“Immy . . . ”
I can handle rejection. I’m a big girl.
But fuck, I’m emotional, and I like him, and I can’t handle the rejection at all.
Too loudly, too brashly, I tell him, “If you’re not attracted to me anymore because I’m a screwup or because you feel like you know me too well after spending a week together, it’s okay. I get it. You can just tell me you’re not interested. I can handle it.”
Lies, lies, lies.
It’s not like he wouldn’t just come out and say it, either, because that’s the kind of guy he is. Upfront. No-nonsense. But for some reason I feel the need to go on the offensive. The best kind of defense, right?
“That’s not it.”
I scoff.
“It’s not,” he insists. “Imogen, I—I really like you. That’s the problem.”
Oh, great, just when I thought it couldn’t get worse.
“Ha, right. Yeah. Come on, Nate, you don’t like me. You’ve just been stuck in this apartment with me for a week and I’ve been flirting with you all the time. And even if you did, the problem is, you don’t want to like me. Because you’re a serial monogamist and I’m not the kind of girl you want to take home to meet the family.”
“What? No, that’s—where did you . . . ?” Nate shakes his head, frowning, and then moves suddenly to grab my mug off me, placing both our drinks on the coffee table and then sitting with one knee tucked up on the sofa so that he’s facing me. His expression is softer now, and he smiles. “Immy, believe me, I don’t like you because I’ve had to put up with you for a week. I like you because you’re . . . ”
“Chaotic?”
“A hurricane,” he says again. “You think I’ve turned your whole view of yourself upside down? What do you think you’ve been doing to me from the moment we matched? I like order and routine and structure and maybe that makes me boring—”
“It doesn’t make you boring.”
It does, a bit.
“But you make me want to enjoy it, even if it is boring, because it’s my thing. You know?”
“I don’t,” I admit.
“You just really live your life—”
“Not very well, it seems.”
“But you live it,” Nate points out. “And it’s yours. I think I forgot what that felt like, a little.”
“Are you sure you didn’t put some vodka in your tea?” I ask, scrutinizing his mug, but Nate laughs. He clasps my free hand, and with his other, strokes some of the hair back from my cheek.
“Imogen, I really like you. And not to sound either really cheesy or clingy as hell, but if things had been different and you hadn’t bailed on me after one night, and we’d have gone on a few dates . . . If it counts for anything, I’d have been proud to have taken you home to meet my family.”
I search his face, warmth spreading through my chest and my pulse racing wildly.
This time, it’s definitely A Moment, and it’s definitely happening for both of us. He looks a little nervous throughout his speech— vulnerable—the kind of thing that would normally put me off a guy.
Now, with him, it’s endearing. It’s everything.
He’s nervous it’s A Moment only for him, the way I felt the other night.
But it’s not, because he wants to date me, he wants to take me home to meet his family, and . . .
“Nate,” I tell him softly, “I’d really like that.”
This time, when I dive forward to kiss him, Nate meets me halfway, in a messy clash of lips and teeth and tongues, our hands grabbing at each other to pull the other closer, Nate eventually losing his balance enough to fall backward, pulling me down with him so we’re lying on the sofa, breathless even from just a kiss. He cups my face in his hands, kissing my lips, my nose, my forehead, and I melt.
“Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me again.”
And oh, he does.
apartment #6 – ethan
Chapter Thirty-one
It’s automatic, the way I check my phone before I’m even properly awake.
Wow, I think. That’s a lot of notifications.
And then I think, Shit, I overslept.
Not that it matters, exactly, but I still groan and roll over, one arm flung out and falling through empty space, landing on Charlotte’s side of the bed. Just one more night, I remind myself, one more night and then tomorrow she’ll be home and life will go back to normal.
I yawn, stretching out and kicking the covers halfway down the bed, wriggling up against the pillows, and grabbing my phone again. I clear the notifications from my lock screen—I’ll look through them properly on my computer later. It’s not that unusual, I reason. My latest video will have gone up this morning, and all these comments and (I hope) new patrons on Patreon are a sign it’s gone down well.
I’ve got a bunch of messages on WhatsApp, which does surprise me. One of the group chats must’ve kicked off this morning. I wonder who could have fucked up last night to cause so many messages.
I also, more worryingly, have a ton of missed calls from my best friend, Jack.
Grimacing, my stomach churning as I wonder what the hell is so wrong that he’s calling me, I take my phone with me to the kitchen, putting the kettle on. I call him back as I reach for Charlotte’s mug, barely taking hold of it this time before I remember and let it go, just getting my own mug instead.
“Ethan, finally. I’ve been calling you for like an hour. Where the hell have you been?”
“Sleeping,” I say, my voice thick and irritable, although I don’t mean it to be. I knock my glasses out of the way to rub my eyes. “It’s like, eleven o’clock. It’s not that late.”
It’s pretty late, even by my freelancing schedule.
“Dude,” Jack says, his voice so deadly serious it makes me feel cold.
“What’s going on? Is it your dad?”
Jack’s dad had been in and out of hospital for the past six months with heart problems, and I’m not really sure a literal global pandemic is the low-stress environment they’ve been trying to maintain for him.
“Nah, it’s not my dad,” he says, “but we’ve got bigger problems. Or at least, you have. Have you checked your phone yet today?”
“Not really. Oh shit, please don’t tell me I’ve, like, been canceled for my opinions on Minecraft.”
“I think it’s worse than that, mate. Just . . . go check your computer.”
I forget about making myself a cup of tea and hurry to the living room, clicking the computer back to life. It pings with emails and more notifications, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that number on the YouTube bell so high.
I rack my brain, trying to think what in the hell is going on. I don’t think I said anything that controversial in today’s video or on the stream last night. I don’t use Twitter enough for someone to have unearthed a tweet from me from, like, 2012, saying something rude.
Maybe I retweeted someone I didn’t know was problematic?
Maybe I liked a video from someone who’s been canceled?