Chapter 1: Dinner Plans

Finlay Popple sat alone in his bedroom in halls, enjoying the break from his roommate, Jack. When he had first started university Jack had seemed like a nice guy, a little bit of a 'rugby lad' for sure, but he had been pretty friendly with Finlay. At school, none of Finlay's friends had been one of the 'cool kids', like Jack was, and Finlay hoped his new roommate would help him 'reinvent' himself as anything other than a nerd.

However, it was week four now and Finlay was starting to feel that the two of them were too different to ever get on; Jack's 'banter' and all of his 'lad' mates were getting too much for Finlay to put up with.

Finlay was browsing Facebook when his phone began to buzz. After a couple of rings, he answered, "Hey Mum."

"Hi sweetie!" came Jennifer's enthusiastic voice, "How are you?"

"I'm OK," he grunted, his tone bemused.

"Just OK?" she questioned, "What's wrong, Finny?"

"Nothing," responded her son in an uncooperative tone.

"Is it your roommate again? Are you sure you can't request to move to another room?"

"I don't think they'll move me just because I find Jack annoying," he replied.

Out of embarrassment, Finlay didn't want to admit to his mum that the thing that annoyed Finlay the most was when Jack brought back women and, most of the time, was completely indiscreet about it. It really pissed him off last week when he brought back Anna, a girl that Finlay fancied. Finlay hadn't ever spoken to Anna or told Jack that he liked her, so it wasn't Jack's fault as such... It was just annoying that his stupid 'banter' could seduce someone who seemed as clever and cool as Anna. The thing that annoyed him the most though (and embarrassed him) was that he silently wanked as the silhouettes of Jack and that night's conquest - ten in the past four weeks - gently gyrated to muffled orgasms.

"Well, have you tried talking to him about the things you don't like..."

Feeling an impotent shame, Finlay interrupted to change the subject, "Mum, what did you call about?"

Sounding taken aback by Finlay's abrupt tone, his mother took a second to respond, "Well, I just wanted to know if I can still come to visit you next weekend."

Finlay's older sister had just emigrated to Australia, after living away from home for the past three years, and his dad's job required him to travel quite frequently, so Finlay anticipated his mum might take it quite badly when he left home too. At first, he had been quite reluctant to have his mum visit him at university, he didn't want to be seen as lame, but, truthfully, it hadn't been as easy to make friends as he had hoped and he had secretly warmed to the idea of a visit from his mum.

His mum told him the details of her train and hotel, followed by some idle chit chat before they ended their conversation, leaving Finlay to resume browsing the Internet. Finlay's conversation with his mum regarding Jack had reminded him of the blonde girl, from two nights ago. He had pleasured himself to the barely visible dark shape of her ass beneath the sheets rising and falling.

Finlay dropped his jeans and pants right down to the floor and began to massage his erection to the memory of Jack's slut-of-the-day. He shuffled his chair forward; it was a regular chair, rather than one on wheels, and started searching for amateur videos of girls riding guys.

Finlay was close to finishing himself off when he heard the characteristic arrogant thuds of his flatmate making his way down the corridor. Finlay's heart skipped a beat when he missed the 'x' button on the porn video and hit the window resize button instead. Knowing he had barely a few seconds, he grabbed his jeans but felt them snag. He cursed to himself when he realised that they were caught under the leg of his chair. He managed to free them and pull them up around his waist as Jack walked in the door. The sudden movement caught Jack's eye and he smirked at Finlay as Finlay slapped down the lid of his laptop.

"Alright, mate," said Jack, still smirking as Finlay rushed to do up his fly.

"Uh yeah, hi, how's things?" mumbled Finlay shamefully.

"Good mate, good," said Jack, barely paying attention to Finlay as he splayed out onto his bed, "Love Thursdays. No lectures until Monday."

It pissed off Finlay that as a mathematics student, he had to attend 25 hours a week, but Jack, who did history, had just 10 hours. Apparently history students were supposed to do more hours of self-learning but all Jack seemed to do was play rugby, get drunk and pick up women. He could even see him doing it now; the obvious flick of his finger and mumble of 'left, left, ooo right' giving away that he was on Tinder.

"Ah mate!" exclaimed Jack, "Another match, that's six fit ones today."

'Fit ones? He treats women like objects and gets rewarded,' thought Finlay, whilst he outwardly congratulated Jack.

****

Finlay was playing Minecraft, when his phone started ringing. As expected, it was his mother; she had arrived in London about an hour ago for her weekend visit and she was due to get to her hotel soon.

"Hey Mum, where do you want me to meet you?"

"Hi Sweetie, I'm actually downstairs, I think," she said, stress evident in her voice, "Door number 60, right? There was a mix up at the hotel."

"Wait, you're here? What's wrong?"

"Can you let me in and I'll explain?" responded his mother, stress turning to exasperation.

Finlay mumbled an apology for not coming down straight away and then rushed downstairs. He opened the front door of the house of student flats to find his mother standing there, with a big handbag, a travel case and a grumpy look on her face. As soon as she saw her son, her frown gave way to a smile and she went to hug him, which he awkwardly returned.

As soon as their hug ended, Finlay heard a familiar voice and it made his stomach plunge, "Alright mate, who's your friend?"

Jack was at the foot of the steps that lead to the halls's front door and was looking up at Finlay and his mother. He ascended the stairs, hand outstretched, and Jennifer reacher her hand out to his.

"Hi, I'm Jennifer, Finlay's mum," she greeted, her earlier displeasure displaced by the enthusiasm she always got when meeting new people.

"Your mum?" asked Jack, looking at Finlay when he had stopped shaking Jennifer's hand, before looking back to her and continuing, "You sure you're not his older sister?"

"Well, aren't you charming!" laughed Jennifer.

Jennifer rolled her eyes but smiled as she stroked, hand-over-hand, her long black hair for a few seconds, before twirling one lock around her elegantly extended index finger. Finlay had read on the internet about women playing with their hair while talking to guys... was his mother flirting?

"You didn't tell me your name," she prompted Jack; their bodies were turned squarely to face each other and Jennifer's left hand was rested against Jack's upper arm whilst she spoke.

"Oh sorry, I'm Jack, I am Finlay's..." Jack paused, looking like he only just remembered Finlay was next to them, "Finlay's roommate."

"Oh...Jack," Jennifer said, the excitement in her voice lapsing as she continued, "Yeah Finlay's mentioned you. It's... uh nice to put a face to a name."

"Good stories, I hope," chuckled Jack, as he gave Finlay a 'friendly' punch in the arm, but both the force and the subtle tone of nervousness in Jack's laugh made Finlay question the innocent nature of the punch.

"Of course," lied Jennifer, evidently making more of an effort to sound cheerful about meeting the guy that Finlay had been complaining about for the past few weeks.

"So... uh... Mum should we go inside and you can tell me what happened?"

"Oh are you staying with us for a few days?" asked Jack, with a little too much enthusiasm for Finlay's liking.

"No, I had a hotel booking but apparently something's went wrong so I need to sort out new plans now," sighed Jennifer.

"Sounds terrible," replied Jack, lathering his voice with sympathy, "Let's go upstairs and we can fix this."

Without saying anything further, Jack picked up Jennifer's handbag and travel case in his left hand, which was already carrying a bag-for-life that contained a couple of cans of beer and an oven pizza. The case was a small overnight bag, so everything he was carrying can't have been too heavy, but Finlay thought it was obvious he was trying to show off.

"Jack, I can take that stuff..." said Finlay.

"Nah mate, us meatheads gotta be of some use," responded Jack abruptly.

'Who the heck says 'meatheads'?' thought Finlay, but he didn't say anything, instead he just awkwardly watched as Jack fished his keys from his pocked and opened the door, all whilst carrying his and Jennifer's bags in the other hand.

The three of them dumped Jennifer's stuff in Finlay and Jack's room and Jennifer explained her predicament. She had gone to the hotel and given a screenshot of her booking confirmation but it seemed the travel website that she had used hadn't sent the details through the hotel. The hotel said they couldn't do anything because they didn't have any proof that Jennifer had ever made a booking, and though the receptionist had been very apologetic, she said that all Jennifer could do is call the booking website.

After Jennifer had finished her angry rant, they tried a couple of nearby hotels, but it seemed that everything was likely to be booked up because of school mid-term holidays. They seemed to hit luck after the fourth place they tried, but the room was £230 a night, more than four times the cost of the room she had originally booked. Frustrated, Jennifer looked up the booking website contact details and called their support line. After grumbling her way through some automated questions, Jennifer was eventually queued to speak to a human operator. She paced around the room, her phone held in front of her with hold music playing over its loudspeaker.

"Hello, hotelbook.com. Thanks for calling our support line, you're on with Carly, how can I help you today?" came a very perky voice over the phone.

"Hi, I made a booking for the Holiday Lodge in Farringdon, and when I got there, they hadn't heard of my booking," replied Jennifer, the irritation in her voice contrasting with Carly's 'customer service' positivity.

"Oh dear, let's see how I can help!" chirped Carly, as Jennifer sighed, "Can I take your ten character booking reference number please?"

Jennifer read out the code at the top of her screenshot printout, and Carly asked her to wait while she checked the booking details.

"Hi madam, I found the problem, it looks like you booked using a discount code that isn't valid for peak periods, like this week, so the booking was cancelled."

Jack looked up from behind his phone, and sat up on the edge of his bed, having been lying down until now. He gave an disapproving look when Jennifer looked over. Finlay shrugged as his mother looked at him, annoyance towards Carly evident in her expression.

"OK but I got a booking confirmation, not a cancellation."

"Yes it looks like there was an error but you should have been sent an email with the cancellation."

"OK well I didn't."

"Are you... sure?" asked Carly, her professional veil of optimism slipping slightly as Jennifer's frustration started to turn to anger.

Jack appeared at Jennifer's shoulder and, without invitation, began to talk, "Hi Carly, my name's Jack, I'm a friend of Jennifer's, could we speak to your supervisor please?"

"Um... sure... give me a minute please," said the hesitant Carly.

"Um... Excuse me?" enquired Jennifer, turning to Jack as soon as hold music came on again, "I don't remember asking you to intervene."

"Yeah sorry, I should've asked first, but I used to work in a call centre, so I thought I could help. This woman's supervisor will have some leeway to give you a deal, and if you push that you want to make a complaint, they'd rather just give you something free than have a complaint to deal with. If they can resolve the problem in the first phone call then they get better stats and better bonuses and such."

Finlay was annoyed and embarrassed that Jack would have the arrogance to interfere in an issue that had nothing to do with him. He was thinking about what to say or do to reverse the awkward situation when to Finlay's shock, he saw his mum cautiously hand the phone to Jack, just as the hold music stop and a new voice came on the phone.

"Hi there, I'm Fiona, Carly has passed me your call. How can I help?"

"Hi Fiona," spoke Jack, slowly and confidently, "Jennifer received a confirmation email, to say her booking was confirmed, but you're saying that you cancelled it without adequately trying to ensure that you let her book something online that wasn't valid."

"Yes it's our policy..."

"Sorry, I wasn't finished. Basically, your customer has been left in a situation where she is struggling to find alternate accommodation because of this. These things do happen, but we're just asking you to resolve it."

"Yes, OK, I completely see what you're saying. We have already automatically issued a refund of the deposit, at the time of cancellation, but we can offer you a 50% discount at any hotel if you book through us again, so that you can find something tonight for cheaper, and we also have partnerships with various restaurants around London, so I've emailed a distinct voucher for a free meal up to £100 in value in order to apologise for our error."

Finlay saw an impressed look on his mother's face, especially as an email notification for the free meal voucher appeared on her phone within seconds. Finlay, however, was irritated with Jack; the woman on the phone would probably given them the same deal, without Jack's cocky performance.

Jennifer's earlier annoyance both from the hotel situation and Jack butting in seemed to have been quelled, as she thanked him very earnestly and started to stroke his right arm with her right hand, a very adoring smile beaming across her face.

"Now I just need somewhere to stay," mused Jennifer, her exciting ebbing as it became clear that Jack's 'solution' had not actually got her a hotel room yet.

"Well, you could just stay here," suggested Jack.

Finlay and Jennifer gave him a confused look, but Jack was only looking at Jennifer, who laughed as she replied, "So you mean I should just sleep on the floor? Not so easy at my age..."

"No, of course not, I can change my sheets and you have have my bed. I could sleep on the floor or, if you really feel uncomfortable, I could see if I could stay at another mates."

"No, no!" she retorted, "Don't be silly I can't kick you out of your own bed. If I'm sleeping here, then I suppose it would only be fair if I stay on Finny's bed."

Both Jack and Jennifer looked at Finlay. Jennifer had an expectant expression on her face, one that he read as saying 'well... if an stranger can offer to sleep on the floor for your mother, surely you could too?'

Jack had a similar expression, except for a twinge of smugness that said, 'I've snookered you mate, she's staying here tonight'.