“What did you buy?” Sacha asked.
“Gifts. For my parents, mainly. They’d never come somewhere like this, so it’s a good place to buy them things they’ve never seen.”
“What did you get them?”
“Candles. My mum loves them. And some honey for my dad. He’s obsessed with bees at the moment. He has his own hives at their summer lodge.”
“I dropped a honey jar once,” Sacha said. “In my grandmother’s house, on her favourite carpet. She told my mother I was a devil child.”
“What did your mother say?”
“That I was an angel and my father’s mother was too full of hate to see it.”
“That’s a strong statement.”
Sacha smiled. “I am no angel now, and I wasn’t then, but the rest of it was true. My father’s family are hateful people. I have told you this before, no?”
“A little. I think. I might’ve been drunk.”
“I was drunk on Friday,” Sacha said. “I did not mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.”
“Are you a liar, Jonah Gray?”
Jonah spared Sacha a sideways glance. “No. I was drunk too. I overreacted. After all, what’s a bathroom hook-up between non-friends, eh?”
“You take me too seriously.”
“Which part?”
“I don’t know. All of me?”
Jonah shook his head. “I can’t take you anyway whatsoever. You’re a terrible communicator.”
“I am sorry.”
“Don’t be. You are who you are. Maybe it’s me that’s the problem. You were always clear that you wanted an NSA arrangement. I pushed you for more.”
Sacha stopped walking, computing the soulless Grindr phrase:NSA: no strings attached. “No, you did not.Isaid we could be friends who had sex with each other, and I thought we could, but I am not good at letting people into my life. It…” Sacha waved his hand, searching for the English words. “It scares me, maybe? I don’t know. After my mother died, the people I was forced to be around were not nice people. I learned fast that it was better to be alone. I think I like being alone.”
“You think?”
“Sometimes. And then there is you, Jonah Gray. You make me think strange things.”
“Like what?”
“Like sharing your bed is what I want too, but I am scared to want it. It is a…contradiction, no? To everything I believe myself to be.”
“What’s wrong with contradiction?”
“If I knew the answer to that, this conversation would not happen.”
Jonah frowned. “That makes no sense.”
Sacha knew that. But it seemed no matter what he thought he knew, something different fell out of his mouth every time he was near Jonah. His sense of self altered to become a man who chased affection and friendship, all the while desperate for the high of the headiest sexual encounters he’d ever had.
They reached Sacha’s building. His heart invited Jonah in to spend what was left of the weekend together, in Sacha’s bed, on his couch, pressed up against his kitchen counters. He bought beer. Made dinner from the handful of ingredients he had in his cupboards. Watched films. Ate together, fucked together, slept together. But his head said no, a blunt refusal with no rhyme or reason, and he’d pushed Jonah away too much for him to fill the void Sacha’s reticence left behind.
