Chapter Thirty-Four
Marcello
This is not the first time I have found myself cringing at random moments during the day, but it is definitely the worst case of delayed embarrassment I’ve ever had.
As I make my first coffee of the day at home, I wince.
As I open up the café and throw my keys on the counter, I bring my hand to my face, a very literal face palm.
And at many, many random times as I serve customers, steam milk, collect dirty plates and have distracted conversations with Chloe, I cringe.
It’s no help that my other part-timer calls in sick so I end up working all the way through to closing so I can’t even go home and flinch in peace.
I was filled with a mix of relief and regret when I picked up my phone to text Giles that I wouldn’t make our training session at four because I needed to work late.
Regret that I had to do it and then relief because there was already a message from him saying he needed to cancel.
With no explanation. Which was fine, totally okay, not at all a problem, other than it has encouraged my mind to wander.
To think about him obviously choosing to go for a drink with Tony instead of work out with me.
But wouldn’t he have said so yesterday before I left him if that was the plan?
Couldn’t he have let me know at some point while we ate dinner and spent the best part of three hours on his puzzle?
Why didn’t he just tell me that he texted Tony?
Why hasn’t he dropped it into conversation that he changed his mind about Tony? We’re friends, aren’t we?
But then maybe friends don’t have lengthy conversations about bottoming for the first time like we did yesterday.
It’s not that I didn’t want to talk about bottoming – I’ve been thinking about it more than I thought I ever would – but I didn’t want to talk about which douches work the best and what I should eat for forty-eight hours before doing the deed.
I wanted to tell Giles how I feel about him, but how could I after seeing that cazzu dialulu text message from Tony?
I grimace again and this time I don’t even try to hold back the pull and stretch in my features.
“Are you okay?” Chloe asks after she shuts the door on our final customer and locks it. “All day you’ve been making this weird face.”
“It’s a long story.” I sigh as I start loading the dishwasher.
“Well, we’ve got time and no customers.” Chloe does a little twirl in front of me, indicating the empty café floor.
And I have nowhere else to be this evening. No Giles to meet. My stomach plummets and a new wave of hot-cold disappointment washes over me, so forceful I lean back against the counter as if to ride it out.
Fuck it.
“You know when you and Radia first started going out? Dating?”
“Yeah?” Chloe starts lifting chairs on top of tables, ready for mopping.
“Well, you know how she liked you a lot more than you liked her?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, would it have freaked you out if she had told you just how into you she was? Would it have made you run in the opposite direction? Or would it have made you think about her in that way earlier than you actually did?”
She stops moving but keeps the upside-down chair in front of her in her hands. “That’s a good question.”
“Thank you,” I say. My battered ego will take any praise it can get today.
“But it’s one I can’t answer.”
“Oh for fuck’s—”
“How can I?” she interrupts. “I can’t tell you what would have happened had it happened that way because it didn’t happen that way.”
“But can’t you, you know, hypothesise?”
“Not very accurately. And I’m a law student, Marcello. I don’t like to play guessing games. I like dealing with cold, hard facts.”
“Well, my cold, hard fact is that I have feelings for someone but I think I’ve missed the boat to tell them so.”
Chloe’s face softens as a smile grows. “Oh, Marcello. That’s so cool. Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Ah.” I open my mouth as she catches my eye. “It’s not… it’s not a woman.”
Chloe puts the chair she was lifting down and marches to the opposite side of the counter I’m standing behind. “What?!”
“Yeah, I kind of have feelings for another man,” I mumble as I scratch the back of my head, feeling some of the hair fall out of my bun.
“Marcello, are you… Is this… Wait!” She holds both her hands up, palms towards me. “Is it Giles?”
I blink at her, thinking that I’ve imagined that name falling out of her mouth.
“It is Giles, isn’t it? Oh. My. God.” Her smile is wide and her dark eyes are sparkling and I don’t quite know what’s happening.
“It doesn’t matter who it is.” I wave a hand around. “The point is—”
“No! No, it does matter. It matters a lot.” She slaps a hand on the counter as if to get my attention but she already has it.
“Why?” I huff out a nervous laugh.
“Because he likes you too!”
More blinking. More waiting for the universe to erase the last five words she just said. But it doesn’t. And I’m selfish. I want to hear them again.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“Giles likes you too!” Chloe says, and this time her words echo in my brain until I speak again.
“He does?”
“Yes! A lot!”
“Since when?”
“I don’t know. But Radia told me that he told her that he likes you just the other week.”
“The other week…” I think out loud. “Then why is he…”
My thoughts are interrupted by a loud knock at the door. Chloe and I both turn our heads and see Radia outside, waving at us.
Chloe moves to unlock the door but I’m stationary, pinned to the spot as I try to process what Chloe has just revealed.
“Just the woman,” Chloe says as she drags Radia into the room by the arm.
“Lovely to see you too, habibti,” Radia says with more than a little sarcasm.
“Tell Marcello what you told me.” Chloe points at me and then crosses her arms with an air of smug satisfaction.
Radia’s eyes shift from me to her girlfriend and then back again. Her voice is low as she speaks, all the time avoiding my gaze. “About how I want you to wear a toy for me when we go up to Birmingham on the train this weekend?”
“Shit, no, not that.” Chloe waves her hands around and her afro bobs with the movement. “About what Giles told you. About Marcello.”
Radia’s eyes do more ping-ponging between Chloe and me. “But I wasn’t supposed to tell you,” she says in a hushed voice.
“Well, you did and we will apologise for it later, but now you have to tell Marcello that he’s not the only one who’s caught feelings between the two of them.”
Radia’s body language immediately changes. She holds her hands out, one pointing at me and the other at Chloe. “Wait, what? You like him too?”
I nod with what I’m absolutely certain is a stupid grin.
“But you’re straight?”
“Not anymore.”
“No fucking way!” Radia puts her hands on her hips, just under the suit jacket she’s wearing.
“Yeah, I’m bisexual,” I say and a surge of pride takes me by surprise. To say that out loud feels… nice.
“Bloody brilliant.” Radia smiles at me and for a second I think she’s going to shake my hand or hug me or something but then her face drops. “Oh, he’s such a fucking numpty!”
“What? Who is?” I ask.
“Giles.” She brings her hand to her forehead, massaging just below the fold of her hijab.
“Why? What’s he done?” Chloe asks.
“What’s he doing,” Radia corrects her. “He’s on a date. Right now. As we speak.”
“A date? With who?” Chloe steps closer as she questions Radia.
“With Tony,” I say reluctantly. “A guy from the gym.”
When Chloe turns to me, she’s frowning. “And how do you know that?”
I feel heat in my cheeks. “I saw a text on Giles’ phone. I wasn’t snooping. I just picked it up and it was on the front screen. They were making plans to go for a drink.”
“He left just half an hour ago,” Radia explains. “He put on far too much cologne and stank the shop out, but even when he left, he looked like he was walking to a jail cell.”
A burst of hope erupts in my chest, literally lifting my ribcage. “He didn’t want to go?”
“No.” Radia shakes her head. “He was miserable all day. When I pushed him on it he said…”
She trails off and does more shifty eye movements between Chloe and I.
“What did he say?” It’s my turn to step closer.
“I probably shouldn’t say more. I feel like I’m betraying his confidence.”
“Well, technically you already did that when you told me what he said the other day,” Chloe mutters.
“You told Marcello!” Radia points out.
Chloe sticks out her tongue at her girlfriend and even I can see the heat in Radia’s stern but loving look that is her only response.
“You've both shared things maybe you shouldn’t have,” I conclude. “But please don’t stop now. I need to know why Giles didn’t want to go on this date.”
“He told me he was doing it because he has to,” Radia explains. “And I tried to get him to explain what he meant by that but he said it was too complicated.”
“Too complicated?” I repeat.
Radia shrugs. “I then asked him if it had anything to do with you,” she nods at me, “but he said he didn’t want to talk about it.
And honestly, I didn’t think any more of it.
I thought you were straight so I thought it was a good idea he try and move on from whatever it is he feels for you, but now you’ve just thrown a massive bisexual spanner in my logic. ”
“So what are you going to do?” Chloe asks and it takes me a moment to realise she’s talking to me.
“What can I do? He’s on a date with another man.”
“Who he doesn’t like,” Radia adds.
“Because he likes you.” Chloe nods at me.
“Why didn’t he tell me?” I muse out loud again. “Why didn’t he tell me he liked me?”
“Because he thought you were straight, dummy.” Chloe tuts.
The heat is back in my cheeks and I rub at the back of my head again, this time pulling out so much hair I know I have to re-do the top knot. I pull the band out of my hair.
“Giles knows I’m not straight,” I mumble as I busy myself with my hair.
“Pardon?” Chloe says in a more accusing tone than should be possible with that word.