And I sat there, my head spinning, with no clue what the fuck just happened.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
I looked at the driver’s eyes in the rear vision mirror. And every book and every movie that I hated, where the characters bickered over something stupid and miscommunication and pride fucked everything up, ran through my head. I hated that they wouldn’t just grow the fuck up and talk to each other. It was cliché, it was immature, and I understood now that it was very fucking real.
I still hated it.
I pulled out my wallet and threw a tenner to the cabbie for making him wait. “Right here, mate,” I said, getting out. I slammed the door and stomped after Andrew.
He’d just got his key in the door and opened it. “What are you doing?” he asked.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. “We’re going to fucking talk.”
His place was dark, save the hall light that cast a faint light out into his living room. He was still holding the books I’d bought him like they were some defensive shield, so I took them from him and threw them onto the sofa. He looked at the floor between us, and Jesus, he looked like he was about to cry.
So I did the only thing I could think of doing. I pulled him against me. I wrapped my arms around him, and he held me just as tight. It felt so good. It was true: hugs had healing powers. He fit against me just right, not in a sexual way, but in a fixing kind of way. I could feel the tenseness leave his shoulders, and after a moment he relaxed into me.
He mumbled against my shirt, “I don’t know what happened.”
I pulled back just a little and lifted his chin so I could kiss him. It was a soft kiss, an emotional kiss. “Please don’t ever not talk to me,” I whispered. “Don’t cut me off, don’t ignore me. It’s the one thing…” I swallowed hard. “It’s what they did.”
His eyes widened before slowly closing. He knew I was talking about my family. “God, Spencer, I’m sorry.”
“Be mad, be upset, but please don’t walk away from me.”
He took my face in his hands and kissed me before bringing my face into his neck. He held me so tight. “I didn’t realise,” he said. “I really fucked up.”
“No you didn’t,” I mumbled into his neck. “We’re learning as we go, that’s all.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the side of my head. “Thank you for not going home. Thank you for making me listen.”
I pulled back then and cupped his face, tracing his jaw with my thumbs. “You just shut down on me.”
“I know. I don’t mean to. It was just the most perfect night—I had the best night, I really did—and I wanted to bring you back here and take you to bed. I thought tonight might be the night, ya know? But then I say the most senseless things when I get nervous. I have no filter, and I’m socially awkward. I always have been. It’s painful, seriously. I wish I knew how to not ruin things.”
I kissed his eyelids, his cheek, then his lips. “You didn’t ruin anything.”
He snorted. “Okay.”
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
He stared at me then. “Yes. Thank God you got out of that cab.”
“It always bothers me in movies with miscommunication as the trope. It’s so cliché. And out of all the things, Andrew, we’re not cliché. We’re not When Harry Met Sally. We’re more like the movie Seven. With the head in the box.”
He blinked. “Seven?”
“Well, okay. Not in the psychopathic-murdering-madmen kind of way but in the unexpected kind of way. Nobody expected the head in the box.”
He finally laughed. “No mutilated heads in a box, and no walking away.”
“No.”
He breathed in deeply and leaned into my hand. “I don’t want to have sex.”
A bubble of laughter escaped me. “Oh, okay.”
He straightened, alarmed. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. Oh God, I’ve done it again. I meant tonight. I just meant it wouldn’t be right tonight. I want it to be when it won’t feel like a pity fuck.”
Now I laughed, long and loud. “Oh Andrew—” I kissed him. “—you are one of a kind.”
His shoulders sagged, and he wouldn’t look at me. “Will you stay anyway?”
I lifted his face so he could see I was smiling. I kissed him again. “I will stay. No sex though. But I want to wake up next to you, is that okay?”
He nodded. “Very.”
“And you will never be a pity fuck.”
“I say the most stupidest things.”
“And I have a stupid brain, so we make a good pair.”
“At least your stupid brain has a filter.” He blinked. “I didn’t mean you actually had a stupid brain.”
I snorted. “How about we just call it a day?”