Chapter Forty-one
It’s already light out. It’s early but already bright, sunlight pouring through those rubbish venetian blinds and encasing the room in a hazy glow. Birds are singing. I hear a few cars pass by, and the steady, heavy breathing of Nate beside me. There’s a cold foot against mine, and an arm tucked under my neck, wrapped around me. The mattress creaks as I shift, stretching and yawning.
I knock him in the arm with my elbow when I try to lift my arms, and Nate grumbles in his sleep, rolling onto his back. He scrubs the back of a hand over his mouth while I rub the sleep out of my eyes.
“Sorry,” I whisper, my voice thick with sleep.
He doesn’t answer, though, because he’s still fast asleep. I consider waking him up but as soon as my hand reaches across the bed to shake him, I stop myself.
It’s Sunday.
It’s Sunday and the lockdown is over and we can go outside and—and I can go home.
I draw my hand back toward me. No, I think. I’m not going to wake him up.
My bare feet make almost no noise when they touch the floor, and I ease myself gradually off the bed. Nate is still flat out, and I’m as quiet as I can be as I collect up my things. My newly purchased ASOS order is bundled in one of Nate’s dresser drawers and I open it slowly, quietly, to get my things. I pull on a pair of the yoga pants, find my bra on the floor by the wardrobe, and wriggle into one of the T-shirts.
Nate had seemed like a great prospect for a one-night stand.
He’d been easy to talk to, could take a joke, but he was still a pretty sensible-sounding guy. And both of us had been upfront: we weren’t looking for a relationship.
Don’t get me wrong, I love guys.
But that’s sort of the point. Why tie myself down to just one of them?
I don’t know when this went from being trapped in the apartment of my one-night stand and casual sex to actually liking the guy, but . . .
It’s kind of nice.
Extra nice that he’s been trying to help me and not be too judgemental about the haphazard (read: somewhat-shitty) state of my life since yesterday, doing things like helping me make a budget and setting up a standing order to pay off a little on my credit cards each month, and helping me write an email to the landlord about some of the things in my house share he should be fixing for us—all the things I told him I’d been putting off, because it was intimidating and I didn’t even know where to start.
Extra extra nice that we had sex again after our talk on Friday night, and a few times since, and that it’s really good sex.
Not so nice that he’s very adamant I am not allowed to keep his Ramones T-shirt as I’ve become particularly attached to it this week.
We’ve been using it as a kind of bartering tool. Our own personal in-joke.
“You can have the shirt if you cook dinner and do the washing up afterward.”
“I’ll give you the Ramones top if you clean the bathroom and let me do the living room instead.”
I’m still not totally sure when the cuddling had become such a thing, though. I’m not usually a cuddler. Mostly, really, because I was always too busy getting up and sneaking out of the guy’s place, or getting up to get dressed so he knew he had to leave.
It was never like there was any point in pretending. I wanted to spend the night with the guy—whoever he was—not a morning in bed pretending we were a couple, and this was what we did. I had places to go, people to see. Sometimes, I just had to get to work. I didn’t want to waste my time like that—and neither did he, not really.
Apparently, though, I am a cuddler. At least when it comes to Nate.
Now that Sunday is here, I’m . . . pretty disappointed, actually, that my one-night stand is finally at an end. I’m disappointed that I’ll have to go home, and that my time with Nate is up.
But, you know. All good things must come to an end, and all that jazz.
Where’s my coat? I haven’t needed it all week . . . Oh! Right, it’s on the hook in the hallway. And my bag . . . Shit, where did I put my bag? I was packing it up yesterday afternoon, collecting my crap from where I’d strewn it around Nate’s apartment, and then . . . Ooh!
Yes, got it. I left it next to the sofa.
Okay, phone, keys, purse . . . Check, check, check.
I pull on my coat, grab my bag, and slip out of the front door. It clicks shut behind me.
The hallways are silent. I guess nobody else is awake yet. I mean, they can’t be; if they were, wouldn’t they all be clamoring to get out, just to see something other than the four walls of their apartment for a change? I know I’m desperate for that.
I half expect to find the caretaker downstairs standing guard, the doors chained shut, laughing at me for thinking I might finally be free. The doors are right there. Just waiting for me . . .
I’m right in front of them.
“Going somewhere?”
I jump, feeling like I’ve just been caught doing something genuinely, properly wrong, and cringe, turning slowly. “Heeeeeeeey, Walter White. How’s it going?”
He’s still wearing his mask and gloves, which I think doesn’t bode very well, but then the bit of his face I can see crinkles in what has got to be a smile, and he laughs. Look at that—he’s capable of human emotion after all.
“Saw you sneaking down the stairs on the security cameras.
Should’ve guessed if anyone was going to be first out, it’d be you.”
He unhooks the giant ring of keys from his belt and waves for me to back up. When I realize he’s unlocking the doors, I start singing that “Pomp and Circumstance” tune, the graduation-type one, and I stand as straight as I can to salute him the whole time.
“If I’d known we were doing an unlocking ceremony, I’d have worn my glad rags,” I tell him. Walt takes his key out, retreating down the hallway to a “safe distance” so I can leave. I look back at him with a grin. “Next time, maybe?”
His smile vanishes. “Please, God, no.”
Whoa, and he has a sense of humor. Who knew?
“Go on,” he says, waving me off and heading back to his own apartment on the ground floor. “Get out of here, Ramones.”
I press a palm to one of the doors, holding my breath, and it gives way.
Oh, sweet, sweet, freedom. Hello, world. Good-bye, building.
Halle-fricking-lujah.
I push the door open the rest of the way, and teeter outside in my heels, bag swinging from my arm, and take a deep breath.
*
I knock on the door. There’s a minute or so before it opens, but I can hear movement on the other side.
When it opens, Nate looks pissed off.
“Ooh,” I say, grinning, “looks like someone is a grouch in the mornings, after all. Just as well I brought breakfast then, huh?”
I hold up the Starbucks cups and the brown paper bag of McDonald’s breakfast, grinning at him.
The scowl on Nate’s face vanishes, relief taking over instead, and he laughs, stepping back to let me inside. “Jesus, Immy, I thought you’d pulled your escape act again. Just leaving without a good-bye.”