I say nothing to him as he walks away from me, back to his office. This time he shuts the door. I choose two bottles of wine—red for Harry, white for me—and head upstairs again.
Harry’s eyes are like saucers when he catches sight of my offerings. I set the tray down on my desk, and he immediately tears a leg off the chicken.
“So . . .” I say.
“So . . .” he replies.
“What’s this shit you so desperately need to talk to me about?” I pull my chair out from under the desk and sit down.
He deflects the question with another question. “Why did you text me to come over?”
So I do the same. “Why did you like my photo from last year? Why were you looking through them?”
“Why did you unblock me?”
I open my mouth. Close it again. Damn it.
Harry smirks. Smug fucking prick.
“Why haven’t you fucked Lionel? Or anyone else for that matter? Why have you spent the entire year not doing what you’re supposed to be doing? You’re twenty-three years old, Harry. You should be out there fucking your way through your legions of adoring fans. You should be sowing oats and falling in love with dickheads and wasting your youth.”
He’s quiet for a moment. I realise he’s chewing chicken. “I fell in love with a dickhead once.”
I roll my eyes.
“Okay, do you actually want to hear why I never went on that date with Lionel, and why I haven’t fucked anyone since you?”
I hold my arms open as an invitation for honesty.
“I mean, you already know.”
“Come on. If I already knew, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
Harry tosses the bone onto the plate and tears the other leg off. “You know what’s ironic?”
I can take a pretty good guess at what he’s going to say, so I don’t bother answering.
“That you’re ace and you’ve slept with about twenty thousand people since we broke up, but me, a non-ace person who loves fucking and sex and basically never stops thinking about it, has slept with exactly zero people.”
I’m standing up again. “But why, Harry? I practically handed Lionel to you. I spent weeks chatting to him, drip feeding him ideas about you until he was begging me for your number. You’ve been in love with him since you were sixteen.”
“Maybe,” Harry says, shaking his head. “But people change their minds.” He looks at me pointedly. I have no clue what point he’s trying to make. “Fucking hell, Lando! How? How have you made it this far without figuring it out? I didn’t sleep with Lionel or anyone else because they’re not you!” He’s shouting at me now. “I’m in love with you! Not him! And I know you know thattoo.”
I did know. I always knew. Still, it doesn’t take me any less by surprise. I stagger over to the bed and drop to the mattress. I miss, and end up sliding onto the floor at the foot.
“You are such a fucking drama queen,” Harry says, taking another bite of chicken. I guess I deserved that one. “You spent a whole year pissing about with my emotions, making me fall in love with you and pushing me away, and then doing it over and over until I finally had enough. I thought I could quit you once and for all.”
“We would never have worked as a couple, though,” I say, still in my crumpled heap on the rug.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you keep saying, but you never once explained the real reason. You never gave me a chance to prove that I’m not the person you’re frightened I’ll become. I’m different, Lando.”
“But you’re not different!” I yell. “You’re all the same. You only care about one thing.”
He tosses the second bone onto the dish, scrubs his hands on the front of his jean shorts, and grabs both bottles of wine before coming to sit next to me on the carpet. “I’m not saying I’m different from other guys; I’m saying I’m not the person you’ve convinced yourself I am . . . or that I’ll become. And I’m not talking about sex either. Yes, okay, sex is fucking great, but that’s not the real reason you’ve been pushing me away, is it?”
It takes me a few moments to gather an eloquent enough response. “I beg your finest fuck?”
Despite how pissed off with me he is, he still smiles. Harry opens both bottles with a corkscrew he’d tucked into his back pocket and passes me the white without a glass. I swig it straight from the neck.
