by Bryce Taylor
She raises an eyebrow. I raise one right back at her. I'm not backing down.
"I don't have an account," she tells me after a long moment.
If I was angry before it is a candle to a forest fire right now. I'm sure that I know at least a few people who could arrange for Mark's legs to be broken. Alter his face just a little. Perhaps I could watch.
Because dutiful, godly wives don't have bank accounts. They ask their husbands if they need money.
"Where is your wallet?" I grate out. She doesn't argue. Goes to the bedroom, comes out with a wallet the size of a house brick and hands it to me.
"Go," I tell her, "do what you need to."
I am shaking. My ribs. My marrow. My heart. Thrumming. A bad, terrible high.
One look at my face and she goes.
I ring my account manager at the bank. Tell her I need a new personal account set up. Tell her to put ten thousand in it. A figure small enough that Jo will accept it. Enough to rent a house and get her back on her feet. I photograph Jo's ID and send it across.
"Jo," I call out. I can still hear her in the bedroom. Hand her my phone when she comes out looking worried. I know I'm scaring her. I don't mean to.
"Sign here," I tell her pointing to the box on the screen. She does. Doesn't scroll to read what she is signing. Either she trusts me or I really am truly scaring her.
"I'll be back in half an hour," I tell her, trying to keep my voice even. Leave before I say something I'll regret.
I'm done in twenty minutes. The branch is just around the corner and the temporary card is ready to go. I sit in the lobby for ten minutes, not wanting to interrupt her before the half hour is up. Apologising to the two clients whose meetings I missed. Rescheduling the next meeting.
I knock on her door again.
She opens it on the third knock. "Hey," she says. Standing there, damp hair hanging down over her shoulders. Loose pants. A tank top. No bra. I'm looking away, past the side of her head.
I pass her the thick A4 envelope. Paperwork. Card. PIN number.
"This is yours," I tell her brusquely as she peers curiously inside the envelope. "Your permanent card will turn up here in the next few days. I put ten grand on it to get you started."
She is looking at me. I can see the hurt, her broken heart, everything in them. That however strong she is, she was almost at the end of it.
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Takes a step forward. Another. Grabs me. Her arms wrapping around me tightly, unexpectedly, one second I'm standing there, the next I can't even draw a breath.
Standing stiffly. Not hugging her back because that would be too much.
Desperately trying not to think about her body against mine. Trying not to enjoy this. Definitely trying not to think any of those thoughts that are bubbling up.
It feels so, so good, though. She is more slender than I remember, age and experience hardening her. I am so very glad and painfully disappointed that the absence of her bra isn't discernible through the layers of my clothes. Through my blazer and shirt. Strong too. Stronger than me, despite my gym muscles. I wonder what she has been doing that has given her this strength.
The smell of her intoxicating, just clean soap and her, breaking down that defences my conscious mind is hastily building.
Her shoulders are shaking.
She is crying.
My arms are around her now and I'm berating myself for being a perverted arsehole. Cradling her head against mine, my fingers in her hair, my arm around her shoulders, holding her tightly. Wishing I could make this right, that she could take my strength. That I could have protected her from this evil.
We stand there, in the doorway until her crying stops. Till she lets me go. Till I'm standing there dumbly, alone again.
"You know, I thought of calling you," she says her eyes painfully on mine, unswerving, not allowing herself the privacy of looking away.
I raise an eyebrow. I'm not so self-centred to think that she had wasted another minute thinking about me ever again.
Like I did. For more than minutes. I missed her company. The conversation. Someone who got my sly jokes. Who called me on my shit. Every now and then something reminding me that I have never met anyone else like her.
She takes a breath. "How could I when I just let you leave," she says, her voice choked up with the residue of tears, "when I was just looking for you because I needed your help."
Oh, crap.
"Hey," I say inanely. Step forward. Take her in my arms, hold her tightly, feel her slump against me. "Hey, that's on me, I'm the one who left."
"I've missed you," I blurt out. I have. These are words I shouldn't say out loud though. A gay ex-student to her bible studies teacher.
She burrows her head in my shoulder. Relief. She isn't pushing me away.
We stand there, strength to strength, building each other up. Till I let her go.
Because I can't not think about her body touching mine anymore.
I clear my throat. "So, do you have a phone?"
She shakes her head. She looks fucking exhausted.
I'm exhausted.
I don't even have it in me to be angry anymore.
"Did you have a phone?" I ask firmly.
She nods.
"A smartphone?" I ask.
She shakes her head.
"Do you want your old number?"
A vehement shake of her head.
"Ok, I'll have one sent over," I tell her, "I'll need to re-use your ID to get a number, but I have some old phones lying around. It will just be at the concierge desk." I'm lying of course. I'll buy one.
Her look says that I'm doing too much for her.
"If I leave you my number, will you let me know if you need anything?" I ask ignoring her look. She has no idea what I would do for her. I swallow nervously. "That you are ok?"
She smiles as I hand her a post-it note, my number scrawled on it.
"Is this how you get girls to call you?" she asks, smiling, despite the hoarseness in her voice.
No shit, I am blushing again.
She laughs. It doesn't sound forced. It does sound shaky though.
"I'll call you later," she says.
Chapter 2 – Dinner
I get back to work. Another crisis in train. Some smaller client. A town council. I can't even bring myself to care. Checking my phone obsessively to see if I have missed a call or a text message from Jo.
I'm sure she is sleeping.
She is fine.
Probably won't wake till tomorrow.
Cas turns up at my office door. It's just down the hall from hers.
Have I mentioned Cassie? No? She would be my partner. Work partner and partner partner.
Of five years.
I hadn't mentioned her because I don't want to think about her.
Because I know that I should break up with her.
I should have done it a year ago. When I realised there was nothing left here.
It's not that simple though. She is beautiful, a beautiful person, beautiful to be with, beautiful to look at. My friends love her. Adore her. Rightly so.
She says she doesn't mind that I spend too much time at work.
That the time I spend at home is rarely with her.
That I travel more than I must.
Other complications; she owns our house and a bigger share of this company than I do.
Our lives so entangled that this is going to hurt.
That I don't want it to end because I like it looking like I having the perfect life.
Because, truthfully, because there hasn't been a better offer and on paper there is unlikely to be one. After all she already was a stretch goal.
"Where were you this afternoon?" she asks.
"Oh, I ran into an old friend who is in town and I lost track of time and then I had some business at the bank," I tell her.
The best lies being the ones that start with a kernel of truth. I'm not telling her the truth because I want to keep Jo to mysel
f. My secret. Cas would no doubt love to meet Jo, would put her up in our house, make her endless food and cups of tea. Converse gently with her about her problems. Become her BFF. Because Cas is the likeable one out of the two of us.
It's just that I'm not going to share Jo. With anyone.
She nods. Not asking any questions because I don't ever like to go into detail.
"I'll probably work here late tonight," I tell her. She nods. Not unusual.
I am, of course, lying.
After all Jo might want someone bring her dinner. Or someone to talk to. She might need some milk for tea. I have no idea but I'm just going to hang out here at the office, next door to the apartment until I hear from her.
"Remember I'm at that conference from tomorrow morning," Cas says.
I nod and try and keep the smile off my face.
I had forgotten.
It's not a good sign that I'm this excited that my partner is interstate for a week at the same time as I have my high school crush in my apartment.
"Oh," she says on her way out, "John said the apartment wasn't available?"
Fuck you, John.
"Yeah, some sort of maintenance stuff?" I tell her vaguely, pretending to be concentrating on my work. "It should be available again tomorrow."
"Oh, ok."
Fuck.
"I'll see you later?" I say, glancing up from my screen.
"Yeah, see you babe," she says absently. Leaving for a week with a small flick of two fingers, not even a wave.
I'm sure she knows it is over too.
I try to lose myself in work.
It's hard when I'm staring at my phone.
I get changed in case Jo calls. I look way too gay and get changed again. Put on a long sleeve shirt to cover up my tattoos.
It's dark, the cleaners have come and gone and it is about to hit midnight when my phone rings. Unknown number.
I never answer unknown numbers.
"Hello?"
"Hi." Her voice, unmistakable.
"Hi," I say.
"Sorry I didn't call," she says, "I just woke up a few minutes ago."
"Don't worry about it, I'm used to being stood up," I joke.
Silence.
Fuck.
She laughs.
Thank Christ.
"You gays sure are clingy," she says.
Seriously?
I can't think of anything that is G-rated enough to reply to that. Also, I'm kind of shocked.
"So, it would be too much if I asked if you hadn't had dinner either?" I ask eventually.
Silence.
"It's your treat," I tell her.
A chuckle.
"Is there anything you feel like?" she asks and I can hear the amusement in her voice.
My heart is trying to adjust to the increasingly cramped space in my ribcage, painfully pressing against jagged bone and wet flesh.
I remember that she might not have a clue how to get food delivered.
"If you wait till I get over, I'll show you some food delivery apps and we can choose together?" I ask.
Silence.
"Sounds good."
"See you in ten," I tell her.
"Ten?"
"Yeah, my office is next to your apartment," I tell her.
"Oh."
"Is that ok?" I ask her.
"Yeah, of course," she says immediately. Enough to allay my nerves a little. For a minute.
By the time I'm in the lift I realise that I'm pushing myself on her.
That she had said this afternoon she had thought of calling me, but just because she needed my help. The important word in that conversation is 'just'. That she may feel that she has no choice to have me over, since it is my apartment after all.
I can feel the warmth of sweat beading in my armpits. I'm pulling at my shirt in the lift. Holding the box with her phone in it that I left with the concierge this afternoon. I'm very glad I've worn a black shirt, I do however wish I'd worn something cooler. If I'd had any idea how hot it was outside still, or that I was planning on sweating like a pig. Well. It is too late now. Hopefully the chill of the aircon will do its thing.
She is waiting in the doorway.
Wearing flannelette pyjamas.
Seriously.
She is smiling.
Looking relaxed.
My preference in a girl's sleepwear usually involves Victoria's Secret. I can have this preference since I'm a feminist and a girl. My own sleepwear involves a pair of Calvin's and a singlet. Ok, maybe my expectations are a little sexist.
I wouldn't trade this view for anything else.
She is laughing at me. At me.
"Nice outfit," she says.
"What?" I say, in disbelief, grinning, since after all she is head to toe in flannel.
She indicates me up and down with a wave of her hand. I hold my arms out. "Yeah?" I say.
I look good. Black hi-tops, black jeans that are tight in all the right places, black long sleeve, black on black watch over the top. Maybe still a little too gay. Hair styled forward, casually, you know in that it took twenty minutes to make it look believably casual kind of a way.
"Even your watch matches," she says incredulously.
"Yeah?" No shit. It's on purpose.
"Are those jeans deliberately torn?" she asks.
"Yep." It's all on purpose, hon.
I can't help but smile. She probably wouldn't say anything if I had turned up wearing mum jeans and a button-down shirt, but this is so far out of her realm that she can't help but comment.
"Do you have any colour in your wardrobe at all?"
Jo has never previously been the kind of person to notice fashion choices. Like my black on black suit choice today. I'm going to take this as a good sign.
"Yeah," I grin at her. "Do I need some colour for you to let me in, or can I raincheck that?"
"I guess I'll have to let you in," she says.
"Thanks," I say dryly.
Show her the joy of ordering food by app on my phone. Thai. The only place still open.
I setup her phone. She is far less interested than I thought she would be. Hoped she'd be. I suppose it is good for me to have a few friends who are low tech.
Dinner turns up.
She realises since I ordered on my phone I have paid.
"Dinner is on me tomorrow," she says.
"Sure," I say, just a little too quickly.
"You have to work out how to use your damn phone by then," I tell her to cover my enthusiasm.
Her cheeks are reddening, her realisation that she has just asked me out to dinner. That it will be two nights in a row that we are going to be having dinner together. It is only another second before she remembers that even if she buys dinner tomorrow it's with my money.
"Can't keep us gays away," I tell her, "we just need one foot in the door."
She laughs, passes me a fork.
I hoe in. She has her eyes shut. Praying.
Fuck.
I feel guilty and angry at the same time.
Guilty because I am not praying. Pretending to pray like I have been raised to.
Angry because it isn't her God that has provided this meal.
I did.
Everything she should be thankful about today I gave her. Jealous of her god.
She opens her eyes and looks at me, sitting cross-legged on the opposite end of the couch to her.
"Thank you," she says to me. "For everything. I'm so grateful that you have done this, you know, even though,"
"Even though I'm not a Christian?" I say cutting her off, incensed, "even though I'm gay?"
She opens her mouth.
I barge on.
"What do you think, I just left the church and became some sort of self-centred Übermensch Nietzsche type? That I can't have my own code of morals? Have you considered it means more when God isn't making you do it?"
I keep talking, the words spilling out. She isn't looking hurt. Watching me, her head tilted to the side
. Interested, perhaps? Definitely amused. Leaning back in the couch, waiting for me to finish.
"Have you considered that not believing in God makes me more responsible, that I don't delegate my decisions, I don't expect cheap forgiveness of my sins. That I don't think that some men who lived a few thousand years ago can dictate my fucking life? Who should tell me what a sin is? Your God doesn't give a shit about you. He gave you an unsupportive church and some dickhead of a husband who didn't appreciate you at all."
I trail off. Too annoyed to feel contrite.
She is laughing. Shoulders shaking silently. Those dimples.
"Your ability to construct a cohesive argument has certainly reduced since back when you were pretending to be a Christian," she says.
"I was going to say, even though I treated you badly, that I didn't keep in contact after you left," she clarifies patiently.
Oh.
"Who says I was pretending to be a Christian?" I ask her, grumpily, covering up that I now feel bad about my outburst.
She raises an eyebrow.
"Ok, I was pretending to be a Christian," I tell her.
"I wish you had told me," she says sincerely.
I wish I had told her too.
"I wanted you to be my friend," I tell her, looking down at my noodles, poking at a piece of carrot.
"I would have still been your friend, but you wouldn't have been lying to me," she says. Jesus Christ, she always cuts to the painful truths.
"I was afraid," I tell her, the pain of this truth cutting through muscle and sinew. "Our weekly coffee was my salvation. It was the only real thing I had to look forward to."
After five days of homophobic as fuck high school where I was too afraid to come out.
After a whole seven days at my house with my highly religious parents.
The relief of Sundays.
Debating the bible with her in class.
Church.
The best bit. Going for coffee after. Hours of deliberately not drinking my coffee to keep her at the table.
"I really missed you when you left," she says softly.
My face is aflame.
This is insane. I'm staring at my knees. Ignoring the threat of tears prickling uninvited in the corner of each eye.
"Are you too hot?" she asks with concern, mistaking my red face and discomfort. "You should take your shirt off."
My face is actually getting hotter.
All my efforts to pretend that I am ok with this, with her being here failing. Pulling my sleeves self-consciously over my wrists.