Chapter 47
Forty-Seven
ELI
After gutting me with a few choice words about dating while making appreciative sounds over the pancakes I’d made, wearing my T-shirt, Addie disappeared into her thesis for a few hours before declaring that we should go outside and get some daylight before I went to work.
And ice cream. On the Heath.
So that was what we were doing.
“If you woke up and found you’d been cursed to not do your current job, what would you choose to do instead?” Addie asked as she watched a drop of ice cream fall off the top of her cone and start dripping down her arm. I looked away before I could see her lick that trail away.
“Unfortunately, I would be a full-time wanker.”
Addie’s steps halted. “I thought you hated it? Come on, I am telling you that you have been cursed, and you’re going for realistic and practical?”
I turned to look at her. “Well, what’s your answer?”
Addie hadn’t dealt with the ice cream down her arm yet, so even though I tried not to, I still caught her tongue slipping out of her mouth, coming to a point, and scooping the minty ice cream off her forearm before she sucked where it had pooled in the skin by her thumb. I swallowed thickly.
“I would be an actor,” she said, after catching another drip from the cone with the point of her pink tongue.
I turned my focus to my own rapidly melting ice cream as Addie started walking again. “And you couldn’t do that in this world where curses don’t exist?”
“No, I tragically cannot act. In a world where curses exist, I would be blessed in that area. So, you have been cursed, what do you now do?”
“I’d be an astronaut,” I answered immediately.
“What stopped you from doing that in this life?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t finish that mathematics degree. And also, I have a fear of space. But if we’re working with curses, maybe someone could cure me of that fear.”
“That is quite a limiting factor to becoming an astronaut. Okay, next question. You ever faked an orgasm?”
I snorted into my ice cream. “Yeah, I have actually.”
Addie came to another stop. She pulled her sunglasses onto her forehead, her eyes squinting in the sunlight. “Seriously? When? With me? How? Why?” she asked.
“Yes, seriously. No, never with you.” I had to work hard not to come too soon with her.
“I just made some noises when they were coming because it worked as a good distraction, and I’ve always used condoms, so it’s not like they noticed.
As for the why, I don’t know. I would get into my own head, and the prospect of coming would disappear, so I faked it. My turn to ask a question.”
Addie nodded as she flicked her sunglasses back down. She took the entire scoop of ice cream into her mouth before slowly pulling it out. I lifted my eyes to the sky and muttered curses under my breath before looking back at her. I had said it was my turn to ask a question, but I had nothing.
And then I found something.
“If you were to walk into a room full of everyone you knew, who would be the first person you’d look for?”
Addie was silent, her ice cream cone frozen mid-air.
“Fuck. I don’t know. I would look for the person who could be my partner in crime, but I don’t know who that is for me anymore.
Clo has Jesse, Becky’s got Gavin, I guess, Rachel and Lucy are kind of a package deal.
Saying my parents is really fucking sad, and there would be a bunch of people that I know but don’t actually know, you know?
Wait, I know you! So, I guess, that’s my answer. You.”
That answer was even more gutting than the suggestion that I date other people.
As if there could be anyone else but her.