‘It’s complicated.’
‘It’s the hiding that’s scaring me.’
He’s right. I’ve never been ashamed of who I fuck.
‘I’m coming up. Two weeks.’
‘Ron.’
‘Not negotiable.’
Ronan doesn’t hang up. He just stops talking. That silence sits in my ear.
I lie back. Ceiling. Still trying to be somewhere else.
Two weeks.
My phone screen glows with seven unread messages from Laurence. The newest:Thinking about you.
I lock it, roll over. Press my face into the pillow, and I can’t breathe. Panic and want, simultaneously, the same broken-down body. And the clock is ticking.
Two weeks.
The message arrives during Henderson’s lecture on econometrics. Henderson, who could make a bank heist sound like planning permission.
My phone buzzes face-down on the fold-out desk.
B17. 3 pm.
I stare at it.
Laurence doesn’t text during working hours. Laurence barely texts full stop. Has rules.
Quarter past two. Forty-five minutes.
Henderson drones on about variance estimators while my cock reads the message before the rest of me does and forms its own plan.
I lean towards Femi.
‘I’ve got a headache. Might head out early.’
His eyes lift to mine. That look again. The one that’s been there since last week, since the Chorlton tram and the hood on Beech Road.
He doesn’t say anything.
Just turns back to his notes.
I gather my stuff and leave.
Mid-afternoon dead zone. Humanities corridor nearly empty. My trainers quick and soft.
B17 sits at the far end of the old wing, technically a seminar room, practically abandoned. The lights out here flicker half a second before fully committing. Nobody schedules tutorials this far down unless they’ve lost a departmental argument.
I knock twice.
The door opens instantly.
Laurence grabs my wrist, pulls me inside, and the lock clicks before I’ve even fully crossed the threshold. Then his mouth is on mine.
