Their date, Aiden decided it was a date, was surprisingly normal. He didn’t mean normal in a bad way. But normal in an unexpected way. They watched an action movie. Ate popcorn. Went shopping, spent most of the time in Eason’s, where Aiden amused himself with the music section as Lucas stared at the rows and rows of books, and then stopped for coffee.

They were hanging out.

But it was kind of more.

Aiden hoped it was more.

“This is good.” He sipped the bitter coffee, enjoying how it burnt a little on the way down.

Lucas had gotten coffee too, but he was less impressed. “It’s too strong.” He put down his milky cup and put a slice of cake between the two of them, setting up two forks.

“I don’t really like sweets.”

“I know” Lucas lifted up his fork and took a bit off the orange coloured cake. “That’s why I got coffee cake.”

Aiden grinned. “I guess I can try a bit.”

The café was quiet, and there wasn’t anyone to find them sharing a cake like this strange.

“UL.” Lucas broke the pleasant silence. “You’re doing a music course?”

“A mixture of practical and theory.” Aiden nodded, “If I don’t get into that one there’s another course in Cork I could do, but it’s mostly theory. And you? Engineering?”

“Yeah. It’d be easy to get a job out of.” Lucas sounded so uninterested that Aiden stopped eating and drinking.

“You sound excited.”

Lucas snorted, but his expression was more serious as he toyed with a piece of the cake. “It’s stressing me out. I don’t really have anything I want to do. I mean, there are things I want to do, but none of it really leads to a job.”

“I get what you mean.” Aiden really did. There weren’t exactly jobs falling from the sky for someone who could play violin and do nothing else. Teaching. But the idea was very unappealing.

“Music.” Lucas said, as if shaking off the sudden serious mood. “Want to go to a concert?”

“Sure.” He agreed immediately, “Who do you want to see? It might be hard to get tickets this short notice.”

A funny look crossed Lucas’s face. “I uh, I sort of got them already.”

“Oh.” Aiden was a little taken back, but with Lucas watching his reaction he forced himself not to overthink it. “So who are we going to see?” He wanted to ask when he’d gotten them exactly.

Lucas relaxed, and a confident smile replaced the unease. “That will depend.”

“Depend?”

“On how many performances he can get around to. I got us Electric Picnic tickets.”

He couldn’t help the smile that broke out, or the excitement that curdled in his stomach. “Really?”

“Yup. Also, I think we should just be friends.”

*

When Lucas said concert what he meant was music festival. He meant expensive music festival. A three-day event. A three-day party. It was one of those things Aiden had always wanted to go to, but never seriously considered it.

Reason number one; partying wasn’t his strong suit.

Reason number two; the horror stories about drugs every year.

Reason number three; Camping.

Aiden didn’t know if he was mentally prepared for more camping so soon after getting away from the woods.

And then there was reason number four.

We should just be friends.

Aiden bunched up his shirt in his tight grip and threw it into his bag. Lucas had calmly explained why he thought that. He’d listened to what Aiden had said when they’d been fighting. He wanted them to get to know each other. He wanted them to build trust.

He sat on his bed and tugged at the cast on his arm.

In that moment, his heart had pounded so hard against his ribs it felt like it would burst. The sick feeling in his stomach was unbearable.

Just friends.

Build trust.

It was reasonable in his head, what Lucas was saying. But his body’s reaction to the words didn’t agree, and his first thought hadn’t been ‘that’s reasonable’.

Despite being dumped, or not dumped since they weren’t technically going out in the first place, Aiden was still packing his bag for the trip.

Lucas would be picking him up soon. With Connor in the car. And Hugh. And then they’d get Roma, because Lucas said he kept a spare ticket for any friend Aiden wanted to bring.

So the romantic festival date was a group thing. As friends. With the guy who’d broken his arm, the guy who’d just shut him down and that guy’s smirking brother.

Aiden knew that the moment they got there it would be two groups. Roma didn’t like Lucas or Hugh, and he knew that anyone related to Lucas would get a red mark. So she’d only be talking to him. They’d end up away from the others.

“Are you sure you want to go?” His dad leaned against the doorframe.

“We’ll be careful.” He looked up. “No drinks unattended, no wondering off alone, everyone will go back the tents together.”

His dad was giving him a look. One of those ‘I know everything’ looks. Except he didn’t know everything. He only knew that Aiden was grumpy.

“I do want to go.” Aiden added, consciously cutting down on the attitude. If his dad really got it into his head that he didn’t want to go on the trip, he wouldn’t be allowed. Especially given how reluctant he’d been to let him go to Electric Picnic without any ‘adult’ supervision.

“Okay…” His dad sat next to him on the bed. “I want you to be safe, and if anything happens I can drive down there at a moment’s notice.”

“It’s a five-hour drive.”

“And worth the time if you’re not comfortable.”

“Thanks dad.”

His dad squeezed his shoulder. There was a knock at the front door. “While you’re there, you may as well try and enjoy it.”

Lucas greeted his dad warmly and gave an equally warm smile to Aiden. His blonde hair was swept neatly to the side, his pale shirt and dark jeans fit his body closely.

His stomach was too knotted to return the smile, but he manged a ‘hi’ so he gave himself a pat on the back.

“You have everything?” Lucas asked as they walked to his car.

Connor was in the front, which meant Hugh was in the backseat. The feeling of his first punch swam in his mind, and he stopped. Suddenly Aiden wasn’t sure why he was going. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Hugh. Lucas had just broken up with him.

“Aiden?” Lucas turned back, a quizzical look on his face.

Aiden didn’t want to let him down. He didn’t want to be that friend that flaked at the last second but thinking about the guilt made him angry at Lucas for putting him in a situation like this.

“He broke my arm.” Aiden said.

Lucas stepped closer, digging his hands into his pockets. “I know. But I’ve talked to him. There won’t be any more of that carry on.”

“And thanks to him I can’t work for the summer, which means I won’t get paid.” Aiden continued, bending the truth about why he wasn’t at work to suit himself, “And I could miss the audition for the college I want to get into. Or even if I don’t miss it, I won’t be doing nearly as well as I could without any time to practice.”

“I know” Lucas was trying to meet his eyes, but Aiden didn’t let him. “And so does Hugh, he’s sorry about what he did. He didn’t mean to break your arm.”

“No, he just meant to hurt me.”

“Aiden.”

The anger was getting hotter. “I don’t want to go with him.”

“Aiden.” Lucas sounded exasperated, “We’ve already made the plans.”

The boys in the car were watching them. Connor with a raised eyebrow. Hugh with a blank stare. Aiden wondered if he practiced keeping a neutral expression.

“You know,” Aiden adjusted the strap of his bag, and stepped around Lucas to the car, “As friends, that’s a pretty shitty thing to do.”

Aiden climbed into the car. He wanted to regret what he’d said, and he knew he would later, but right now he was sitting next to Hugh. And his arm was in a cast. And he couldn’t play violin. And Lucas was an inconsiderate jerk.

Lucas slammed his door, and if steam had started spewing from his ears, Aiden wouldn’t have been surprised. He was expecting to be kicked out. But Lucas put the car into drive and pulled away without a word.

Hugh looked at Lucas with a frown, and then scowled at Aiden. Clearly, he realised the reason he was angry. Aiden refused to look at him. Instead he took out his phone, and text Roma about how shit this trip was going to be.

“Good to see you Aiden.” Connor broke the silence with a wry smile, “Ready to have some fun?”

“You know it.” Aiden replied dryly, and Connor laughed.

Lucas’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

*

“It’s so awkward!” Roma hissed.

Aiden glanced over his shoulder, but the others were too far down the line to hear them. The gates into the grounds for the camping section of Electric Picnic were massive. They’d been standing in line for almost an hour and only now were they getting to the front.

“What do you expect me to do about it?” Aiden muttered back. The tense mood in the car hadn’t changed. He’d been forced to sit next to Hugh when Roma was picked up, and now that anger had finally turned into regret.

“Let’s get a separate tent.”

“Lucas booked it online already. It’s paid for.” Aiden said, “And it would be kind of crappy to skip out when he bought us all the tickets.”

“Um, excuse you, but he bought you the ticket.” Roma huffed, “I had to pay him back.”

Aiden took his eyes away from the gate where two girls were arguing with the guard to get inside. From where they were standing the fact that all the tents were sold out didn’t seem to get through to them.

Roma raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t give him money for the ticket?”

Crap. Crap. Crap. Aiden felt shittier and even more of an idiot than before. “I’ll give it to him.” He said, his voice sounding embarrassed even to his own ears.

Roma laughed.

Aiden had gotten the impression this was a date, and Lucas was treating him – and since that initial impression he’d been too hung up on the ‘only friends’ thing to give it much thought. You don’t expect your friends to dole out two hundred euro for you. That’s just not cool.

“How much was it again?” Aiden asked.

“Three hundred.” Roma dug out her ticket as they stepped up. “Which is why we’re going to enjoy the hell out of this weekend, because I didn’t spend that much money to just mope around.”

The guard scanned their tickets, and Roma pulled her brown hair up into a tight bun. She finished just as the guard gave them the go ahead.

Inside the field were rows upon rows of tents. These weren’t pop-up tents. They were canvas. Put up with stakes, fitted out with mosquito nets and mattresses.

“Showers are over that side.” Roma stood on her toes and pointed into a corner of the field. There was a large gym-looking building, with tons of people milling around outside it.

“Hm.”

“Okay, game plan.” She pulled him in close, “Drop are shit at the tent, showers and then rave.”

“That’s already the plan.”

“No. Just us two.” She peeked over her shoulder, “It’s way to frickin awkward with them and it won’t be any fun. Okay? Please Aiden, I spent three hundred bucks on this, we’re having fun.”

Aiden felt guilty. Guilty about ditching the other two -there’s no way he felt bad about leaving Hugh – and guilty that Roma had spent so much. “Fine.”

“Yes!” Roma squealed.

“Finally getting excited huh?” Connor questioned. His gaze flicked between the two of them, and Aiden got the feeling he knew something.

“Yeah.”

“Our number is seventy-six.” Lucas appeared with a key and a tag. “He said it’s up this direction.”

Aiden and Roma followed behind them, and after a final warning glare from her, he resolved himself. He’ll give Lucas the money, and have fun.