“Try not to miss me too much, big bro.”
I gave a half-smile, “No promises.”
With a laugh and a mock salute, she opened the front door and slipped out, letting it fall shut with a soft click behind her. And just like that, the flat fell into silence.
I sat there, slouched on the sofa, one arm draped over the backrest, the other idly fiddling with the hem of my top. The flat hadn’t creaked with movement since I closed the door to the bedroom. So, I assumed Misfit was still sleeping. I exhaled slowly, resting my head back, eyes half-closed as I let it all catch up to me. Everything we’d said, everything we hadn’t.
Her past.
Mine.
I hadn’t meant to let it spill out, but with her, it just cracked wide open. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to ignore the tightness pulling at my chest. I didn’t do those feelings. Didn’t want them. They were messy and unpredictable.
But there she was, sleeping in my bed, and I couldn’t get the image out of my head. The curve of her lip twitching in sleep. The little crease between her brows when she was deep in thought. How small she looked curled up, but how loud her silence felt when she looked at me like she knew.
I blinked, staring at the blank TV screen across from me. Only, in my head, I wasn’t there anymore. Drifting off to still being in the bedroom. Still beside her, my fingers brushing across her cheek. Her eyes opening slowly, lashes blinking up at me, but she didn’t speak. Didn’t snap away from my touch. And I kissed her. Not rough or frantic. Just… steady. Her lips soft, her hand curling against the side of my neck like she didn’t want to let go. I didn’t even care if it was real. I just wanted to feel it, her warmth, her trust, her weight against me.
I let the image linger too long. A bitter laugh escaped me, dragging myself back to reality. What the fuck was that?
I hadn’t heard her approach, not over the static in my brain. The moment had gripped me, the brief, half-delusional dream clinging to the inside of my skull. I could still feel the ghost of it, her mouth on mine, the softness of her skin, the imagined heat of her fingers at the side of my neck. At the absolute absurdity of it. Of me. Of the fact that something inside me wanted that.
Wanted her.
“What’s tickled you?”
I looked up, fuck. Her eyes met mine. All of it vanished like a snap of fingers, the warmth, the imagined version of her. Now she was real. Standing there, guarded. That small smile twitching on her lips, still wearing my hoodie, which made everything worse.
I sat forward, shaking my head, “Oh… it was nothing,” I said. Fucking Liar. I could feel my own inner self smacking me across the head. Fucking idiot.
I could see it hit her, the subtle shift in her expression, the confusion settling in behind her eyes as the smile dropped.
She gave me an “Okay,” soft and unsure, and just like that, the room tilted into that weird space. Not angry. Just… awkward. It was unbearable.
I wanted to tell her I didn’t mean to keep things from her. That I didn’t mean to open my fucking trap in the first place. That my chest had been in a vice since she spilled her secrets to me last night, laying herself bare in the dark beside me.
I wanted to ask her to sit beside me again, to feel her near, to ground the storm. But I didn’t. I sat there like an awkward fucking schoolboy sitting in front of a girl he liked. No, that’s not what this is.
I don’t fancy Misfit.
I mean, yeah, okay, she’s got eyes that could stop traffic. But that doesn’t mean anything. Lots of people have eyes. Statistically. Not her fault hers happen to look directly into your soul like she’s trying to find where you buried the bodies. That doesn’t mean I like her. Besides, she’s a walking disaster. She talks in threats and sleeps like a feral cat. She's still wearing my favourite hoodie, as if it were legally hers. That alone should make me hate her.
Sure, maybe I’ve caught myself looking at her when she’s not paying attention. She’s an attractive woman.
But that’s… observation. I’m an observant guy.
It’s not like I’d spent most of the night awake thinking about how it felt when she sat close to me on the roof. Shoulder to shoulder, her arm brushing mine while we shared a bottle and didn’t say a word. Not as if I repeated the moment far too often for someone who, one hundred percent, absolutely, does not fancy her.
Get a grip Screech, Jesus!
Her words snapped me from my thoughts.
“I’m gonna go and get changed. They should probably be dry now.” Offering me a half smile as she backed off from the door frame.
The bathroom door clicked shut, and I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. My head dropped into my hands. What the fuck are you doing Screech?
This wasn’t supposed to be anything at all. How could we have gone from wanting to end each other in the most brutal way, to now … this!
But now, of course, I had to go and make it weirder.
