He stopped. “What?”
I stood and opened my arms.
He stepped into them without blinking and wrapped his own around me, embracing me in the platonic hug we’d cultivated since the first time I’d come home drunk after he’d moved in. I’d insisted on hugging him that night and had just about died from embarrassment the next morning, but somehow, when we were speaking to each other, at least, it had become a tradition. Not too long or too tight, they were always perfect, like now, as Micah stepped away with a soft smile that hadn’t been there before. He squeezed my shoulders. “Have a good night.”
I smiled back. “You too.”
* * *
Micah
I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, wishing the night away so I could get to the morning already. The last few days had been weird. It wasn’t often that me and Sam didn’t vibe well, and I’d barely slept before he’d hugged me happy again in the dingy corner of that godforsaken pub.
The pub I’d have given my good leg to be stood in right now rather than the banal celeb haunt Freddie had dragged me to. I didn’t drink much these days, especially in public, so I waved away the top price champagne and stuck to Diet Coke. By ten o’clock I had a carbonated bubble in my stomach and a headache. I wanted to go home, but I couldn’t face the empty flat... or being alone with my imagination. A sober night out with Freddie was as ridiculous as I’d feared it would be, but it was better than picturing Sam surrounded by the throngs of hot singles I’d seen in the Fox. Or considering the possibility that he’d wanted me to hook up there because that’s what he was planning on doing too.
Not that the two things were connected in any way that didn’t exist inside my head.
A girl shimmied up to me, dressed in a tight glittery dress that made her look like an angel. She had long, dark hair and full lips, surgically enhanced breasts, and flawless skin. The old me would’ve been on that like white on rice, but I cringed as she wrapped herself around me.
“I heard a rumour you like boys,” she whispered. “I like boys too. Maybe we can do something together.”
“Like a threesome?” I was curious despite having no desire to have her anywhere near me. “Me, another dude, and you?”
“If you want. Would you like to take turns on me?”
“Not especially. If you’re not down with watching me fuck another dude, it’d be the wrong party for all of us.”
Her confusion was almost comical, but I wasn’t the complete tosser I’d once been. I got nothing from being an arsehole. “Look,” I tried again. “You’re beautiful, and it’s true, I like men as much as women, but I’m not up for a faceless fuck. We all deserve better, especially you.”
The woman rolled her eyes and wandered off. Hacked off, I slumped against the wall and drank more Coke. My heart knew it was better than lacing myself with the coke of a different kind, but boredom made me twitchy. Freddie was like a pig in shit with girls all over him and probably wouldn’t notice if I slipped away.Do it. Go home. Or go back to Sam. Who cares if he’s on the pull?
I cared, obviously. And if there was one trait I’d retained from the father who wanted nothing to do with me now I wasn’t a big shot football player, it was the stubbornness of a goddamn mule. I stayed where I was, leaning against the ornate wall, until the club emptied out and it was time to go home.
The Christmas feeling returned when I got back to the flat to find Sam already there.
He was asleep on the couch, fully dressed, right down to his battered Docs, his phone clutched in one hand, a half-drunk Kopparberg on the coffee table. I eyed the sickly sweet cider with distaste—how can he drink that shit?—but as someone who’d necked six bottles of Diet Coke, I couldn’t really comment.
I considered unlacing his boots and wrangling him out of his coat. He slept like the dead, especially when he’d been on the shots, but that would’ve involved lifting him clean off the couch, and I didn’t trust myself with something so precious. What if I woke him? Or worse, dropped him?
There was also the possibility that I’d carry him into my bedroom and lock the door, so I settled for covering him with a blanket and leaving him to it.
I’m so fucked.
5
Micah
My vaguely regular job as a personal trainer was the one thing in my life that helped me feel like a normal person. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe my list didn’t book up because of who I was, but I was picky about who I took on. At present, every client on my list was over sixty and wanted to train for no other reason than to feel better. I had zero interest in macros and gains, and I couldn’t pretend. Not anymore.
I put Mr Vincenzo through his paces on the recumbent bike, stretched his old muscles out, and sent him home with a resistance band and a home-care plan. Then I hit the pool, eager to get my shit done so I could head home. At some point in the night, Sam had peeled himself from the couch and gone to bed. Uncharacteristically, he’d shut his bedroom door, denying me a glimpse of him before I’d left for work. I was craving my fix, but more than that, I missed him. Our library trip seemed a long time ago.
My body didn’t always behave the way I wanted it to: specifically, my leg. The scarring was tight and vicious, and if I was the slightest bit dehydrated, brutal cramps triggered from my calf to my thigh. I was in the habit of taking care of myself to avoid bullshit like that, but a late night combined with a belly full of pop was to prove my undoing.
On my sixteenth length, pain hit me like a bullet train. The analysis was too close to home, but if I didn’t want to drown, I didn’t have time to deflect it.
I struggled to the edge of the pool and hauled myself out. My good leg held me up long enough to flop to a nearby lounger, but that was it. I was done and in so much pain I could’ve cried.
Cold set in. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered, wishing I’d chosen the other side of the pool to collapse—the side where I’d left my towel. Thankfully, the gym was deserted this early on a Sunday, so there were no witnesses to my meltdown, but to be honest, I was fucked enough to ask for a hand up, a new skill I’d picked up in therapy. Shame there was no one around.
