No strings attached.
No strings attached.
“No,” I answer eventually. “I just… I’m tired.”
“Nah, man, don’t do that,” Marcello says and I realise he still hasn’t turned his water on.
“Do what?”
“Make excuses. Be honest with me. What did I do? Was it that I made you give him your number because the more I think about that now, the more I realise that was fucking stupid. You did say that you weren’t interested in him. It was part of the reason you wanted to start training with me but I just forgot in that moment. My brain does that sometimes. It jumps to conclusions without fact-checking. It’s not an excuse, but I just…”
I pull in a breath and then let it go, slowly. “Yeah, that did piss me off,” I say finally. “I get that you forgot – that’s human, we all make mistakes – but I really am not interested in Tony.”
There’s a pause long enough to make me move my head further away from the water so I ensure I don’t miss what he’s saying because of the noise.
“I get that now. And I’m sorry. I fucked up, and I’m sorry.”
I want to hug him. I want to charge into his cubicle and wrap my arms around him.
“Thanks,” I say instead.
His water turns on and I watch as steam starts to emerge from the top of the cubicle next to me. When I smell his shower gel – something creamy and earthy rather than spiced or floral – I reach for my own and finally start to soap down my body. When I turn the heat down a little I realise that it helped. Hearing Marcello apologise helped, even if his error wasn’t the main reason I felt so distressed as we both pounded the treadmill in silence.
“You want to know why I did it?” Marcello asks after more than a few minutes have gone by.
“Did what?” I ask.
“Made you swap numbers with Tony.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Because I… I felt jealous.”
I switch my water off. I was finished anyway but suddenly the rush of water in my ears is too much. I desperately need to hear Marcello’s answer to my next question.
“You felt jealous? Of what?”
His water is still running when he replies, “I felt a bit… territorial of you. After what happened on Sunday. I had all these stupid fucking thoughts about how onlyI’mallowed to get sucked off by you and I realised how idiotic that was. So I figured the best way to get those thoughts out of my brain now was to watch you swap numbers with Tony, to make myself get the message that you’re very much free to do whatever you want, with whoever you want.”
“But…” I begin but close my mouth a beat later.
“I would never have done it if I had known it would backfire like it just did.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’re cool.”
I know I should say more after he just shared so much with me, but I’m still processing. I’m still wrapping my head around what he just said.
Jealous?
Jealous.
Jealous!
After wrapping my towel around my waist, my hand then hovers over the door.
“Do you still feel the same way?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
