like that. I’d had an amazing time. I don’t think it’s forward of me to say we all did. But then Leigh went away with their aunty for a few weeks,
and I went back to my old ways. TV, computer, books—all that stuff that exercises the brain but does nothing for the rest of you.

  Since Leigh had got back, something was fundamentally different, and it wasn’t them, I didn’t think. It was me. I had no idea what the problem was. Maybe it was just the pressure of knowing what lay ahead of us at uni this year.

  Noah and I had already been in the library every day for two weeks, trying to get some advance study done while droves of newbies wandered behind their student guides, all of them with that same look of total bewilderment. They’d be getting lost for at least the next month, if my experience was anything to go by. Noah and I had ended up in a sociology lecture in our first term—we were studying English—and we’d been too embarrassed to get up and leave before the end. We never did find our classroom on our own—if it wasn’t for Matty, we might still have been wandering the campus now.

  I realised Noah was staring at me expectantly. “What?”

  “Doughnuts?”

  “Oh!” I’d forgotten he’d asked. I wrinkled my nose. “I dunno. Do I?” Before I got any further in figuring out whether I was hungry enough or in the mood, Matty—who was standing next to us but I’d thought he wasn’t listening because he was messing with his phone—answered on my behalf.

  “Yeah, you do.”

  I shrugged helplessly at Noah. “My dietician says I do.”

  Noah looked amused, as opposed to smiling. It’s not that he didn’t ever smile, but he definitely reserved them for special occasions. “Banana cream?” he asked.