“Good to know.”
We both fall quiet, until Nate claps his hands softly to his thighs and says, “Vodka or tea?”
I don’t remember the last time I turned down the offer of some vodka, but I give him a small smile. “Tea would be great. Thanks.”
This time, when Nate gets back with two steaming mugs of tea, I’m hunched in the corner of the sofa, sticking my hands out of my self-made blanket burrito to take the mug off him; Nate doesn’t even so much as look like he wants to admonish me for risking spilling tea on his lovely clean duvet.
He must be feeling sorry for me.
I’m used to people rolling their eyes at me, or being a little pissed off with me, and Lucy has definitely been disappointed in me more than once, but I don’t remember the last time somebody felt sorry for me.
“You know,” I mumble, “I think you managed to do in one day what my therapist has been trying to do for a year.”
“Nobody ever called you chaotic before?”
“Not the way you did.”
“Changing your whole perspective on yourself for a guy? And you called yourself a feminist in your bio.”
He’s teasing, though, so I cut him a mock glare.
“Should charge you for it,” he muses, rubbing his chin melodramatically. “What do therapists charge these days?”
“One night of hot sex and the return of your Ramones T-shirt.”
Nate laughs so hard he snorts, which makes me giggle, too, just a bit.
“So you, um, you see a therapist?”
“I thought loads of people did these days. I thought it was hashtag-stylish.” I roll my eyes. “Of course I see a therapist. Like, half my friends do.”
“Yeah, no, loads of mine do as well. Or did, at some point.” Nate nods, slowly, thoughtfully, and I wait to see what he’s going to ask me next. Probably wants to know why I see a therapist. Or what I think is so screwed up about me that makes my life so chaotic.
But what he says is, “It’s not like it’s easy, you know. This whole . . .
this.” He offers up a grand, and appropriately vague, sweeping gesture around the room. “I’m not saying some of my mates are even half as wild as you, but some of them seem to be . . . stuck too. And then some of them are off getting married and having babies and buying houses with south-facing gardens and it’s like, way to show up the rest of us—but then they feel like they’re the ones getting left behind when someone starts posting about their year traveling in Asia and volunteering to build schools in Africa.”
“What?”
“What I mean is, everyone’s just moving at different speeds. We all think we’re on the same track and that we just missed the train, but the fact is, nobody’s on the same track, and not everyone’s even on a train.”
I stare at him for a long moment, processing that, trying to get my head around it.
Maybe . . . Maybe he’s got a point.
Lucy would be your average train, for sure. Maybe a nice one, with a fancy first-class carriage, and trolley service and nice comfy seats.
And Nate, he’d be one of those boring seven-seater cars like all the dads used to drive when I was at school.
Which would make me, what? A hang glider? One of those duck buses that turn into a boat? A penny farthing?
Nate mistakes my silence for confusion. His face scrunches up and he grimaces, scratching his head.
“It sounded better coming from the vlogger I got it from. It sounded smart when he said it. But that’s kind of my point, right? Or, his point, I guess, that I stole. What I’m trying to say is, just because you’re not in the same place as other people, doesn’t mean you have to make up for it by putting on this whole persona. When I said you were chaotic—”
“You meant it,” I interrupt. “And I know what you were trying to say. I know. I get it from my friends all the time, but when they say it, it’s like . . . expected? It’s just, ‘Oh, Imogen’s off being Imogen again!’ and we all get to laugh about it. You know my friend had to send me money so I could pay you back for some fucking underwear?”
Nate laughs, then seems to catch himself, like it’s inappropriate.
“No, see, that’s what I mean. Laugh away. I couldn’t even afford underwear, Honeypot. I am stuck on lockdown in a total stranger’s apartment, you’re right, whose name I didn’t even remember, totally broke, and this feels pretty average for me. Like, that shouldn’t be happening, you know? I am chaotic.”
“You’re a goddamn hurricane,” Nate tells me.
But he says it softly, almost reverently, and with a gentle smile that makes me blush and look away. A sniffle catches me off guard, and I blink away the tears that have suddenly filled my eyes. A couple break loose but before I can wriggle my other hand free from my blanket-burrito situation, Nate reaches over.
His palm cups my cheek, warm and gentle, his thumb brushing away the tear there.
I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I think Nate’s attractive or that I’d like to sleep with him again, but this feels different. This isn’t getting tangled up in the bedsheets together, lips and hands everywhere. This feels fragile, and raw. I want to bury myself in his arms and kiss him and be held and have that be all it is.
I’m comfortable with guys. I’m comfortable with my body. I’m a tactile person and I hug all my friends. But the way Nate touches me now is so intimate without being romantic or sexual and it’s so tender that I draw away, trying to process it. I think about the other night, when he kissed my cheek.
Being comfortable with guys and with sex is one thing, but this kind of intimacy feels completely foreign to me.
And God, I want it so badly. It’s like not knowing how cold you are until you walk into a warm house, not realizing you were thirsty until there’s a glass of water in front of you. I’ve always thought I was okay not doing the whole serious relationship thing but now, fuck, I’m starved for it.
Nate misunderstands why I’ve pulled away, though, because he clears his throat and changes the subject quickly.
“If you’re broke,” he says, “I mean, it’s literally my job to manage projects in the finance world. I’m no stranger to a spreadsheet. I could, like . . . I mean, we’ve still got another day to go, right? Maybe we could take a look. See if you can get unbroke. Or, a little way there, at least. Work out budgets and payment plans to pay off your debts and stuff.”
I gawp at him, my eyes filling with tears all over again.
And I suddenly feel so stupid, because maybe it could’ve been this easy all along. Maybe I could’ve just asked my parents or my friends to help me figure something out, instead of asking them to bail me out. Maybe if I’d just held up my hands and said, “I fucked up” every so often, instead of only ever making jokes about it.
My therapist has a lot to answer for if Nate can manage to turn my life around in a mere week.
“You’d do that for me? Even after I forgot your name?”
Nate laughs. “It’ll cost you one Ramones T-shirt.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Honeypot, but you’ve got yourself a deal.”
And, to seal it, I lean over to kiss him.
He lifts a hand, though, pressing it to my shoulder, pushing me back gently, but firmly. His jaw clenches and he gulps, looking at me steadily. A smile ghosts across his lips.