"Thomas Nielsen?"

Thomas let go of the cigarette and stubbed it out against the gravel, not turning around to face the person who had spoken his name. The ingratiating tone was enough for him to be able to guess whom it belonged to.

Lars, in fact he was not sure of the last name, with his shiny bald head looked down upon him from the top of the staircase leading up to the theatre.

"Hi."

"Haei!"

Lars did an atrocious imitation of the Danish greeting and Thomas resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

Except from having an apparent lack of humour, there was not many things he was sure of concerning Lars, he realised. What he did know was that Lars lived just a couple blocks away from Arvid and Liv. He was the father of Liv's best friend Alice, a colleague of their father and a therefor a former friend of both him and their mother. Before Arvid's and Liv's parents split up, Thomas sometimes encountered Lars along with his wife over for dinner when he stayed at Arvid's.

"Long time. How's your father?"

The dreaded question. Luckily Lars settled for some mumbling and nodding, and went on talking.

"You're here with Liv, right?"

Another nod.

"I can't believe they're so grown up already. I mean did you get a look at them tonight. Lots of boys for you and her brother to fend off, huh?", Lars continued and descended the stairs so that he stood next to Thomas, nudged him a bit too hard with his elbow.

"Arvid's in Strasbourg."

Despite the palpable lack of enthusiasm and attempt to change the subject from Thomas's side, Lars chuckled, sort of as if he had not heard him.

"I remember what it was like, you know. As a teenage boy one only has one thing on one's mind."

This statement only furthered Thomas's effort to avoid meeting Lars's eager gaze and he settled for nodding slowly again. The feeling of being accused of something snuck up on him. However, it was obvious the man had had a few too many glasses of champagne, so he decided he might be overthinking it. There was no way Lars could know or even be able to guess at it. No, this wasn't about him and his disgusting secret.

After having chuckled some more Lars gave him a firm pat on the shoulder and left him alone with his self disdain.

Thomas went over Lars's words in his head again. The man he had been vaguely acquainted with since early childhood, about as long as he had known Arvid, had always been a tad slimy and well... had reminded him a lot of his own dad - which was the opposite of a good thing.

Liv's best friend, Alice, did not ressemble him very much, luckily. Not just because she had hair on her head but also because she seemed genuinely nice. He knew Liv adored her.

Later, he would come back to this point of the evening in thought countless times, but for now he let the combination of unease and slight shame Lars had inflicted upon him fade. It was not even his choice to do so, really, for a pair of warm, summer tan arms had wrapped around his neck and back, turning his mind instantly blank. She must have snuck up on him from behind, she had a habit of doing so but rarely managed to actually surprise him.

"Don't scare me like that", he choked trying to get his vocal cords to cooperate.

"Hi, Tommy!", she giggled in his ear, triumphant over having been able to surprise him. Her hair spilled over his shoulders and brushed over his face as she rested her head on his shoulder. Then she drew back, standing next to Alice and Wilma. They both smiled and greeted him with their well-meaning but ever so slightly pitiful expressions. For some reason they always looked pitifully at him, which made him wonder what sort of image of him Liv had given them.

All three of them where in white, layered sundresses and had just graduated from the gymnasium if anyone asked. In all honesty they were ninth-graders, around 16 years old.

"Why are you out here all alone?", Wilma asked and pouted her lips regretfully at him.

"Just getting some air."

Liv rolled her eyes at this well rehearsed line.

"You mean just polluting some air? God, you reek of smoke", she said, glaring at him snidely.

"Yeah well you lot have been on the champagne, so there. Totter back inside now, the second act is starting."

She gave him a semi-serious look that seemed to convey something like: We're not done here, but obeyed and moved along with Alice and Wilma towards the faux-gilded entrance.

In the midst of all the elderly, culturally interested theatre visitors they drew on a great deal of attention. One gentleman even blurted out: "Ah! Nymphs of the summer!", and received an annoyed yet amused glare from his wife. "Hands to yourself, Bertil!", she admonished and Thomas collar suddenly felt really tight. The August evening seemed to be suffocatingly hot just now, too, despite the fact that the sun was about to set.

This was stupid, he thought. He had not wanted to go for years, but his father had made him, or well, rather threatened him into going. It was an annual tradition after all, to escort his wheelchair-bound grandma Böret to the theatre every August. Ever since eight years of age he had done it and Arvid, accompanied by Liv a couple years later, had joined in to make it less unbearable for him.

Now that Arvid was unable to come Liv had spent the evening with her friends and their parents instead. For most of the neighbourhood families this was apparently a tradition too.

The sense of disappointment had been so strong it shocked him. Probably because it had been a tradition including only him and the Svartling-siblings, which he had cherished. That is what he told himself anyway, pushing away any other potential theories of reasons, knowing all too well what they were rooted in.