Chapter 20
SARAH
Delicate | Taylor Swift
Sarah: Were you planning on inviting me over at some point?
She hated herself for being the one to text him. After he’d asked to see her , she hadn’t heard from him all day. And normally she’d have enough self-respect to write anyone off for doing as much—as little, really—but apparently her body had accepted that simple question as foreplay, because she’d been on edge all day. And frankly, if he’d forgotten or lost interest, she was ready to wash her day’s makeup off and crawl into bed with her vibrator and her favourite audio erotica creator.
Alex: I’m sorry.
Alex: Got a last-minute invite to birthday drinks for a colleague, and I can’t escape yet.
Alex: Join me and we’ll go to mine after?
The prospect was appealing, and as soon as she had that thought, she was reminded why she shouldn’t do it. They weren’t friends. They didn’t need to understand each other outside the bedroom.
Sarah: I’ll pass, thanks.
His reply took so long, she thought he’d accepted her dismissal.
Alex: You’d make this slightly more bearable.
Oh, how he knew how to flatter her.
Alex: Save me, and I’ll let you call in a favour.
Now that was intriguing. So when he sent her a pin, she freshened up her lipstick, shouted a goodbye to Abby and Erik through their closed door, and headed out into the evening.
I t was easy to find Alex’s colleagues when she arrived at the bar. The smattering of quarter zips and gilets stood out among a sea of jeans. Their boisterous chatter was audible over the poor kid performing in the corner. And she spotted no less than three young women in skimpy dresses being crowded against bar stools by tall men with leering faces.
And at a table against the wall, nursing his usual double whiskey, Alex drew her eyes almost instantly. His small group was laughing loudly, while Alex smiled just enough to appear engaged. But his eyes were slightly unfocused. His body was angled away from the activity, probably under the pretence of needing space to stretch out his excessively tall body, but in reality giving him a shield as he checked his phone twice in the thirty seconds she spent watching him.
Then chance or fate or whatever this connection between them was had him looking up and straight at her. And there was that smile again. Not quite as open as he’d gifted her with in her bedroom, but wider than the ones she’d mostly seen him share in public. And still utterly captivating.
Before she’d taken more than a few steps, Alex’s long legs had eaten up the distance between them.
‘Evening, Princess. What can I get you?’ he asked, ushering her towards two seats at the end of the bar.
‘I can order my own drinks. And get my own chair.’ She scowled as he pulled her bar stool out and signalled to the bartender. And because that was the way the world worked when you were a six-foot-something, firmly muscled Thor lookalike, they were served immediately. Which, unfairness at getting to jump the queue aside, was a novelty Sarah could get used to. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be sitting with your friends?’
‘Co-workers, not friends,’ he corrected. ‘And they’ll forgive me for ignoring them as long as I’m talking to a gorgeous woman. Two drinks, then we can go.’
‘Your commitment to getting each other laid is very sweet.’
Alex laughed, low and genuine, like that night in his office. She wanted to bottle it. Become intoxicated on the sound of him being a real person, rather than another one of the corporate fuckboys surrounding them.
It disarmed her enough that she forgot she was pissed at him for ignoring her all day, instead leaning in to the desire for him that had brought her there in the first place. He looked good , tattoos and gold skin spilling from his cream rib-knit polo—she’d been relieved by the absence of Patagonia in his wardrobe—and his jeans… Well. Obscene was the norm there.
They drank in silence for a few minutes, Sarah chancing looks at his forearm each time it flexed with the motion of lifting his glass.
‘Why all the Norse tattoos?’ she asked eventually.
Alex looked at the ink swirling across his skin, then back at her. ‘Larsson didn’t enlighten you to my heritage?’
‘Sure. But my dad is Welsh. I don’t have a dragon tattooed on my ass.’
‘You should though.’ Alex perked up. ‘Maybe not your ass, exactly, but a dragon tail wrapping around your thigh? I could trace it with my tongue on my way to—’
‘Forget I asked.’ Those smiles and laughs had disarmed her. Made her forget who she was dealing with. It was her fault for being stupid enough to ask him something real.
Then he surprised her again.
‘You know how Erik is…sensitive?’ Alex asked after a moment.
Sarah frowned at the subject change.
She did know. Abby had valiantly kept his diagnosis to herself, only telling Sarah that his sensory issues might result in new light bulbs and fewer nights out. Then Erik had sat down for dinner on his first night at their place and given Sarah a detailed rundown of his history and the ways it might impact her life. He wasn’t shy about it.
‘My granddad,’ Alex said. ‘He was like that too. Never diagnosed, of course, but looking back, it’s easy to see the similarities. He found our big family events overwhelming, and since I was normally by myself too, I’d go sit with him. One night, he started telling me all the myths and folktales he heard growing up in Norway.’ He paused. Stared at his drink. Took one sip, then another, while Sarah’s heart dipped in anticipation. ‘He— He died while I was off at uni. It was sudden. I’d just got my first tattoo—you know the dates on my ribs?—and I’d been itching to get another, but I hadn’t known what I wanted. He had one of these too’—Alex rubbed absently at the troll’s cross on his arm—‘and it felt like a good way to remember him. And after, I just…kept getting them.’
For the first time since she’d met him, his voice was hollow and devoid of humour.
‘Shit, Alex, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have— Sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’ He shrugged. ‘He died almost ten years ago. I still miss him at every family event where I’m sitting by myself on the sidelines, but it’s not like I’m actively grieving. It’s actually kind of nice being able to talk about him.’
‘You can’t talk to Erik? If they were so similar… They weren’t close?’
Alex waited a moment before speaking again. ‘They weren’t not close. He was still his granddad. But Erik didn’t exactly need company when we were kids.’
‘I kind of assumed you were part of that company.’
He and Erik seemed so close, with their Saturday runs and private dinners. Abby and Alex clearly adored each other, even if they pretended it was grudgingly so. Of course Abby and Erik were, well, Abby and Erik , but in her mind, Alex had been along for the ride growing up.
Alex’s voice turned bitter. ‘You’ve lived with them. Do you feel like you’re part of a fun little trio? Or do you feel slightly invisible? Like you’re intruding on something, even though technically you were invited.’
Sarah pinched her lips together at his suggestion, one that did hit a little close to home. Erik was a pretty easy guest, and she didn’t mind having him around. He was quiet and put the toilet seat down and washed the dishes. Of the two of them, Abby was objectively more difficult to share a space with, no matter how much Sarah loved her. After so long, Sarah was just used to the chaos, although it had calmed since Erik moved in. He also made her best friend ridiculously happy, like she was a giddy teenager in love for the first time. Which made sense, all things considered.
But arriving home to find them cuddling on the couch, hearing them whisper in the kitchen, seeing them go to bed together almost every night… For months after her breakup, she’d thought she had no interest in a relationship. But it was impossible to be near them and not want what they had.
‘Yeah. That’s what I thought. It’s always been that way. Christmases, birthdays, weekends. They stuck together, and I was just…there.’ Resignation curled close to his words.
‘You sound jealous.’
Alex scoffed. ‘Aren’t you?’
There was no pretending she wasn’t, not when he turned to pierce her with his eyes, stripping her beyond the body he was intimately familiar with to see straight into her soul.
But his reaction surprised her. By all accounts, including his own, Alex didn’t do relationships, and he hadn’t shown any indication that he might want to.
‘It can’t have been easy. Growing up with that.’ Sarah related more than she cared to. And it was in that spirit, reciprocating his rare moment of vulnerability, that she offered an olive branch. ‘I was a lonely child too.’
She was close to her parents. They’d spent plenty of time with her in her youth, neatly slotting a child into their lives rather than revolving their life around the child. So while her peers were munching fish fingers and attending Peppa Pig Live , Sarah became accustomed to Vietnamese food, jazz concerts, and art galleries on a Saturday afternoon. She’d loved it. Had loved that her parents seemed to genuinely enjoy her company. Had loved that, when she’d come out at sixteen, her parents had been entirely unfazed. She loved that now, she could talk to her mum about anything—even when she’d rather her mother not return the favour with explicit details about her own life. But it had been hard as a kid.
‘My parents are amazing, and as an adult, I’m really grateful they shaped me into someone with cool interests and great music taste. But sometimes I just needed a friend to— Fuck, I don’t know. Play dolls with? I don’t even know what normal kids do; that’s how far removed I was.’
Closeness aside, her parents hadn’t been a replacement for the childlike company she’d sometimes needed. And growing up so removed from her peers, with largely adult interests from too young an age, had put a gulf between her and her classmates. One that hadn’t really disappeared until uni, when she met other people who were slightly too weird to have fit in anywhere.
‘So you understand why it’s important to me that Abby doesn’t find out about this. She and Zoe… They were my lifelines through uni. It was the first time I’d felt like I belonged anywhere, you know? And I— I can’t imagine screwing that up,’ Sarah said.
Some might have questioned why she was doing this at all then. She’d agonised over it herself, when she lay in bed at night, Alex’s phantom touch lingering as she heard her best friend moving around the flat. But as long as they kept this quiet, it remained a victimless crime. And she could live with that selfishness.
But Alex seemed to understand, as he gently slid a lock of her hair through his fingers. Tucked it behind her ear. Let his hand linger on her jaw. ‘Our secret’s safe with me.’
And she trusted him. Like she must have all along, on some level, to be doing this in the first place.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘maybe that’s why I indulge in so much reality TV and historical romance now. To remind myself I can enjoy classical music and arthouse cinema and still be a normal person.’
She wondered if, had she known him back then, she and Alex might have been friends. They clearly had shared interests. He was older, which might have made bridging the gap she felt to her the kids around her a little easier. After too long spent feeling isolated and alone, maybe they would have found comfort in each other.
Maybe Alex was thinking the same, because he asked, ‘Do you still get lonely?’ And when she said yes , her voice quiet, he said, ‘Will you call me when you do? Not for sex. It could just…be company, you know?’
When her only response was a slight nod, flustered and confused as to how this night had taken such an earnest turn, Alex continued, ‘I’m sorry for letting you down earlier. There’s no way to say this that doesn’t make me sound like an ass, but…I kind of forgot.’
‘I tell you I spent most of my life feeling left out and alone, and you tell me you forgot you wanted to see me?’ Sarah asked flatly. It was like he had a switch tuned to her alone. One annoying word from him could take her from turned on to ticked off.
‘I want to see you all the time.’ His gaze was laser-focused on the amber dregs in front of him as his words filtered through her buzz, attacking the wall she’d put straight back up. ‘But it’s been a busy day, and every time I thought about texting you, something would come up and derail my plans, and then I got dragged out to this shithole and— I’m sorry.’
He really did look it, and coupled with the roughness in his voice—that sign of truth she was becoming hyper aware of—she found herself saying, ‘I’ll forgive you. This time.’
Alex raised his eyes to meet hers, his stare calculating. After a moment, he seemed to reach a decision.
‘Drunk confession?’
Sarah inclined her head, letting him go on.
‘Did you know neurodiverse traits are often inherited?’ he said. Sometime while they’d been talking, another drink had appeared in front of her.
She hadn’t. Admittedly most of what she knew came from that single conversation with Erik.
‘And that if one child is neurodiverse, it greatly increases the chance that their sibling will be too?’ His voice had dropped slightly as he swirled his fresh glass, not looking at her.
But Alex, who spent half his free nights at bars or clubs, chasing highs and seeking company, couldn’t be suggesting he experienced the same sensory overload as Erik.
And then, because he’d proved himself unbearably perceptive—which, come to think of it, was a trait he shared with his brother—he continued, ‘I’m not sensitive like him. I have ADHD. No one picked it up when I was a kid. I— I worked hard not to be a problem. They thought I was just…spirited…or whatever. But last year, I was having some memory issues. More severe than I had growing up. I thought it was just burnout, so I started seeing someone, and after a few sessions, they realised I ticked a lot of the boxes.’
Sarah couldn’t pretend she had a wealth of knowledge on the subject, but even the little she knew all began to line up neatly in her head. Alex was a ball of energy, always moving, even if it was with astonishing grace. His near misses with lateness when they’d met for wedding appointments. Impulsiveness—hooking up with a stranger in a club fit that bill.
The only thing that didn’t line up, really, was a short attention span. Even when they’d spent hours together, Alex’s focus never seemed to waver.
‘I’m medicated now,’ Alex continued. ‘Things are better. But I wasn’t wrong about the burnout. It gets worse when I’m overworked. And as much as I’ve had a not insignificant amount of stress relief lately’—he tipped his head towards her—‘my job is…a lot at the moment. I’m not sleeping enough. So if I screw up, it’s not because I don’t care. It’s because I’m trying so hard to hold everything together that things are inevitably slipping.’
Well, that didn’t leave her much room to give him any more of a hard time.
‘God, Aleksander. I got a little pissy over a text. Way to trauma dump and make me feel bad.’
It didn’t mean she wasn’t going to give him a hard time.
But when he saw the smile peeking out the top of her wine glass—her lips shaped in a way that felt unfamiliar when directed at him, but somehow not uncomfortable—the line of his shoulders relaxed.
‘I haven’t told my family yet. I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention it.’
Sarah nodded as another facet of Alex rotated and clicked in her brain. But it broached the question, ‘Why are you telling me ?’ Sitting in a bar, bonding ? It just wasn’t them.
‘Because I know you think I’m a dick. But maybe now you won’t think that’s all I am.’
She’d never tell him how wrong he was turning out to be. That it didn’t matter if he frustrated her or annoyed her or, yes, had moments of acting like a dick. In every regard that mattered, Aleksander Larsson was, unfortunately, turning out to be a decidedly decent human being.
When he spoke again, his voice was lighter. Sly. Flirty. ‘It’s not without its perks. Did you know some researchers have suggested a link between ADHD and hypersexuality?’
And he was back.
‘Sounds like bullshit.’
A grin—not her grin, but his usual megawatt smile—lit his face as he slid off his stool.
‘Want to go find out?’
Two hours later, after opening her front door near silently and letting it gently snick shut, Sarah found she needn’t have bothered trying to be sneaky. She was tiptoeing past the bathroom when the door opened and Abby appeared.
‘You’re home late,’ Abby said, sleep softening her words.
‘Yeah, I, uh, went out for a drink.’ Not a lie. Just not the whole truth.
Abby hummed in response, stepped closer as she left the bathroom, then paused. ‘You smell like…’
Sarah’s spine went rigid. He’d been all over her. His neck and chest, where the scent of his cologne was strongest, pressing against her back as he thrust into her from behind, one arm tight around her waist. He’d made good on the hypersexuality claims, making her come once, twice, three times until she was quivering, bent over the back of his couch, then twice more with her grasping the top of his headboard. So good was his work that when she tried and failed to get up from his bed—she blamed how damn comfortable the memory foam was—and he asked if she just wanted to stay, she’d seriously considered it for a second.
She hadn’t noticed herself smelling any different, but she’d been around him so much in the past few weeks, maybe he’d been unconsciously marking her, encounter by encounter.
If Abby mentioned him, she could spin a story about them planning some surprise for the wedding, or—
‘Sex,’ Abby settled, walking the few remaining steps to her own bedroom. ‘Sweet dreams.’