“Wow, you are angry…and kind of a tosser right now,” she snapped. “If you’re going to be a little bitch about it just forget I called.”
“Oh, I’ll wait for you to deem me important enough to reply to.”
Shit. Why was I engaging in a stupid argument with her? She sucked me in every time and I ended up acting like a fucking teenager.
She snorted. “Get over yourself, Damon, this wasn’t about you.”
It wasn’t myself who I needed to get over.
“I can’t believe we’re having this fight. Do you want to talk about why you ignored me?”
“No.”
“What do you want, Nell?”
“I wanted to see if you were up for getting together tonight. Something I’m thoroughly regretting right now.” Sighing sharply, she added ‘twat’ under her breath.
“Perhaps I’d like a night to myself.”
“Fine, suit yourself,” she snapped and hung up.
Growling, I launched my phone at the wall and luckily it just missed, flying past and hitting the side of the sofa instead.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. What the fuck was wrong with her? No one could get me worked up in the best and worst ways like Nell. Half the time I wanted to hold onto her until we grew old and the other half I wanted to throttle her.
Knowing I’d gone too far and completely overreacted, I did the walk of shame to my phone, embarrassed at how I’d lost it, and called her back.
“Hello,” she said in that tone that would usually have me shielding my balls and skulking off.
“I’m sorry. I overreacted and I’m sorry.”
There was a good ten seconds silence while she contemplated what she wanted to do. Nell was stubborn and if she wanted to hold a grudge she could very easily, and very successfully, do so.
She signed and I knew I was forgiven too. “It’s my fault. I should’ve handled it better, yesterday and just now.”
“Did you call before because you want to come over?”
“I did but…”
“Come over, Nell.”
“Yeah? You sure? You don’t want a break from my crazy?”
“Nah, it makes life interesting. And in all honestly I think I equally contributed to the crazy back there.”
“Hmm, yeah, you kind of did. Fucking drama queen.”
“Hurry up, Nell,” I said and hung up smiling.
Her place wasn’t too far so if she was literally jumping in her car and heading out I didn’t have long to pick up the dirty underwear on my bedroom floor. Nell wouldn’t care past taking the piss and I never did a big clean before she came over but I drew the line at her walking over my worn boxers.
I pulled my t-shirt over my head and went to my room. My place was usually tidy, mostly because I didn’t own too much. I didn’t like clutter. Well, I didn’t like to tidy so I kept things minimalistic.
Nell rapped on my door ten minutes later; nine minutes after I’d finished throwing my clothes in the washing machine. I answered the door and she smiled sheepishly.
“Hey,” she said, biting her lip.
“Come in,” I replied, stepping aside.
She walked in much more reserved than usual. We’d argued a million times before but this one was different, it was about something real.
I kicked the door shut and held my hands up. “Are we cool? You’re not planning any revenge, are you?”
Tilting her head to the side, she said, “No revenge, I swear. Arguing with you is kinda fun.”
Was it? I liked when we teased each other mercilessly but not when we argued.
“I’m sure it’ll happen again.”
“No doubt.” She turned before going into the living room. “Damon, I’m exhausted. Physically and emotionally.”
Her words hit me like a fucking freight train. She hadn’t come here for sex, she came for comfort. That was a new development.
“Have you eaten?”
“No, but I don’t want to.”
Nell wasn’t the skipping meals type so I knew something was really affecting her and even if she wasn’t ready to open up and tell me why, she had come to me for support.
“Go to bed then.”
Laughing nervously, she tugged on the sleeve of her jacket. “You don’t mind me coming over just to steal half of your bed?”
Jesus, she could be really obtuse sometimes. “No, I don’t mind.” I actually loved that she was coming to me; usually it would be Chloe who got her.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.
Something passed between us. My heart raced and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It was a breakthrough and I wanted to push but it’d taken her years to get to this point. This was a huge deal to her.
“Are you coming too?”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I replied.