Chapter 57
Fifty-Seven
ELI
Itried to roll over and hit a solid surface.
“Good morning to you, too.” Jesse’s voice was still sleep-heavy.
“Fuck, does Clara immediately jump your bones whenever you talk to her just after you wake up?”
Jesse’s sleepy laugh was just as lethal.
“Sometimes,” he answered as he rolled onto his back. I followed suit and we both lay in silence, staring at the ceiling.
“Did you manage to get some sleep?” he asked eventually.
I turned my head to look at him. “Yes, your firm grip as the big spoon did eventually help me get to sleep. Clara was right, you are a good hugger. It’s one of the better nights’ sleep I’ve had recently.”
Jesse turned his head. “You are a great little spoon; it was no hardship.”
“A better or worse little spoon than Clara?” I teased.
A bark of a laugh came out of him. “Do you want me to not get married?”
“Oh, so it’s me? I’m honoured. Although I would advise not telling her. I don’t need both Henry sisters hating me.”
“I heard him.”
Jesse and I turned to the door where Clara was standing, her arms crossed and a steady, almost unnerving look in her brown eyes.
“I’m not taking it back,” Jesse said, propping up onto his elbow. Clara stared at us both.
“No, I get it. There’s a lot there to like.” She gestured at me. “You both good?”
I pushed up to a seated position. “I feel better.”
Clara’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t push for more.
“What time is it?” Jesse asked, sitting up against the headboard and opening his arms, gesturing for Clara to come to him.
“It’s lunchtime,” she answered as she climbed onto the bed and settled into his lap.
“Fuck, seriously!” I hastened to move out of bed. Clara’s hand grabbed my forearm, a cool touch against my sleep-warm skin.
“If you’re rushing to get to work, then just stop right now. Dad told me to tell you that you weren’t getting away with working today after yesterday.”
“He didn’t have an issue with it before. Both he and Xander have known all week I was working today after yesterday,” I protested.
“Yes, well, that kind of slipped them both by because they were so focused on the party being a success. They didn’t notice until this morning that you were down to work all weekend as well. So, you’ve been pulled. You aren’t back to work until Monday night.”
I slumped back against the headboard and groaned.
“This is a good thing. You and Addie can finally talk and figure your shit out,” Jesse said.
I groaned again for longer this time.
“That is not what I want to do. It could all end in smoke, and I want to put that off for as long as possible,” I said as I turned my head to look at them.
“But think how much better you’ll feel when you go to therapy on Monday, knowing that you had this conversation and haven’t been burying your head in the sand over it,” Jesse offered.
“Think of how shit I will feel in therapy on Monday when I have to deal with the fact that the love is very much unrequited,” I countered, and Clara frowned.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” she said.
“You sure about that?”
“I’m not a one hundred per cent certain on much, but I am pretty sure on this.”
I closed my eyes. “Can I worst-case scenario this for a second?” I asked.
“Is it going to help?” Jesse asked. I nodded but didn’t open my eyes. “Then go ahead,” he said.
“We talk and I tell her how I feel, but she doesn’t feel the same way.
That then puts a strain on our friendship because I can’t just make the feelings go away overnight, and she can never fully relax around me because she knows I feel more for her than she does for me.
That makes living together a nightmare, so I have to try and find somewhere else to live and end up in a house share with four strangers, an hour away from work.
“Which is a job that keeps me close to her, so the bruise of unrequited feelings still doesn’t go anywhere because I’ll see her at Vivi’s.
Or I’ll see you and be reminded of her. Or whenever I have to talk to Darren.
So I have to find a new job. But the job at Vivi’s is like a unicorn.
There is no way that I will find another job that isn’t toxic, so I fall back into that cycle.
Only this time, I don’t even have the suggestion of friends because my current friendship group is tied up in Addie, so they will all be gone by that point anyway. Then I guess I’ll just die alone.”
I opened my eyes and looked at them.
“That really made you feel better?” Clara asked.
“No, it makes sense. It’s kind of like when we have to figure out something in the plot. If we talk through all the ways that it can’t happen, then we find the way that it will happen,” Jesse said. His thumbs were sweeping circles over Clara’s thighs in a move so casual that it made my chest ache.
“There is nothing to suggest that my version of events can’t happen,” I said.
“The only way your version of events can happen is if Adrienne lies through her fucking teeth, and there is only so long we would allow that,” Clara said with an authority that left no room for debate. “And anyway, you would at the very least get to keep Jesse.”
“She’s not wrong. Do you feel better now that you’ve got that out of your system?” Jesse asked.
“Yes.”
“Good, she’s at the flat. I dropped her off there myself,” Clara confirmed.
“Guess I better confront this head on then. But before I go, do you two have matching Troy Bolton T-shirts?”
Clara looked down at herself and laughed.
“Yeah, we do. Dad thought they would be good stocking fillers one year as a reminder that one time, that second film had us in a chokehold. He got one for all five of us, and we still have them on a steady indoor clothes rotation.”
“Addie has worn hers outside more than once,” I said, causing Clara to frown, which made me laugh.
“That is…interesting information to have. Thanks for sharing with the class. Now, please go home.”
There was a stillness to the flat when I got home, suggesting that Addie was in but not awake. It was a stillness I was used to when I woke up early or came home late.
The living room was empty, so I wandered down the hall to her bedroom and knocked softly. When I was greeted by more silence, I opened the door slowly, only to find an empty bed.
There was only one other place that Addie could be. I crossed the hall to my own room and hoped the door wouldn’t creak on the hinges as it opened.
It was thankfully silent on this occasion, and when I looked in, I found her.
Addie was sleeping on her side of my bed.
Her braids were fanning out onto my pillow, completely wrapped up in the duvet.
Her eyebrows were pinched together over her closed eyes.
I wanted to walk over and press the crease out of her forehead, but doing so would probably wake her up, and if she was sleeping in the middle of the day, something that was so unlike Addie, then clearly her body needed the rest.
I thanked the hinge gods for their continued silence as I closed the door behind me.
Then I went to the kitchen and started making another cake.