Chapter Twelve – Avda
”I think it’s my turn,” I told Kyra, as I lay on the floor beside her, a battered old Monopoly set spread out on the floor in front of us. Jo was helping her play with me, and, despite my best efforts, I was well and truly getting my ass kicked by the two of them.
”No way!” Kyra replied, frowning up at her mom. Jo grinned down at her and dropped a kiss on top of her head.
”I think we’re going to have to hold off on the rest of this game tonight,” she told Kyra gently. ”It’s getting late, and you need to be up for school tomorrow.”
”Promise we’ll play again?” Kyra asked me seriously, and I extended my hand to her as though I was making a serious business deal.
”You have my word,” I replied, and she shook my hand. Jo laughed, shaking her head at us, and rose to her feet to get Kyra ready for bed as I tied away the rest of the Monopoly pieces.
I couldn’t believe this had become my life, these last few weeks or so. Ever since I’d first met Kyra, Jo had been inviting me around a couple of times a week to hang out with the two of them – nothing serious, nothing full-on, just spending some time with the two of them, playing games, cooking dinner, stuff like that. And I...I really liked it.
There was something about the cozy quiet of this apartment that made me feel comfortable, especially when Jo and Kyra were around; Kyra had gotten more and more comfortable around me with every visit, and now, she was challenging me to board games every chance we got. I hadn’t played board games since I had been living with my parents, and it took me back - took me back to those days of being a kid, feeling as though the world was easy and made total sense. The days that, sometimes, I found myself missing, if I was being honest.
Jo came back through once she’d put Kyra to bed, and grabbed the bottle of wine I had brought for us out of the cupboard, pouring us both a generous glass. This had become part of our ritual, too, though nothing more physical had happened between Jo and me since what had gone down in the car. And I wasn’t pushing for anything more, not when this felt as perfect as it did, but I couldn’t help but think it was only a matter of time before we closed that distance between ourselves once more and gave in to the obvious desire there.
”So how was your day?” she asked me, grinning, as she leaned against the kitchen counter and lifted the glass to her lips. I couldn’t help but stare at the way her mouth skimmed across it, the way the liquid teased against her lips, and wish it was my tongue instead.
”Uh, pretty good,” I replied, snapping myself back into the moment. I had been working at the other compound across the city, so I hadn’t been seeing as much of her - but honestly, it was probably for the best. I could feel myself getting drawn into her, closer and closer, with every passing day, and spending even more time with her would likely have made that even more difficult to deny.
”How about you?” I asked her. She bit her lip and shrugged.
”You know, the last couple of days have been kind of interesting,” she admitted. I raised my eyebrows.
”Oh, yeah?”
”Yeah, I had a really...a really interesting conversation with someone who works at the Flood,” she explained. I bristled at once. I got the feeling I knew who this was – Sasha. The only reason she would have avoided giving me his name was if she had been talking to him, because she knew that I wasn’t exactly his biggest fan.
”You did?” I replied, trying to keep my voice neutral. She nodded.
”Yeah, we were talking about...well, they didn’t exactly give it a name, but I guess you would call it...bi-curiosity?” she remarked. I tensed.
”Oh,” I muttered.
”We were talking about how hard it is for people to be out and embrace that part of themselves in this line of work,” she continued. ”How much macho shit there is out there and how difficult it is to look past that...”
”Yeah, that’s how this world works,” I replied. My voice was terse, tense. We were skating around the edge of a topic I really didn’t want to have to discuss with her, and I was all too aware of the danger, all too aware of how easy it would have been to slip and blurt something out.
”Don’t you think that’s a shame?” she replied. ”That there are probably so many people who can’t live as their true selves because they’re scared of how they’re going to be perceived...”
”It’s worked for a long time,” I told her bluntly. ”No need to change that.”
She frowned at me.
”You really believe that?”
”Yeah, I do,” I replied. My head was spinning, but I kept talking, not daring to stop – not daring to let myself give away the truth of what was going through my mind, even for a second.
”So you think that people should just stay in the closet, then,” she wondered aloud. ”You think they should just hide that part of themselves-”
”If they’re into women as well, I don’t see why it’s a big deal,” I shot back. ”Why would they need to make a song and dance about it? They can just keep their mouths shut and deal with that in private.”
She stared at me, too surprised to speak.
”That’s crazy,” she replied. ”Why should they have to pretend that part of themselves doesn’t exist? If it’s there, they should-”
”They should keep it to themselves,” I fired back. ”It’s not like it’s really going to impact their lives.”
”How could it not?” she demanded. ”How could it not impact their lives? They have to hide a whole part of themselves-”
”Yeah, and they’re better off for it, so they should be glad,” I replied. I narrowed my eyes at her.
”It’s Sasha, isn’t it?” I asked her. She paused for a moment – but that pause, that lack of denial, was all that I needed to get to the bottom of this.
”Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I muttered, gulping down the wine. Fuck, it pissed me off. Pissed me off that he had gone and talked to her about that, when I was doing my best to keep that shit under wraps. Because I knew how she would see me if she found out. I knew what she would think of me. She might have acted all accepting when it was someone like Sasha, but someone like me, the father of her child, that was going to be a whole damn different story, I was sure of it.
”Why do you say it like that?” she asked me. She sounded defensive, protective of him, almost. Oh, so that was how it was going to be? She was going to stand up for him, when he had acted like a cocky asshole the whole time she had known him?
”Because he’s selfish like that,” I replied.
”Selfish? He’s not selfish,” she protested. I rolled my eyes.
”Yeah, he is,” I replied. ”He’s making it all about him. Dragging his personal shit out in public when he should just keep it under wraps. He knows what he’s doing.”
”Avda, why are you being such an asshole about this?” she demanded bluntly. I glared at her. I felt like I was about to expose myself, one wrong move, and she would figure out what was really going on inside my head.
”He doesn’t need to drag you into his shit,” I snapped back. ”He needs to keep it to himself. Get on with his fucking life without trying to get you to validate him.”
”That’s not what he was doing-”
”I know guys like Sasha, trust me,” I replied. ”He’s playing you.”
”And what would happen if he talked to me about that work?” she asked, cocking her head at me. ”What do you think he was trying to get out of me?”
”Oh, I’m sure he’ll make that clear soon enough,” I replied. I finished up the last one of the wine and cast the glass aside on the counter. She stared at me.
”Where are you going?” she asked.
”Home,” I shot back, grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair where I had left it. All this cozy, comfortable safeness I’d felt earlier in the night, all of that had just vanished off the face of the Earth, and I hated it. Talking about this with her, talking about that kind of shit, I knew it was edging way, way too close to the possibility of her figuring out something about me I didn’t want her to.
I pulled on my coat and headed for the door, and she tried to follow me.
”Avda, I don’t know why you’re freaking out about this-”
”I’m not freaking out about it,” I shot back at her sharply. ”I’m just not interested in listening to how Sasha fooled you with his-”
”Don’t talk about him like that,” she told me, a protective edge to her voice. I stared down at her for a long moment. Oh, so that was how she felt about Sasha, was it? She was willing to go to mat for him like that?
”Don’t worry,” I told her. ”You don’t have to defend him to me any longer.”
And, with that, I stalked out of the door, closing it behind me and making my way down the stairs to the car waiting outside. Shit. These comfortable little evenings with her and Kyra, I could tell I had just brought them to an abrupt end.
But there was no way I could let her talk to me about Sasha like that, talk to me about his desire for men – not when I was trying my best to keep my own under wraps. And, fuck, it had to be Sasha, of course, it did, the guy who drove me completely fucking crazy. It could have been anyone in the world, but it had to be him, with his dark eyes and his cocky grin and...
I made it back to the car and pulled the door shut behind me, gripping the wheel so tight it looked as though my knuckles were going to bust through my skin. Why was it that he could be honest about that, and she accepted him, but when I even thought about spilling that part of myself...
I felt as though I needed to crawl into a hole and stay there forever. But one thing I knew for sure was that I had to put as much distance between myself and Jo and that conversation as I could. I had already risked too much, let too much slide, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to get any further drawn into this mess.
I pulled the car away from the apartment building, and watched in the rearview mirror as it vanished into the distance. Some part of me wanted to turn around and ask Jo, straight-up, if she was being honest about the way she felt – if she really believed that someone could be attracted to men as well as women, and it wouldn’t be a problem.
But that would have been too close to the truth for me. And I wasn’t going to let myself get caught up in anything I couldn’t take back. No, as far as I was concerned, I was well and truly done here – and I wasn’t going to let anything else get in the way of my escape.
I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead, gripping the wheel tight, and told myself that I would feel better in the morning.
Even if I didn’t entirely believe it.