19. LARRY
19
LARRY
“He never came over,” Larry says. “We’ve spent pretty much every night together since our first date and last night I didn’t see him, I didn’t hear from him, not even an apology. And that’s after he’s been acting all weird with me at the office since his meeting with Taylor. This is all just so shit. What did I do?”
Rosemary insisted on taking me for coffee before work this morning, partly because she wanted the full dish on Wesley showing up out of the blue, and partly because she wanted to make sure I was okay. I think mainly it was the dish she was after, but I’m not going to turn down coffee with Rose. No chance.
“You didn’t do anything,” she says. “It just… it sounds to me like Kyle is a bit of a commitment-phobe.” She takes a sip of her coffee, relishing its flavour before putting it back down on the table. “This really is good.”
“Yes, good choice,” I reply. “What do you mean commitment-phobe?”
“Well, wasn’t he like this with you before?” she asks. “When you first hooked up, he went all weird and distant with you instead of actually trying to talk to you about it. And now here we are again, things have moved on to a new stage and… where’s Kyle? He’s vanished off the face of the earth and is treating you like shit again. I don’t like it, Larry. I’ve got half a mind to go down to that office and give him a piece of my mind.”
“Please don’t,” I say quickly, immediately feeling tense about that even being a possibility. “It’s like your mum going down to the school to have a word with your bullies. I don’t think I could take it.”
Rosemary sighs. “Fine,” she replies. “But I don’t like him treating you this way. It’s not right.”
“I know,” I say. “I just want him to talk to me. I only really know about the Taylor conversation from Peter and… if there’s a problem, I want us to be able to talk about it, to be able to fix it. If this is how things are now, what hope is there for us?”
I think about the fact that Kyle’s not spoken to me, not responded to my texts and calls, and that Wesley has been here. Maybe he realised he’d made a mistake? That leaving me for Andrew wasn’t what he wanted. Wes wanted me all along. I don’t know how I feel about that.
She sighs. “How were things with Wesley? That can’t have been an easy conversation?”
“He was actually really good,” I reply. I know I sound surprised, and that’s mostly because I am. He always had such a tendency to be a prick about even the tiniest of things, so to have him actually being nice to me seems like a bloody novelty. “He explained the thing with Andrew to me, told me how it had all gone down and how he was sorry to have hurt me the way he did. He thinks he made a mistake, and I… I don’t know. It was like seeing the old him again.”
“What did he want?”
“What do you mean?” I scoff.
“Well, I don’t trust him just coming here out of the blue to make sure you’re okay. Did he find out about Kyle or something? Maybe he heard through the grapevine that you were happy and he just couldn’t take it.”
“I don’t think Wes is that much of a psycho,” I reply, though now she’s mentioned it, I’m not totally sure I believe it. “He just realised that he fucked up. And it’s nice to be chased, I don’t know. Kyle runs so hot and cold with me, and then to have Wes swooping in? It’s nice. It’s familiar.”
“Did you two…?” Rosemary waggles her eyebrows.
“God no,” I reply quickly. “No, he was a perfect gentleman. He came over, we ordered in food, we talked, he left of his own accord and drove back to London. I can’t believe he came all the way out here just to see me, though. It’s so unlike him. I never pictured him ever chasing me like that.”
Rosemary nods sagely, and I can hear the thoughts rattling around in her head—the ones that are likely about to make her tell me I’m out of my fucking tree, and that Wesley is a total deadbeat and I should leave him be. But instead she smiles and takes another sip of her coffee.
“Maybe you’re right,” she says. “Maybe he has turned over a new leaf. Either way, does this mean… does this mean things are over with you and Kyle?”
I consider it for a moment. It’s absolutely not what I want for the pair of us. I really enjoyed the time I spent with Kyle. He was nice. He treated me well—really well—better than Wesley ever had. At least, he did when he was paying me attention, but now…
“I think so,” I reply. “I mean, he didn’t even call last night to say he wasn’t coming over, and that was after ignoring me all day at work. Whatever that conversation with Taylor entailed… it’s obviously not something he wants to talk about or work through. I think… I think you’re right. He’s running scared.”
“You could confront him about it?”
“Again?” I say. “I had to do that last time. Maybe I shouldn’t have to work so hard for this. I don’t know. Maybe I’m fighting for something that was never really there.” I take a breath. “I’ll see if I can talk to him at the office today, but I’m not holding my breath that I’ll get a worthwhile response.”
Rosemary snorts. “That’s the spirit.” She takes one last sip before suddenly getting an excited look on her face. “Oh my god. I have to tell you what happened at the shop yesterday, you’re going to die.”
I finish up my coffee with Rosemary and head in to work. I’m running a little bit late, but I know that Kyle has a meeting out of the office this morning so I’m not anticipating being needed much before nine thirty a.m. I bring a pastry and a coffee for Peter as a thank you and good morning, and I start on things at my desk.
When ten a.m. rolls around and Kyle still isn’t here, I start to get a little bit worried in spite of myself. I can’t imagine that anything bad has happened to him, but it’s unlike him not to at least say he isn’t going to be in the office.
“You’ve not heard from Kyle, have you?” I ask Peter. “He had a breakfast meeting at eight a.m. but I thought he was meant to be coming in after that.”
“He messaged me early this morning. Did he not copy you in?”
My heart sinks again. Now he’s cutting me out of work things. What’s going on?
“No, he didn’t,” I say, putting a brave face on it. “He must have forgotten. What did he say?”
“He’s not feeling too well,” he replies. “Weird he didn’t copy you in. He wants to move some of his afternoon meetings to video conference if you can. Do you mind getting on that? Taylor has so much for me to be doing I don’t know when I’ll?—”
“Totally fine,” I reply. “I’d have done it sooner if he’d remembered to copy me in.”
“Human error.”
“Okay,” I reply, doing my best not to take it personally and failing dramatically. I start working away on the things he left Peter in the email, copying him into various emails about rescheduling meetings, and updating minutes for things he was part of earlier on in the week. He doesn’t respond to a single one beyond the occasional “thanks,” and I start to feel my blood boil.
I want to call him. I want to ask him what the fuck is going on? I want to know why he’s suddenly going cold on me after things had been going so well for the past couple of weeks.
I’m about to pick up the phone when I stop myself. Maybe he’s just gone off me. Things were pretty hot and heavy for a while there, and maybe that was all he could handle. It was all moving a little bit too quickly and now he’s…
“Bored.” I say it out loud, and the word doesn’t surprise me when it comes to describing how someone feels about being with me. It was how things with Wesley had ended, wasn’t it? I’d been too boring for him and he’d gone off to Andrew. Now Kyle’s doing the very same thing. Maybe he’s with some other little gym slut as we speak.
I try not to think about it, because thinking about it only succeeds in making my heart hurt. I’ll just forget about him, because that’s all I can really do. I carry on with my work, and do my best to keep thoughts of the two of us together out of my head. Maybe I imagined the happy times. Maybe I’ll just have to move on and find happier times elsewhere. I owe it to myself to at least try.