Chapter Twenty-Six
Thursday
Ruby:
“That’s eight.”
“It’s seven.”
“It’s eight, Ruby.”
“It’s seven, and you’re a liar. Someone needs to be taking score.”
“Who?” Josh spreads his arms at his empty flat. “We’re alone.”
“So what? You should be taking notes.”
I’ve lost seven games of Connect 4. Possibly eight.
We’re not going to resolve it. The board came out from under the sofa about two hours ago and it’s missing eleven counters, which Ewan has replaced with 2p coins because Ewan bought it in a charity shop.
Josh is red and I’m the coins, which feels unfair.
“You’ve got the proper ones,” I whine, holding up a 2p between two fingers. “You’ve got the established counters. I’m playing with shrapnel.”
Josh laughs. “You picked shrapnel.”
“I picked shrapnel because you’d already taken red and I was being polite since we’re in your house.”
Josh tips the board out and forty-odd counters scatter across the carpet between us, some red, some yellow and eleven bits of copper that roll in every direction. He’s had two glasses of wine in an hour, which for Josh is basically a bender, and the difference is subtle but there.
He keeps laughing before I’ve reached the end of whatever I’m saying, his shoulders are looser than usual, and there’s dust down one forearm from reaching under the sofa that he hasn’t noticed.
Tomorrow, we break up for Christmas and I won’t see him for two weeks, the thought makes me sad so I’m trying to ignore it.
It’s been over a month since the attack and Josh has been around a lot more.
He walks me back if it’s dark, hangs around after lectures if our days line up, and I’ve ended up at his flat so often I don’t really think about asking anymore.
Half the time Ewan is here, sometimes Brooke or Abi are too, but there are loads of bits that are just me and Josh.
We have breakfast. Spend time in the library together.
I sit in his room while he gets changed after football and complains that his legs are fucked.
He lays across my bed stealing crisps while I try to do work.
I wait for him outside training because we said we’d get food after and then spending the rest of the night together. Sleeping together. Holding each other.
We’re in a relationship without any of the perks of being in one. There’s no kissing, no fondling and strictly no sex, which would probably be ideal if I wasn’t so unbelievably attracted to Josh that sometimes my whole body thrums with the need to touch him.
We’ve developed little habits too. He knows I want tea before I ask for it.
I know which cupboard he keeps the Oreos in, and he always makes sure there’s at least one packet on hand.
He sends me songs and I send him stupid pictures.
If I haven’t heard from him by lunchtime I feel it intensely, so much so that it makes me want to rock back and forth in a corner until my phone finally lights up with his name.
Thursdays usually end up being library days, Mondays and Fridays tend to revolve around football, and Saturdays are less predictable, but we nearly always end up in the same place at some point anyway.
Wednesdays are for therapy, although Josh thinks they’re uni newspaper days.
I’ve had about six opportunities to correct myself and somehow I keep digging the hole deeper, because telling him now means admitting I’ve been lying to him for weeks and, worse, telling him why.
At some point I’m going to have to get myself out of it, but every time I think about saying the words my stomach knots.
I can’t bring myself to tell him what I did.
I hate the idea of him looking at me the way Oscar does sometimes, like he’s waiting for me to disappear the second he takes his eyes off me, and after learning what happened to his brother I know whatever I say will change things between us.
Josh will never look at me the same.
“Right.” I stretch my back out. “One more.”
“You can’t just play one more,” Josh says. “You have to commit.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you have to actually fucking commit to it, Rubes.” He shifts onto his knees and reaches for his iPod. “Hang on. We need music.”
“How is music going to help me win at Connect 4?”
“I dunno. Atmosphere or some shit.”
“Atmosphere?” I stare at him. “Who are you and what have you done with Josh?”
He shrugs, unfazed. “Just go with it.”
Reality in Motion by Tame Impala plays lowly through the little speaker near the shelf and he drops back onto the carpet, then spends the next thirty seconds trying to slot one of my 2p coins into the yellow side of the board.
I watch him struggle until I can’t take it anymore. “Are you alright?”
His tongue is sticking out slightly in concentration. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Why?” His head snaps up, follows my eyes down to his hand and then immediately scowls. “Oh, fuck off.”
I burst out laughing. “Wine will do that to you.”
“I’m not that fucking drunk.”
“I think you are.”
Josh throws his head back and laughs freely. It’s the best sound ever. “Maybe I am a little drunk.”
My phone is on the arm of the sofa behind him and getting to it would mean leaning across him, so I pick up the iPod beside my knee.
Drunk, happy Josh Hardy kneeling on a carpet deserves to be preserved in history.
The screen is already awake because the music is playing, though, so I never get as far as the camera.
There’s a playlist open called Bernardo.
I stare at it long enough that the rest of the room seems to disappear around me.
Bernardo.
Our stupid swan.
“Ruby?” Josh’s voice is high-pitched. I look up and find Josh staring at the iPod in my hand with absolute horror. “Ruby, give me my iPod.”
“What’s Bernardo?”
“It’s a bird.”
“No.”
His eyes close. “It’s a playlist.”
“I can see that. Why is it called Bernardo?”
“You know why.”
“Because Bernardo is our swan?”
“Technically he isn’t ours.”
I drag my eyes back to the iPod, a shiver rolling through me. “You made a playlist named after our swan?”
Josh drags both hands down his face and leaves them there over his mouth. “Fucking hell.”
I’m alight with anticipation, all thoughts of Connect 4 and Christmas temporarily gone. “Josh—”
“No,” he holds a hand out, looking like death. “Give me a second.”
“I—”
“Ruby, I’m having an aneurysm.”
“You’re not having an aneurysm.”
“I can feel it going.”
“You’re fine.”
Josh drops his hands and points at his own face. “A stroke, then. Is my face drooping?”
“Josh—”
“Genuinely. Look. Is one side going?”
“Your face is fine.”
“Then it’s an aneurysm and I’d like an ambulance.”
“Josh.”
His shoulders collapse a little and he sits back on his heels, staring at the carpet with resignation. “Fine. Every time a song makes me think of you, I put it in there. That’s all.”
My smile disappears. “Every time a..?”
“Don’t make me say it again, for the love of God, woman.”
“I want you to.”
“No way.”
“Josh,” I press, my mind racing.
He looks up at me, embarrassed and slightly drunk and much more exposed than I think he realises.
“I hear things and think of you, alright? Or you tell me you like something and then I hear it somewhere else and it makes me think of you again, so I put it in there. Ever since I met you, I can’t get you out of my head. That’s my way of trying to. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” He can’t get me out of his head. He thinks about me. He’s made a fucking playlist! “You have a secret playlist full of songs that make you think about me?”
“It wasn’t secret.” He corrects. “It was private.”
“But…” I’m struggling to pull my thoughts together without getting to hopeful. “Why do they make you think about me?”
He blows out a breath and rubs hard at the back of his neck, his eyes dropping briefly before coming back to mine.
“Because I think about you all the fucking time, Ruby. Literally all day, every day, and that playlist is basically a walk down memory lane. Touch Me by Rui Da Silva was playing when we saw Jess drunk in the hall. Lady — Hear Me Tonight was blasting when you were stuck in the window. The Time Is Now had just come on before the lads ran in and said you’d been hurt, and I’d been sitting there listening to the lyrics thinking about you.
The rest are mostly the same. I hear something that makes me think of you, so I stick it on there. ”
He’s so casual with it, as if this isn’t single-handedly the most romantic thing anyone has ever done. I drag my eyes downwards, “I Want It All by Arctic Monkeys makes you think of me?” I hold the iPod up. “Unthinkable by Alicia Keys? These lyrics make you think of me?”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t look fazed as he admits it. “All the time. It’s fucking exhausting.”
My heart stops and slams into my chest again with hope blooming in my stomach. “Okay.”
“Don’t say okay like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like that’s good news.”
I frown. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
He looks away, jaw tightening. “Because I can’t have it.”
Ah. There he goes. There’s the wall he is so willing to slam right back up, shutting me out. “Right.”
Josh shakes his head, but he looks downright angry. “Rubes. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Get all disappointed in me. I hate it.”
“What am I supposed to do? You’ve just admitted friendship isn’t all you want and then said I shouldn’t get my hopes up. What do you expect me to say?”
Josh leans forward, resting his arms across his knees while he stares at the scattered counters between us. “Look, I’ve got used to you being part of my life really fucking quickly and I don’t want to fuck that up.”
“Why would you?”
“Because I’m me.”
I roll my eyes. “That is such a Josh answer.”
“Yeah, and it’s the absolute truth.”
“You really believe that don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you keep shoving friendship on us when we both know this thing isn’t normal?”
“Yeah.”
This is more than I’ve ever been able to get out of him. “Why do you keep running away from it, Josh? Like, actually?”
“I can’t lose you,” he mutters it so quietly I have to strain to hear him. “I like you too fucking much, Rubes.”