‘We should get back!’ I turn away from him quickly.
He looks frustrated but he manages to conceal it quickly. ‘Why rush?’ he challenges.
I slip from the stool. ‘Archie will be waiting.’
‘Fuck Archie!’ he barks and my head twists to him, my mouth slightly lolling open at his coarseness.
‘Florian!’
‘After everything I told you, you’re still going back to him?’
‘Oh, come on, I’m not going to throw him away because I didn’t do a particular facial expression in his presence.’
I go to the bar and pull the actual bottle of whisky from the cupboard and then stand expectantly at the door for Florian to follow but he stays rooted in his seat. ‘You won’t be happy with him, Ava.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do. I mean would you have even invited him out if you hadn’t freaked out on me? You. Kissed. Me. Ava.’ He accentuates each word and they radiate around the empty café. I look around alarmed as if it isn’t as late as it is, and we aren’t the only ones here. ‘I mean, I didn’t even kiss you back, I did the right thing.’
‘The right thing?’
It’s like this moment of clarity descends on him. He almost manages a smile, a sort of maddened look of acceptance. ‘Or is that what this is about?’ He slips off the stool.
‘What do you mean by that?’ I take a step back towards the door, gripping the bottle tightly in my hands.
‘Should I have?’
‘What, kissed me?’
‘Yes, Ava. Should I have kissed you? Because then at least you would have a reason to be angry with me instead of just being pissed for no reason other than your own embarrassment.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I reel at him. It isn’t fair. He was the one that stopped it. He was the one that bought reason and logic to a situation that defied both of those things. To bring it all back up now would mean that he hadn’t been as okay with the situation as he had claimed to be, or that he was questioning what my intentions had been in the workshop in the first place.
‘No, what’s not fair is you ignoring me then bringing some random guy from home to distract you, when I sat there and told you it was okay, that you didn’t need to be embarrassed, like I got it, Ava, I got that you wanted Ettie, and I was there—’
‘I didn’t!’ The words come out raw and ragged. There it is, the grand realisation I have been working towards, slotting into place all at the wrong time. It’s the reason why Archie’s here, the reason why I’ve been avoiding Florian, the reason why everything feels so wrong.
‘Didn’t what?’ He knows. I know he knows but he wants me to spell it out.
‘I didn’t think you were Ettie. I didn’t kiss you because I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to kiss you, okay? That’s why this is all so fucked up!’ It’s only when the words echo back at me that I realise I’ve been shouting.
I watch the smugness evaporate from his face, his mouth forming and unforming words which never quite make it to the space between us. ‘Ava—’
‘And I am aware that that makes me the worst person in the entire world, that out of everyone left on this planet that I could have possibly made a move on, it was you. And I am aware that I have a man probably wondering why on earth we’re taking so fucking long, who has been dying for me to commit to him for the longest time, and I am so close to fucking it all up.’
He looks guilty now and I realise that he does honestly think that Archie is a nice guy, not just some obstacle to happiness. He reaches for me, but I bat him away. ‘He doesn’t have to know…’
‘I’m not talking about the last time. I’m talking about now, about what we’re about to do.’
‘What we’re about to do?’ he repeats, his eyebrows screwing up into a confused frown. It’s infuriating how complicated he is making this, how much simpler it would all be if we stopped skirting around the obviousness of it all.
‘Oh, don’t pretend like you have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m talking about thisthingthat sits in this imaginary space between us, the thing that clearly won’t quit, and I’m talking about what’s going to happen, what was always going to happen when we left that apartment and came here, when we got in a room on our own together again.’
Finally, I have managed to say something that Florian could not predict, something I can’t explain away with grief. Instead, he looks like I have slapped him.
‘And you want to…’ He is looking at me like I’m a child, like I don’t know what I have just said.
I close the final few feet between us and when I’m within touching distance he reaches for my hands, examines them closely and winds me into him, his eyes locking with mine. He is trying to read me, trying to assess for any evidence of hesitation, but I keep my face flat. I have wanted this for longer than I care to admit, I just know it now. I can smell the fire burnt into his flannel shirt, see every freckle on his cheeks, hear how jagged his breathing is as if he has just run a flight of stairs. For a moment we exist in the gap, the little space between the before and the after, a space that will disappear forever when I give him my next answer.
