I Hate Summer

T
HE
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 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.” 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 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 makes 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.

“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 arch 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 yer drive, love?”