“Doubt it. He’s playing tonight.” Micah jerked his head at the TV screen, but all I saw were blobs of coloured shirts kicking a lump of white leather. I had zero clue who was playing and even less interest in finding out.
I opened the pizza box and helped myself to a wedge of the garlic prawn pizza Micah adored. Laced with chilli and herbs, it was about as sexy as cheese-covered bread could get, and fuck, it was good. I demolished my slice in two seconds flat and looked up, expecting to find Micah laughing at me, but his stare was troubled.
Appetite postponed, I turned away from the pizza. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Am I?”
“Yup. Normal service would have you fighting me for this pizza.”
“I wouldn’t win.”
“But you’d try.”
He glanced at the pizza box and shook his head. “It shouldn’t be this complicated.”
“What shouldn’t?”
“This.” Micah got up and limped around the back of the couch. “We shouldn’t be hiding indoors with a pizza box with bullshit photos like that as an audience.”
“Um... we’re not hiding, bro. I’ve spent all day in the pub with an audience. Even if you weren’t here, I’d still be kicking it on the couch and stuffing my face.”
Micah smirked, but it was brief. He folded his arms across his chest. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”
“I’m not. I was angsting about the same nonsense after I saw Freddie. How it was okay for you to get papped with him because it wasn’t real, but if they caught you with me, they’d figure out there was more to it.”
“I can’t let them catch us.”
“What? Never? That’s not realistic. Even if we weren’t doing anything, we live together. It’s a miracle it’s not happened before now.”
“It hasn’t happened because we never go anywhere together. We get all our shopping delivered, and even at the pub, I come and go without you.”
“We go to the library.”
“Once. And I doubt paps would ever come looking for me there. I’m not exactly known for my intelligence.”
I rolled my eyes, already over this conversation. “That’s because no one knows you at all, apart from the football and the orgies.”
Micah sighed. “I’ve told you a thousand times there were no orgies.”
“You’ve told me once.”
“So? Don’t you see that’s the point? That I wish you didn’t need to know?”
“Which part?”
“All of it. I wish we were strangers.”
My appetite evaporated for good, taking with it the buzz I’d carried all day at the prospect of spending the evening with him. “Awesome. So you wish you’d never met me? Thanks for that, mate.”
I took my beer and stood. Micah made a grab for me, but I evaded and left the room, retreating to the cool dark of my bedroom. I shut the door with more force than necessary, pretty safe in the assumption that he wouldn’t follow me.
Or so I thought. My bedroom door opened. Micah leaned against the frame. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I know.”
