“I’m not going to tell you,” she says from behind me. “You will laugh.”
“DeeDee, I just ripped my back open and probably bruised my tailbone for life by tripping over my own feet. I’m not going to laugh at you.”
She makes a hurumph sound and asks where we keep the Polysporin.
“I’m not going to put any stinging stuff on it, okay? I’ll just use this cloth with warm water and then put the Polysporin on.”
I grunt out my agreement and focus very hard on the baseboard I have my eyes glued to as she starts to dab my back with the cloth.
“You’re kind of tense, Zachy Zach. Does it hurt too much?”
You can hurt me any day of the week.
Yeah, this situation has gone from bad to worse.
“It’s fine,” I assure her as her strokes start to get lighter. “It’s really not that bad. Also, you’re avoiding my question.”
“Why do you want to know what I was listening to?”
“I just want to know...you.”
Her hand goes still.
“As in, like, you know, your taste in music...and stuff,” I blurt before I can throw myself any farther under the bus. “I don’t really know what you like—in music! I’m, uh, curious.”
A moment of silence passes, and I’m sure the bus has run me over and backed up to do it again. I’m sure she’s about to walk out the door.
Then her hand starts moving, tracing tentative strokes down my spine. The scratch feels like it must stretch all the way from my shoulder blades to my waist, and my muscles start to relax from the warmth of the cloth even as the cut twinges with the contact.
“Ben, okay. I will tell you. I like all music. It doesn’t really matter to me as long as I can dance to it, you know? But this morning I was listening to...Do you know the song ‘Wolves’ by Selena Gomez? I think that Marshmello guy made it too, but she does the singing.”
“Yeah, I know it. At least, I think I do. It’s the one that goes like...” I hum a few bars before cutting myself off when DeeDee snorts.
“Hey!” I accuse. “I told you I wouldn’t laugh at you. You don’t get to laugh at me.”
“But you are just so adorable.”
Adorable.
They don’t say it to my face, but I know that’s what they call me at the bar: the ‘adorable one.’ The wholesome farmer boy.
My brain flashes back to last night at the bar, when we stood in the dark kitchen and DeeDee told me she didn’t think of me as a man ‘like the ones she dates.’
She hits a particularly raw patch of skin, and I hiss again.
She didn’t come here looking for her next boyfriend. She came here looking for a friend, and maybe that means more. Maybe it’s wrong to want anything else. She came here to be safe, and I’ve got to respect that. It’s enough for me.
It has to be.
Focusing on the floor tiles is easier after that. DeeDee finishes up with the cloth and slathers on the Polysporin before telling me I can stand up. I twist around to get a glimpse of my back in the tiny bathroom mirror. In typical Montreal style, everything about this apartment is tiny. The bathroom can barely hold two people at once.
“Damn.” I take in the sight of the bright red scratch stretching almost perfectly parallel to my spine. My skin is shiny from the ointment, making the cut look extra pronounced. “That’s a nasty one.”
“I still can’t believe you fell over like that.” DeeDee snorts as she leaves the bathroom, and I follow after her.
“Hey, you’re the one who startled me!”
She stops in the living room and puts her hands on her hips. “I was minding my own business!”
“Beezneez,” I repeat, mocking her accent.
“Connard.”
I learned pretty quickly after moving to Montreal that that means ‘asshole.’
“How about some breakfast?” I offer. “We’ll call it a truce.”
I expect her to follow up with another joke, but instead she darts her eyes away from me and starts shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“I should probably go.”
Go where?
I stop myself before I say it out loud. It sounds rude, judgemental, like I don’t think she could possibly have any other options, but she really doesn’t seem to have any other options.
“I don’t work today,” I tell her. “I’m meeting up with Dylan in a few hours. He’s in town visiting, and I’m sure he’d be happy to see you too. I should probably get some ecommerce stuff done before then, and I have a video call scheduled with one of my sisters, but you can use the TV, or...”
I trail off when I notice she’s wrapped her arms around herself, curling inwards and becoming that smaller version of herself I saw for the first time last night.
“I should go,” she says, that husky voice I know so well sounding cracked and raw and far too quiet. “You’ve done so much.”
“DeeDee.”
She doesn’t answer. I watch as she turns and heads into Paige’s room before coming back out with her jacket and purse.
I try again. “DeeDee, I’m happy to have you here. Really. It’s no big deal. Paige is gone all week, so if you need somewhere to—”
“That’s very nice of you.” She hitches her purse strap up and walks past me to get to the front door, where she starts pulling her boots on. “I have to go, uh, do something with all my stuff. Awkwaaaard.”
She sings the last part out in her usual DeeDee way, but it doesn’t convince me she’s okay. If anything, it does the opposite. The atmosphere in this apartment just plummeted to glacial temperatures, and I don’t know what I did to cause it. I don’t know how to fix it.
“As in all your furniture? Do you need help?”
She gets the zipper of her second boot done up and straightens to face me, a grin that’s not quite right stretched across her face.
“I’ll figure it out. I always do, you know?” She reaches for the door handle, and I fight the urge to place my hand above hers and tell her to stay—beg her to stay if I have to. Whatever happened this morning, the last thing I want is for her to feel like she’s not welcome.
“Thank you, Zach.” It’s hardly more than a whisper, and then she’s gone.
I stand there, the skin of my back smarting as my chest expands and contracts with my breaths, and I don’t move for a long time after the door clicks shut.
I never knew how quiet this apartment could be, or how much I could ache for a sound.
“Zach, my man!”
My friend Dylan claps one of his giant hands on my shoulder and steers us into the diner where we’re getting lunch. Everything about him is giant. The guy is built like a linebacker. He used to work at Taverne Toulouse, where we all referred to him as ‘Beefcake.’
“How’s your hangover?” I can’t help razzing him a little. By the looks of it, he was having a very good time at April Showers last night, and it may have caught up with him today.
“Fucking hell,” he groans. “I’m getting too old for parties.”
“Renee must have had a fun time getting you home.”
He started dating one of our bartenders last year—shortly after resigning as Taverne Toulouse’s kitchen manager. It was a bit of a drama-fueled few months, but everyone who looks at them can tell he and Renee are perfect for each other. Now that Dylan’s at school in Ottawa to study radio broadcasting, I only see him when he comes up to visit Renee.