Chapter 15 #2
Cian puts an arm around my shoulders and pulls me towards him. It happens so fast I don’t have time to react properly and the moment where I could pull away passes by. I turn into him and steel myself, trying not to register how warm he feels or how nice he smells.
‘I’m fine,’ I manage while not moving my arms, just standing flat against him. ‘I’m fine,’ I repeat, as I close my eyes and turn my face towards his neck.
‘I know,’ he says into my hair. ‘You can still have a one-armed hug, though.’
The way he holds me, tightening as I rest more weight against him, makes me feel as if I’ll never be able to move away.
‘How long do your hugs go on for?’
When he sighs out, I feel his breath on my cheek. ‘A bit longer.’
This is the first time I’ve really felt a hug in ages.
‘You’re getting a shortened version because I’m afraid of toppling over.’
‘Okay.’
Then he’s squeezing me and swaying me slightly and I know I need to step back now, or I never will. With his hand still on my upper arm, he looks at me in a way that wipes my mind.
I sit heavily at the table, grab the box of icing sugar and train my eyes on the fog of instructions. ‘Buttercream icing,’ I say, my voice coming out too loud.
‘You truly want to bake?’
‘Baking will distract me. Can you get the butter?’ When I glance over, he’s still against the counter, watching. ‘Cian,’ I chide, ‘stop standing around posing.’ Then, under my breath, ‘If you really want to distract me, take off your top and do some sit-ups.’
‘And you’re fine,’ he bellows.
‘Or the dancing penis thing sounded good too.’
‘That’s enough. Pervert.’ He limps back to the table and unwraps a pack of butter, which he dumps in the bowl in that heavy-handed, slightly absentminded way he seems to do most things.
‘Give it to me.’ He takes the box from my hands.
‘Now let’s work out what cream the butter means, because that doesn’t sound like correct English to me. ’
And in this moment, there are two things I know for sure: one, I can’t think of a single reason not to fall for him and two, Kasie would be gloating so hard right now.
Over the next two weeks I find myself at Cian’s several evenings in a row, evenings where I sit next to him on the sofa and get whacked by his pregnancy pillow as he shuffles to get comfortable.
Evenings where I discover the reason he smells like a bouquet is because of a hand cream called Wild Rose his aunt gave him.
‘I know it makes me smell like an old lady,’ he says defensively when I tease him about it.
‘It’s the only thing that works on my calluses.
’ Evenings where I don’t allow myself to cry or need hugs or talk about anything more serious than why Bruno from Encanto doesn’t have his own film.
Evenings where I frequently remind myself: Cian and I are just friends.
Occasionally he catches me looking at him and worse than being caught is the way he’ll gradually smile, and I’ll have to watch it crawl across his face before he asks me what I want to eat or watch next.
To me, it’s impossible that he hasn’t picked up on how much I like him, yet when I hear him bat away inquisitions from his aunt about what he’s doing at home alone with a girl, I question how oblivious he is.
‘So weird,’ he grumbles once he gets her off the phone.
‘This is why I never tell my family anything.’ And I’m not sure what the this is.
In general, I feel better and more balanced, despite still not sleeping.
Though staying up late drinking highly caffeinated soft drinks and watching films with Cian doesn’t help with that.
He has the opposite problem, as with his increased physio he often falls asleep from exhaustion mid-film, leaving me to peer over and wonder why someone wouldn’t want to spend all their time with him.
There are slightly more mentions of the ex, Vic, a freelance accountant who loves netball and park bootcamps.
With each detail she becomes more real, and I become more resentful.
I also prickle to know I’m not like her, especially when Cian ribs me about being inactive, because of course he loves sporty women.
Though for the most part, he spends more time explaining why he finds Studio Ghibli creepy than how he ended up with a ring in his pocket for a woman he did nothing but argue with.
When Brendan comes in from work, he sits on the arm of the sofa and tells us crazy stories from his body-building days, which make Cian double over, even though I’m sure he’s heard them all before.
I notice how Brendan eats standing up, how he’ll randomly go to the garden and do star jumps, and how much joy he takes in whipping the hoover out after Wuffy’s been in the living room, which is frequently.
Though one evening Cian admits he’s sometimes taken aback to see how much his dad has aged.
‘Your dad is amazing for his age,’ I say.
‘Yeah, but he used to be the dad who’d show off about how many kids he could lift in his arms; now he struggles to use a can opener.’
Often when I leave their place late, Brendan walks me the three minutes home and gives me a side hug as he says goodnight.
The first time he did it a lump formed in my throat as I tried to remember the last time my own dad hugged me.
My mum does, but it’s all claws and squeezes, followed by a comment on my weight, my hair, or her weight, her hair.
There’s never any real softness in it. I keep thinking about it. I don’t know why.
I work normal hours, still getting in first, though late enough now that the overnight security guard has finished his shift.
Things feel more normal; Billy from Accounts starts firing winks my way, Danni talks to me about retinol facemasks and who’s banging who instead of pushing her well-being agenda and Nicole stops telling me to call her if I need to.
We launch a massive online campaign, and I script so much Xiang content Nicole accuses me of method acting.
I don’t mention anything to do with Cian in front of Nicole, because after he made the ‘mother hen’ comment, I’ve held a suspicion that she contacted him about me, perhaps even warned him off.
Though I have no proof nor desire to ask either of them about this.
Plus, I don’t want to be in a situation where Nicole will ask me about Cian, and I’ll have to outright lie to her by saying I’m happy being just friends.