He doesn’t protest when I slide the glass towards him. I will stay if he stops drinking. So here we are, both keeping our word, as if bargains between strangers could really be this uncomplicated.
He has a girlfriend.
I shouldn’t be here.
I fidget with my shirt, glancing at the door. Every sensible instinct inside me says, go, Blesk. Only… another part of me finds that unbearable. I know—he’s hardly more than a stranger, with a girlfriend waiting somewhere, no less. But the way his hands shake when he reaches for his glass of water, the haunted look behind his eyes...Fuck.I can’t leave him like this.
When he trips over in the kitchen, intent on making lunch, I convince him to lie down and rest in bed. “Just rest.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He stumbles to the bed, lies down, and that’s it. His eyes close the moment his spine meets the mattress.
I sigh, gazing down at him.
While his lashes are fanned across his cheeks and his breaths are deep and even, I prepare myself to leave, but before I can stop myself, I brush my fingers through his hair. A kind of goodbye—you'll be okay. “I’ll come back and check on you.”
"Stay.”
I feel that word in my bones.
Girlfriend, Blesk.
He has a girlfriend.
But I can be hisfriend."Okay."
I crawl up onto the bed beside him.
We lie on his mattress, facing each other, our knees pressed together. My hair cascades around me, and he suddenly reaches for it. Twirling the strands around his fingers, he stares at them as if in a kind of trance. He’s back there— with the person he lost. I understand that look.
I can’t explain what’s happening or why I have this urge to be with him or why I feel responsible for him... But I do.
His eyes lift to mine. “The sun... Your hair reminds me of the sun.”
“That’s really corny, Konnor.”
He splutters a laugh. “Haven’t you heard? It’s my new middle name?”
“Konnor 'Corny' Slater.” I giggle.
A wide drunken smile takes over his face. “God, I love it when you make that sound.”
I immediately giggle again, purely from nerves. And now we are both grinning like fools, and neither of us does a thing to hide it. He’s back here—with me.
“You’re beautiful, you know that,” he gushes. “And I’m a dickhead like acting.”
I giggle at his backwards sentence. “Yeah. But this isn’t you. This is a hiccup.”
He cocks a brow. “And how would you know that? Maybe thisisme. Maybe this hasalwaysbeen me. This… drunk. Lost. Left.”
My belly clenches. Lost? Left? I swallow over a lump and meet his gaze. “You haven’t disappointed me yet, Konnor,” I offer, refusing to fight the force making it impossible to take my eyes off him.
He chuckles. “Well, you mustn’t have set the bar very high for me.”
I bite my lip and speak through a silly smile. “All you have to do is show up.”
“And I’ll be?—”
“Impressed,” I finish.
