But it did.
Oblivious, Isha stamped into his pristine shoes, phone and keys clutched in his hand, as though he walked out on me every time he came over. As though the nights I’d slept with him pressed against my back were a figment of my imagination.
I wanted to punch him. And then I wanted to punch myself. He wasn’t my boyfriend. I had no claim on his time. And it wasn’t like he’d arrived with any promise to stay. He never did. That shit just happened.
Fuck’s sake. It was a rare thing that I got emotionally attached to anyone, but I couldn’t deny that I’d become attached to Isha. That I’d felt connected to him in some way since I’d fucking met him. As Isha got closer to the door, that connection made my head throb with frustration. I didn’t want him to walk out of my house, but I couldn’t make myself ask him to stay.
Awkwardness filled the growing distance between us. Recently, our goodbyes had been a hurried grope as we both rushed off to work. Isha leaving with time to spare was new ground. Or, rather, old ground I’d forgotten about.
I forced myself to follow him out of the living room and to the front door. Isha turned, his hands half raised, but I didn’t meet him in the middle. If he wanted a grand farewell, he’d have to claim it. Claim me. Because I was over the whiplash I was getting from trying to figure out what he wanted.
Isha’s hands drifted away. He didn’t touch me. Just tilted his head sideways with another of those damn fucking grins. “See you soon?”
“If you say so, mate. You know where to find me.”
I spoke blandly, and ignored the flicker in Isha’s dark gaze. After a protracted pause, he left.
* * *
Isha
I seemed to be stuck on a never-ending cycle of taking one step forward and ten steps back. After two blissful weeks of sleeping over at Jude’s place on the regular, the demon in me had reanimated and fucked it all up.You shouldn’t have asked him to come to London. Things were fine the way they were.
True. But my kids were as obsessed with him as I was, and on my good days, nothing mattered more than making them smile. Shame what they wanted blurred so hard with what I wanted that none of it could ever happen. I couldn’t fuck Jude all over his house, and then deliver him to my kids as someone, as far as they knew, I’d only met a handful of times. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pretend, to myself or anyone else, that I wasn’t so completely fucking into him my bones hurt when we weren’t together.
Something had to give.
I opened WhatsApp, and blanked out at my message thread with Jude. He hadn’t contacted me since I’d left his house two days ago, and I hadn’t contacted him either. Not because I didn’t want to talk to him, fuck, no. But because I didn’t know what to say. I’d pissed him off when I’d left. The hurt in his gaze had been so fleeting someone else might’ve missed it, but I’d seen it like a fucking beacon, and it had made leaving him feel like a slow death.
So why did you do it?
Two days on, and I still had little idea. My fingers hovered over my phone, but Dom rocked up before I could type. I turned my phone upside down and forced a smile as he dropped into the seat opposite. “All right, mate?”
He scowled. “What do you think? The new bricklaying company didn’t show up. We’re a week behind schedule and bleeding cash like our throat’s been cut.”
I suppressed a sigh. I’d read the urgent email about the bricklayer hours ago, but failed to do anything about it. “It’s not that bad. We’ve budgeted for delays.”
His glare deepened. “Are you serious? You’re the one who’s always banging on about time being money.”
“And you’re the one who counters with the fact that money doesn’t mean anything if you have nothing else.”
Silence. Dom blinked, and then very slowly reached for my phone. He turned it over and studied the thankfully clear screen. “Have you got a girlfriend or some shit?”
“What’s that got to do with bricklaying?”
“You’re being weird again.”
“How so?”
“You’re distracted.”
“Am I?”
“Isha, don’t be a dick, mate. You think I won’t understand if you’re seeing someone and your main concern isn’t always the business? What kind of arsehole do you think I am?”
Dom was about as far from arsehole status as anyone I’d ever met—at least to people he liked, but I couldn’t find the words to explain myself. My relationship with Jude was inexplicable. How could I expect someone who didn’t even know I was queer to understand the mess I’d made of the whole thing?
The nice devil on my shoulder reminded me that if anyone would understand, it was Dom, but I’d fucked that up too by never confessing the secret we’d had in common for so many years. Dom had been forced out of the closet, and I’d had his back all the way, but I’d never told him that I was queer too. Mina, Jude, and however many Grindr randos aside, I’d never told anyone, and my regret for that was at an all-time high.
