Chloe puts the chair she was lifting down and marches to the opposite side of the counter I’m standing behind. “What?!”
“Yeah, I kind of have feelings for another man,” I mumble as I scratch the back of my head, feeling some of the hair fall out of my bun.
“Marcello, are you… Is this… Wait!” She holds both her hands up, palms towards me. “Is it Giles?”
I blink at her, thinking that I’ve imagined that name falling out of her mouth.
“It is Giles, isn’t it? Oh. My. God.” Her smile is wide and her dark eyes are sparkling and I don’t quite know what’s happening.
“It doesn’t matter who it is.” I wave a hand around. “The point is—”
“No! No, it does matter. It matters a lot.” She slaps a hand on the counter as if to get my attention but she already has it.
“Why?” I huff out a nervous laugh.
“Because he likes you too!”
More blinking. More waiting for the universe to erase the last five words she just said. But it doesn’t. And I’m selfish. I want to hear them again.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Giles likes you too!” Chloe says, and this time her words echo in my brain until I speak again.
“He does?”
“Yes! A lot!”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know. But Radia told me that he told her that he likes you just the other week.”
“The other week…” I think out loud. “Then why is he…”
My thoughts are interrupted by a loud knock at the door. Chloe and I both turn our heads and see Radia outside, waving at us.
Chloe moves to unlock the door but I’m stationary, pinned to the spot as I try to process what Chloe has just revealed.
“Just the woman,” Chloe says as she drags Radia into the room by the arm.
“Lovely to see you too,habibti,” Radia says with more than a little sarcasm.
“Tell Marcello what you told me.” Chloe points at me and then crosses her arms with an air of smug satisfaction.
Radia’s eyes shift from me to her girlfriend and then back again. Her voice is low as she speaks, all the time avoiding my gaze. “About how I want you to wear a toy for me when we go up to Birmingham on the train this weekend?”
“Shit, no, not that.” Chloe waves her hands around and her afro bobs with the movement. “About what Giles told you. About Marcello.”
Radia’s eyes do more ping-ponging between Chloe and me. “But I wasn’t supposed to tell you,” she says in a hushed voice.
“Well, you did and we will apologise for it later, but now you have to tell Marcello that he’s not the only one who’s caught feelings between the two of them.”
Radia’s body language immediately changes. She holds her hands out, one pointing at me and the other at Chloe. “Wait, what? You like him too?”
I nod with what I’m absolutely certain is a stupid grin.
“But you’re straight?”
“Not anymore.”
