18
I went to pack my things; glad I was alone.
Free of him. It lent me room to think, but mostly about him.
I was fucked. I’d fallen hard and there was no recovering my dignity at this point.
He’d exposed the real Ralph. A version of me that had eagerly debased himself to please another dude.
A dude? All for fleeting jollies. The only thing that comforted me now was the idea that he’d once been mine.
A truth I wouldn’t relinquish without a fight, no matter what the battle entailed.
No matter how many Stevies came between us. I’d collect heads if I must.
I stepped back into the lounge sometime later, and things were nothing short of chaotic.
Levi was spinning around in circles in the computer chair from my dad’s office.
Alex and Rome were sticking things into Nathan's mouth because he’d fallen asleep on the sofa.
Their snickers caught my ear. The pizza boxes were still splayed all over the floor.
One of them had flipped over and thrown Rome's crusts everywhere. I knelt and collected them, confident they were his, as he was the only one who refused to eat the crusts. If they belonged to anyone else, I would’ve made them clean up their own mess.
"Woof... gotta have a lie down," Levi uttered, halting the spinning chair and staggering towards the sofa. Nathan awakened and snapped at the boys to stop bothering him. He was never ornerier than when someone disturbed his sleep.
"Wicked..." Rome whispered once Alex found Nathan's phone. They hacked it and went straight to Twitter. Later we found out they'd tweeted something to give the illusion Nathan hated dogs. The animal rights activists were in his replies before he could delete the tweet.
"These lads gonna land me in trouble," he said, approaching me. "A decent man can't even take a nap around the lot of you! Jeezuz! Lousy bastards!" Everyone mocked the way he said ‘Jesus’ and he threw his hands up and went to the toilet.
"Change your bloody password!" I called after him.
Later, before my mum arrived to ship us home, I asked Rome to meet me upstairs so we could talk. He could sense I wasn't happy. He went straight for my cheeks and pinched them until I smiled.
"Dimples..." he muttered softly.
I relented with embarrassing ease and helped him pack his stuff.
I even gave him a few of my dad’s books that he'd fallen for and kept the Harry Potters.
I thought about not broaching the subject of Stevie since I wanted to head home on good terms, but once he stepped into the toilet, his phone vibrated.
I moved over to where it charged on the nightstand, and there was a single message previewed on the lock screen.
“Home yet?”
The contact was S. Davis. I nearly pissed myself, becoming twice as livid as before. Once he left the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed, I leaned against the door, heartsore.
"You okay, Rafe?"
"Yeah."
"Sure don't look it. What happened?"
I swallowed thickly but held my tongue.
"Bro, you go from jammin’ to lookin’ pissed all the sudden?"
I shut off Kings of Leon’s latest album and sighed. "Mate, I told you…I'm fine."
"Okay, whatevs.”
I couldn’t let him flip this. I just asked him straight-up: "What about Stevie?"
"What?"
"Ste-vie," I ground out.
"What about her?"
"What're you gonna do about her? Mate, she's still calling you."
"What?" He looked irritated. As though I was overstepping. "Why would I need to do somethin about her?"
"Well..." I felt idiotic even bringing it up. Clearly he had no intentions of carrying this thing beyond today. I couldn't speak anymore or I’d cry.
"You worried about her?”
I nodded, toeing the carpet.
"About what, exactly?"
I could only shrug.
“Speak, Rafe!” he barked, startling me.
"W-what’s supposed to happen after today? With uz?”
“Us?” he puzzled.
Fuck’s sake, I was a moron. There was no ‘us’ in his mind. I quickly backpedaled, pretending my only concern was her finding out.
“What if she…like…finds out?"
"How? Who's gonna tell her? You?" He was so pissed it made my stomach knot.
"She might find out—"
"Are you gonna tell her?" He rose, approaching slowly.
"Mate...no…" I quieted. "But are you gonna still see her or something? Or...what even is this? What exactly are we doing?"
"What do you think, Rafe? You tell me. Why would I suddenly stop seeing her, bro? Wouldn’t that be a little suspicious? Huh? What excuse would I have, without givin' us away? You need to bloody think, mate."
"Alright, but—"
"—but nothing. And what about Carley?"
"We're not talking about Carley right now—"
"The fuck we aren’t, bro. If we're talkin’ about Stevie then we're talkin’ about Carley as well—"
"Fine," I spat.
"You’re askin’ all these bizarre questions all the sudden…but have you even thought to ask that one? You plannin’ on tellin’ Carley anythin’?"
"I was thinking maybe I should—"
"Oh my fuckin’ God, bro! Don't be a fuckin’ idiot, Rafe!"
He was done beating around the bush. Now he was just being cold. A necessary evil in his mind, I suspect, in order to get through to my childish brain. I was humiliated.
"You can't be serious, yeah?!” He closed the distance and my body braced for impact. “Thinkin’ about tellin’ someone?
! About what we did?!” He grabbed my chin and shoved my head back into the door.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you daft?
You have any idea the type of shit they'd say about us?
! What my family would say?! Even the people in my neighborhood? !"
"Mate... m'sorry. I-I didn't think about all that—"
"No, you didn't think. Wake the fuck up, bro!"
“S-sorry.” I could hardly look at him. This wasn’t Rome.
It’s like he’d become someone else, all in a split second.
Talking didn’t seem to help, but I couldn’t shut up.
I couldn’t stomach him being angry with me.
"I just...I-I saw your phone, and I, uh, saw she was calling or something, and got sort of upset, y'know? Like...uh, frustrated, I think. I was just confused. I’m so sorry, Rome. I didn’t mean to upset you. "
At that, he rubbed his hands down his face and took a deep breath through clenched teeth.
"Forget it, Rafe. None of that shit matters anymore. When it's you and me, it's you and me, yeah? In our own world. Nothin' else matters, okay? Nothin' can bother us. I don't wanna hear anythin’ about Carley, and I don't want to hear anythin’ about Stevie…or whoever else. You hear me?"
I nodded. He was right. It made perfect sense.
Women had absolutely nothing to do with what we’d done here.
His women were not my competition, nor vice versa.
I had something to offer him no woman on the planet could contend with, and the reverse was true as well.
What he gave me, I couldn't get anywhere else—not that I wanted to anyway.
After this trip, the name Carley wouldn’t ring the same anymore. I had pushed her to the back of my mind and piled him so high in front that I could barely remember her face. Could hardly remember her laugh, or her smell. His had taken precedence.
He shifted and brought me back to reality.
So that was it. What’s done is done. We were us, apart from anything and anyone else.
To keep it that way, we needed to reconcile it between us and leave it there.
He said the best way to keep anything safe was to avoid discussing it at all, and I agreed. He looked relieved.
Rather worse for wear and set in my place, I started to leave the room.
Before I could slip out, he grabbed me, spun me around, and pulled me into a vice-like hug.
I suppose he wasn't backtracking on what we’d experienced together.
Just repositioning us. As I stumbled into him in total submission, he locked his arms around my back, pressing my ribs into his with a ferocious thud. I teared up on his shoulder.
"Do you even care about me?” I croaked into his shirt. "Rome...I’m so scared…do you even love me?”
"It's okay..." he murmured into my ear. I shuddered, more out of unease than pleasure. "I got you, babe. You know I fuckin’ love you. I already told you that, remember? Whatever you need, I’m here.
If you need to forget what we did, it's forgotten.
If you want more…baby, I'm right here. Whatever you want. You hear me?” I nodded. “Didn't I say I'd take care of ya?"
I felt raw, knowing he could recall the tiniest details from our nights together with as much clarity as I did.
He wouldn’t be forgetting any time soon.
The tenderness in his voice and the maturity in his response threw me for a loop.
Something indiscernible welled in my throat, so I clung to him.
Unwilling to entertain the thought of us ending.
After a final, violent squeeze, he let go.
I left without looking at him. Apart from work, we didn't speak again for a week after we arrived home.