19
The house is silent when we get back, so we creep in and head upstairs quickly. It’s only when we reach my bedroom that I realise we will be sharing a room. I don’t really know why this thought hadn’t occurred to me in the month leading up to today—call it outright denial or my ability to forget anything that isn’t right in front of me.
Someone, probably my dad, has brought our bags upstairs and even made the bed with fresh sheets. The one bed—because, of course, there’s only one bed. And that’s not even an ‘of course there’s only one bed’ with ten winky faces that Emme will probably send me when I panic text her in a minute. It’s like, of course, my parents would only make up one bed because, in their minds, Miles and I are dating and, like, yeah. I didn’t think this through.
“Okay, you did not tell me you were such a huge Taylor Swift fan as a teen,” Miles says, looking around my room which hasn’t changed at all since I left it at 18. The duck egg walls are still covered in posters of the Queen (Taylor’s Version), Florence and the Machine, the Twilight movie poster, and even some pictures I took in black and white when I fancied myself a bit of a photographer.
“Excuse me,” I say, “I am still a Swiftie now,”
He snorts, “Yeah, you’ve got that incredibly romantic vibe going,”
I grin, “Okay, do you want to use the bathroom first?” I ask, nodding toward the en suite. He nods and grabs his wash bag. I watch him go and then take a few deep breaths before pulling out my phone and texting Emme. She responds with exactly the response I knew she would, and then tells me to chill and that I can actually sleep in the same bed as him.
Emme : I mean, we would all know who murdered you if he did it now.
Emme : Also, if those films and books are anything to go by, this is the night you guys realise you’re heavily lusting after each other and you bang each other’s brains out.
Emme : Or he sleeps on the floor and I stop reading the book because wtf.
Emme : Anyway, if you can share a bed with my gross older brother while I bang his friend, you can definitely share a room with the hot piece of ass that is your fake boyfriend.
I scrunch my nose at the phone.
Emme is very unaware of the fact that that night at her parent’s holiday home, in fact, ended exactly like the romance novels. And her brother is, in fact, not gross. Like at all.
Okay, I had just split up with Caleb, she insisted I join her and her family on their trip away for her eldest brother’s 30th and after her parents left us for the weekend, well, all hell broke loose. She has four older brothers and they’re all crazy, and all of them brought all of their friends to party that weekend. I was meant to share a room with Emme, obviously, but she decided, instead, to ride her brother’s best friend. And I say ride because I walked in on her doing exactly that before backing out slowly.
Kyle, her brother, was too drunk to be mad about it and let me stay in his bed. And by morning he couldn’t really be mad about it at all, could he?
Anyway, her brother is now happily married with two small children and we’ve never spoken of the night since. Partly because we’re adults and it was a one-time-very-drunk thing and partly because I don’t want Emme to know that I am actually a terrible friend.
But now I’m thinking about how that night ended but picturing Miles instead of Kyle.
Now that would be a fun way for this night to end.
Nope.
Nope.
Nop e
Miles is hot, yes. We have established as such, even in the sober part of my brain. We know this. The horny part only ever seems to rear her ugly head when I’m drunk, and so I scurry into the bathroom the minute Miles vacates it to cool down and stop thinking about my fake boyfriend like he’s my real boyfriend.
I give myself a pep talk in the bathroom. I remind myself that
a. It’s a bit shit of me, as a human, to make him sleep on the floor, especially when the alternative is that I am mildly uncomfortable and have to sleep very, very still all night. I am mildly uncomfortable about 90% of the time anyway, so I doubt I will notice. And;
b. He’s not going to think I am coming onto him. Why would he? All of those thoughts are kept firmly inside my head, and they will be staying there forever, locked in a box marked DELANEY’S DO NOT TOUCH for the rest of my life.
By the time I have taken my turn in the bathroom, changed into my indecently short but necessary pajamas, and cooled the fuck off, I find Miles hovering in the middle of the floor looking as nervous as I have ever seen him look; which is only slightly because he seems to exude confidence, even in situations where I would have run screaming into the nearest body of water.
“So, er,” he starts, “I can sleep on the floor, I just need—,”
“Don’t be mad. I’m not gonna drag you halfway across the country then make you sleep on the floor,” I say, wondering where the fuck the cool and collected Delaney suddenly came from. As we have just witnessed, not five minutes ago I was having a meltdown about this.
He frowns as if I too should be feeling awkward. I should, but instead me and the anxious committee in my brain have decided to be super chill. We’re doing this. What harm can come from sleeping in the same bed as him? As long as I don’t drunkenly come onto him, I’d say it’s pretty okay.
“We can share a bed, Miles,” I say, “Just don’t murder me in my sleep, yeah?”
He grins and shakes his head, “In fairness if I were going to murder you, I probably wouldn’t have come all the way to your family home to do it,”
“Well, glad to know you’ve thought about it,” I say, making my way to my side of the bed and climbing in.
He follows suit, sliding quickly under the thin duvet and leaving a suitable amount of distance between us. I flick the light off at my bedside and sigh. I can make out his form on the other side of the bed. He’s shirtless which would maybe feel weird if it weren’t about a million degrees still. He’s covered up to his torso, laid on his back, and gazing up at the ceiling where the last embers of the glow-in-the-dark stars still shine down, nearly two decades after I put them up there.
We’re silent for a few minutes and then he speaks, “Question number sixteen,” he starts and I smile into the blackness, “What is a ‘revenge dress’?”
I groan, “Oh, it’s this stupid thing about dressing really hot to show an ex what he lost,” I say.
“Why is that stupid?” he asks.
“Oh, question number 17,”
He snorts, “I’ll take it,”
I roll onto my side, facing his silhouette, “So, Tilda has this dumb idea that if I look really hot, Caleb will regret what he did to me. But I disagree,”
I hear him shuffling onto his side too, “I don’t think that’s stupid. Though I disagree you would need to dress in any special way. I’d imagine he knows what he lost and he’ll be reminded even if you turn up in joggers,”
“You have never seen me in joggers,” I say, “I could look like a troll,”
He chuckles, “I highly doubt you have ever looked like a troll in your life, Del,” he says, and he sounds earnest. He’s good at this fake boyfriend thing.
I grin, and then sigh, “Honestly, I just don’t think he thinks he lost anything. This whole revenge dress thing is stupid because if a guy has cheated on you and then continues to date their side piece, it would suggest they found someone better, doesn’t it?”
“I’ve been thinking about this argument you seem to think is logical, you know. And, you could look at it like that,” he says, “Or you could look at it like he’s just stuck with his mistake,”
“I mean, there is that too,” I say, “Anyway, I don’t actually care that much. I don’t want to be with him, and I don’t want to be her,”
“Yeah, I mean, could you imagine being that girl for the rest of your life,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“Like the girl that no other girl can trust,” he says.
“How do you know about that girl?” I ask, “I thought guys always called us bitchy and insecure for labelling them that girl,”
“In halls at uni, there was a girl on the edge of my group of friends that the girls hated,” he says, “At first, I’ll admit I thought they were being bitchy, you know, like maybe they shouldn’t just blame her. They didn’t trust her around their boyfriends but I always thought ‘Hey maybe you should blame the guys that cheat too and not just the girls,’ but then I saw how she was. Even when the most loyal guys I knew would look uncomfortable and ignore her, she’d still keep trying. It was like her type was men who were taken,”
“What happened to her?” I ask
“Oh, she had a fling with one of the girls’ sleazy boyfriends and they’re still together now,” he says, “He cheats on her on every lads holiday he goes on and she pretends everything is fine,”
“How you get them is how you lose them,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” he says, “So, whether Caleb or anyone else thinks he’s upgraded, just think that at least you don’t have to spend your life being that girl,”
I chuckle
“I mean, say they have kids,” he continues, “What are they gonna tell them about how they started? ‘Yes dear, daddy was dating someone else when we began dating too,’”
“Yeah, I’d never thought about it like that,” I say, “And I would never want to be friends with a girl who was the other woman. What does that say about what they’ll do to you? And they obviously don’t support other women because I would never, ever want to make another woman feel the way I did when I found out,”
“Exactly,” he says, “So, whatever happens, tomorrow, whatever anyone says, at least you’re not stuck being them,”
I snort, “You’re good at pep talks, Miles,”
He laughs, “Thanks Del,”
*
I wake up before Miles the next morning and I am miraculously, hangover-free. I glance at him, trying not to encroach on his privacy, but look long enough to see how peaceful he is. His long curls are flowing wildly around his head, and his full lips are soft.
I didn’t get a good look at him last night, but now, in the light, I can see his lightly toned torso, covered in tattoos too. His deep olive skin is flawless and smooth. I feel like a right little perv and jump out of my skin when my phone buzzes.
I see a message from Emme.
Emme : Just checking he didn’t murder you
Delaney : He said if he were going to murder me, he probably wouldn’t do it here.
Emme : Oh good.
Delaney : He’s still asleep though. Maybe I’ll murder him.
Emme : But where is he asleep?
Delaney : Next to me…
Emme : Oi, oi.
Delaney : Oi, I just didn’t want to make him sleep on the floor
Emme : Fake dating, check. One bed, check. You’re on your way to romcom central.
Delaney : Maybe. I mean, Tilda thinks we’re totally in love.
Emme : Maybe you should pursue acting.
Delaney : I’m thinking about it.
The typing bubbles appear but there is movement from the other side of the bed.
“Who is making you grin like that?” Miles asks, sitting up on his elbow, “I believe that’s my job, as your fake boyfriend and all,”
I snort, “It’s just Emme checking you didn’t kill me,”
“Yet,” he says with a wink and those finger guns.
I laugh and then lay back down next to him
“If you do plan on killing me at some point, will you do it before the wedding so I don’t have to endure it?”
“Sure,” he says, lying down too and putting his arms behind his head, “Any preference on how you’d like to go?”
“In my sleep would be nice,” I say, gazing at the ceiling, “But don’t do anything weird to my body afterwards. I’d like to freak everyone out and have an open casket,”
He snorts, “You’re very nihilistic for eight in the morning,
I chuckle, “Haven’t you learned by now? Nihilism is my brand,” I say, and then add, “Actually, that’s not right, being a fucking mess is my brand, but nihilism is just one of the added perks,”