by N. R. Walker
“I kissed him.”
Merry stared at me. We were in the staffroom. She’d come bounding in, all excited for gossip of how my night ended up with Hennessy. She took one look at me and dragged me into the corner; her smile was gone, replaced by pure concern.
“I thought you were both okay with kissing,” Merry asked gently.
“I am,” I said. “He is.” God, I felt nauseous.
“So what went wrong?” Merry pressed. “Did he want more?”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. I shook my head instead. “No. I did.”
Merry blinked and I could see it on her face as she tried to get the pieces to fit. “What?”
“I did,” I repeated. “I ravaged his face like an alien face sucker and I pulled him close and I’m pretty sure I moaned and that’s not even the worst of it because I think I wanted more.” God, I was actually going to vomit. “So of course I freaked the fuck out and he got an emergency work phone call, but he was trying to ask me what was wrong, but how can I tell him that?”
“Tell him what?” Merry asked.
I gaped at her. “Have you even been listening?”
She did that patiently not-sighing thing she does. “Jordan, what can’t you tell him?”
“That I’m not what he wants. He said, pretty much from day one, very clearly, he only wants to date asexual guys.”
“And?”
My eyes burned again with tears. “And I’m not.” I tried really hard not to cry, but my chin did that wobbling thing and I waved my hand at her, trying to stave off my emotions. Which was futile. “I thought I’d found where I belong, ya know? I thought I’d found who I was, who I really was. But then my body betrayed my brain and I basically ran out the door. Fucking hell, Merry. You should have seen the look on his face.” I pushed my hand against my stomach, my eyes burned with tears. “I feel ill.”
Merry put her hand on my arm and looked me dead in the eye. “You need to speak to him.”
“What am I supposed to tell him?”
“The truth.”
“I don’t want him to end this.”
“So you want him to think you’re ending it?”
“What?”
“What do you think he’s feeling right now?” She did her real-talk eyebrow thing. “He’s probably at work wondering what the hell he did wrong. He’ll be so confused. At least you know what the issue is. He has no clue. How can you expect him to fix something if he doesn’t know what’s wrong?”
“He can’t fix me, Merry. It’s not something that went wrong. It’s me. I’m not what he thinks I am.”
Merry took a deep breath. “How many texts or phone calls has he sent you since last night?”
I took out my phone and handed it over to her. There were four missed calls and five texts the last time I looked. Right then, Mrs Mullhearn came in with a clipboard. She took one look at me. “Jordan? Something wrong?”
I scrubbed at my face. “No. I’m fine, I just…”
She straightened. “Aren’t up for dealing with the public?”
I didn’t even have to nod. She just handed me the clipboard, which I now realised had about twenty spreadsheets on it. “These titles need to be archived. In the basement. Should take you—” She looked at her watch. “—oh, about eight hours.”
So of course my eyes chose that particular moment to leak saltwater. “Thank you.”
“Off you go,” she shooed me out.
I was so thankful, I didn’t even stop to think. Being in a dark basement surrounded by stacks and boxes, with a list as long as my arm to keep me busy for an entire day, was exactly what I needed. I wanted to be busy, distracted. I wanted to lose track of time. I wanted to hide away where I didn’t have to pretend to be all-smiles.
I didn’t even realise Merry still had my phone.
Chapter Fourteen
Hennessy
“What the hell happened?” Michael asked.
I’d just arrived at the office at a quarter to eleven at night. Jordan had just done a runner on me, leaving me stunned and confused, and I had to come into work because of a possible security breach on the job I’d busted my arse on. Who just happened to be my ex, who was the very fucking last person I wanted to see right now. I’d sent Jordan two texts on the cab ride into the city, but he hadn’t replied.
“I don’t know,” I answered with a shrug. “We had the best night. His friends are great, we laughed for ages, and I even got the feeling that they could one day be my friends too, ya know?” I swallowed hard. “Then we go back to my place and everything’s fine. And then he kissed me and it was… amazing. But then he freaked out. And I mean freaked out. And then you rang and he bolted.”
“Without telling you why?”
I shook my head. “He said he didn’t think he could be what I needed. He said he needed time and that he was sorry. Said he’d call me.”
“The fuck?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought we had something. I thought…” God, I couldn’t believe I was going to admit this. “I was thinking long-term, ya know? I thought he could be all that for me.”
The elevator pinged at the other end of the floor and I sighed. Michael clapped my shoulder. “Put your game-face on. Rob’s here.”
Michael was right. The very last thing I needed right now was Rob gloating in my face that I’d had another failed relationship.
Failed relationship. Fuck. Is that what Jordan and I were? I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t. Not until he looked me right in the eye and told me it was over.
I couldn’t even take any joy from Rob’s misery. He looked terrible and stressed. I’d imagine coming home to find your place ransacked would suck for anyone. Even arsehole ex-boyfriends.
We met in the waiting room. The entire building was empty, save security downstairs who had been instructed to grant Rob access. “What happened?” Michael started.
“I’d been at The Greenroom,” he said. I rolled my eyes, not giving a single fuck if he saw. The Greenroom was a notoriously sleazy gay club for executives, rife with drugs and hookers. “I left at nine with…” His gaze darted to me before he looked back at Michael. “With company. We arrived back at my place to find the door ajar. They took anything they could carry. TVs, computers, jewellery, watches. They even took my juicer. Trashed everything, upended everything. Cops took fingerprints, but they have security camera footage.”
“They got caught on camera?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The police said the men, there were two of them, didn’t even seem to care about the cameras. And that they should be able to get an ID.”
Michael looked at me and I smiled. “If they were stupid enough to get their faces on camera, then it’s very likely they won’t know how to get past the password access.”
“That’s good, right?” Rob asked.
“For now,” I replied. “But who they sell the laptops to might have a different set of skills.”
“You have the police report number?” Michael asked.
Rob nodded. Then he looked at me. “They um, the cops wanted to know the names of everyone who had access to my apartment in the last six months.” He frowned. “I gave them your name but told them you weren’t involved.”
“My name?” I asked.
“Yeah, sorry if that affects your security clearance or your reputation,” he said, and he did look legitimately sorry.
And it was true. In my line of work, reputation and integrity were my entire business. Yet I couldn’t help but laugh. “Believe me, after you told the police you take guys from The Greenroom back to your place a few times a week, they won’t even look at me. And why would they? If I wanted access to your laptops or any of your financial accounts, I could do it without getting off my couch.”
Rob looked as though he was about to snarl at me, but he bit it back. Maybe he could tell I wasn’t in the fucking mood. “Sorry my home being robbed, my privacy being violated, is such an inconvenience to you,” he
said. His tone was neutral, but his smirk gave his intent away. “Did I interrupt a date or something?”
“Okay,” Michael said flatly. “One, what Hennessy does in his private time is none of your business. Two, this incident, while unforeseen and out of all our control, undermines weeks of work that Hennessy has done.” Michael looked at me and asked a question he already knew the answer to. “Can you fix this before the relaunch next week?”
I gave him a grateful smile. “Of course I can. I’ll let you two sort out the legal details. I’ll be in my office where I will, no doubt, be for every hour of the next six days.”
I left them to it, went into my office, and pulled up the dozen files that would need new passwords throughout, new firewalls, new encryption patches, and coding rewrites. I didn’t have to redo anything from scratch. I just needed to run scans and patches, check ports, and I’d probably spend more time amending the final reports and data for his IT team. It wasn’t a total loss. It was just a huge pain in my arse.
It was also a great distraction from my sore heart. Yes, I had to speak to Jordan. I just needed to deal with this mess first.
Three hours later, I’d confirmed there’d been no immediate breach and had started on the long and tedious path to fixing this whole mess. Michael had gone home an hour ago—there was no point in us both being zombies tomorrow—so I shut everything down and went home, not even feeling the bite of cold as I left the building and slipped into a cab.
My alarm went off a few hours later, and the first thing I did was check to see if Jordan had replied.
He hadn’t.
He hadn’t replied when I trudged my sorry arse back to the office, and he hadn’t replied when Michael passed a fresh coffee to me just before nine. “Still no reply?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Did you try calling him?”
I nodded. “Five times. It just went to voicemail. Any more and I’ll look like a crazy man. It’s now up to him.”
“I’m sorry,” he offered. “I know how much you liked him.”
Liked him? I think it had well exceeded that. I didn’t admit that though. Not out loud. I just nodded and went back to work, hoping to get lost in codes and data files. Until my phone rang and Jordan’s name flashed on the screen.
I fumbled with my phone, almost dropped it, then almost hit the ignore button by mistake.
“Jordan?”
“No, it’s Merry.”
My heart sank like a stone, then panic set in. “Oh my God, is he okay?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. Well, not really. He’s a freaking mess.”
The ache in my chest burned. “Oh.”
“God, Hennessy, what happened last night?”
“He freaked out. He shot off the couch and bolted. I don’t know what happened.”
“Oh dear.”
“Oh dear, what? What does that mean?”
She sighed. “You care for him, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. I do. He’s… everything I could ever want. And I have no idea how to fix this. He won’t even speak to me.”
She was silent a moment. “And he’ll kill me if he finds out I’m talking to you. You have the ace support group meeting tonight, yes?”
Oh fuck. I’d forgotten about that. And it was supposed to be at the library. Where Jordan worked. Fuck! I rubbed my temples trying to stave off the headache that threatened to split my skull. “Yes.”
“Good. So here’s what’s going to happen.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jordan
As I was getting my coat and scarf, Merry handed me back my phone and gave me a hug. “Call me if you want to talk,” she said, her hands on my shoulders.
I nodded sadly, dreading catching this bus. I even considered waiting for the next one, or even walking home, but I knew I had to be an adult about this. I’d told Hennessy I’d talk to him today, and even though it was a conversation I didn’t want to have, it wasn’t fair on him to put it off.
But he wasn’t on the bus.
And that was so, so much worse.
I fell into a seat and clutched at my messenger bag on my lap, mentally telling my heart not to squeeze so damn tight.
A hand patted my shoulder. “No Mr Hennessy today,” Mrs Petrovski said. I couldn’t bear to meet her gaze.
“Uh, no. I um… I don’t…”
Don’t cry, Jordan. Don’t cry.
Just make up some random bullshit story about how he was really an art insurance broker who was caught up in some multi-million dollar heist with international thieves and how it read like Oceans Eleven meets Thomas Crown and, and… and… motherfucking fuck.
“He’s probably avoiding me and I wouldn’t say I blamed him because I fucked it up, and let’s be honest here, we all knew I was going to be the one to fuck it up. I mean, he’s completely perfect and sweet and lovely, and I’m not what he thought I was. And I’m not what I thought I was, so I can’t be what he needs and it totally sucks because I’m pretty sure he’s the guy who was designed and made just for me, like he’s so ridiculously perfect, and it’s worse than Me Before You. I mean, being left behind because of assisted suicide must be awful because, you know, death and all, but that’s fiction and this is real life and it hurts so much worse in real life than it ever does in books. I wish I could turn to the last page and see how it ends, and even though I normally call people who do that, absolute monsters, I would totally do that if this were a book. But he was reading Flowers for Algernon and that…” My voice fell quiet. “Well we all know how that ends.”
Mrs Petrovski frowned. “I don’t know how that ends.”
I sighed. “Probably just as well.”
She leaned in. “Did he tell you he not want to see you?”
“No, I… I walked out on him,” I mumbled. “I… it was…”
“You not talk to him?”
I shook my head.
“You must talk to him. Sometimes talk is not easy, but you must. Communicate is most important!” she declared to the entire bus, her pointer finger held high.
Charles, Sandra, Becky, and Ian all nodded. “It is,” Ian said.
Jesus Christ. Was everyone on the bus invested in our relationship? Had I let all of them down too?
“Sorry if I’ve disappointed you all,” I mumbled.
“You didn’t let us down,” Charles said. “You let yourself down.”
“And Hennessy,” Mrs Petrovski added.
Oh great. Because that’s so much better.
“I’ll see what I can do to fix it,” I lied. Then I willed myself not to cry, and I ignored how everyone now frowned, so I stared out the window until it was my stop.
I got home, stripped the doona off my bed, and cocooned myself on the couch, and stared at that nowhere space between me and the TV. The room grew darker, and when I heard Angus come home, I didn’t even sit up.
His face appeared in front of me, concerned and sad. “Hey, is my Jordan Burrito alive in there?”
“Yeah.” My voice cracked.
His frown grew deeper, but he sat on the coffee table so I could see him. “This is the saddest burrito I’ve ever seen.”
“I was going for cocoon. A chrysalis, even. Just waiting to turn into something prettier before I come out.”
“Bad day?”
“The worst.” Which was totally dramatic, considering the horrors some people were living through in the world that very moment, but I was wallowing, so shut up.
“Well, I was hoping…” He twisted his hands in his lap. “Never mind. Another time.”
“You were hoping what?”
“Well, considering we did the ‘meet the friends’ thing for you, I was thinking maybe you’d like to maybe do the ‘meet the friends’ for me?”
“Your sex-couple?” I wasn’t sure what else to call them. “Is it getting serious…? I didn’t know that, sorry.” Then I felt a whole lot worse because he’d always been a good friend to me and I’d been so caugh
t up in my own fucking world, I hadn’t thought to ask him how things were in his world.
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I’ve been a shitty friend, sorry.”
His face softened. “No you haven’t.”
To be completely honest, leaving my cocoon, leaving the couch, and leaving our apartment was the last thing on the planet I felt like doing. But this was Angus, and at the end of the day, I’d do anything for him. “You were meeting them tonight?”
“Yeah, well, we talked about it…” He seemed so unsure. He bit his bottom lip and couldn’t look at me, so it was pretty clear he was nervous about it.
“I’ll go,” I said, still not moving my burrito cocoon on the couch. “You make the arrangements, and I’ll wallow a little bit more, then we can leave.”
He smiled, relieved. “Okay, I’ll just go shower.”
“Maybe you should let them see you all covered in paint and your hair filled with plaster dust. You know, the real you.”
He laughed. “Nah. If there’s body-licking involved, I don’t wanna taste like a building site.”
I buried my face into my cocoon and mumbled through my doona. “Too much information.”
His laughter disappeared, and a moment later, I heard the shower start. I took some deep breaths and tried to fortify the resolve to at least sit up.
Small steps.
But who knew… maybe being forced out of the house and being made to socialise might do me the world of good. I’d literally spent the entire day in the basement at work, hiding away from the world, and that had been a blessing. Maybe tonight would be too.
Twenty minutes later, we hit the pavement, our breaths puffs of steam in the cold winter air. I shoved my hands in my jacket pockets. “So, where are we meeting them?”
“Oh,” he replied. “Um, at the Clock Hotel.”
Right across from my work. “Well, on the bright side, Sunan’s will be open and we can get some of his mango fries, spicy beef salad, and green curry to help soak up the fuckton of alcohol I plan on drinking tonight.”