Nothing to talk about
I’m terrified that I might kill the guy on contact. His bruises look so bad, my body was half tensed from the fear of touching him, half tensed from the need to get closer to Will.
I can feel him going hard under me and his hoarse, low groan as I move my hand to his hair. Those sexy, masculine sounds he makes are so addictive I want to offer him my feminine tits so he could speak directly to them.
Will doesn’t kiss me like he is playing a game. His fingers raise to cup the side of my neck, tilting my head to the side and pressing his tongue against mine. Exploring. Attentively.
It must be an hour, or two that we kiss. Maybe a minute.
Breathing near Will when his thumb presses on the skin below my ear is near impossible. I only want to get oxygen directly from his mouth, basically.
Everything inside me screams for me to pull back. I let my tongue taste him one last time then finally pull my lips from his, looking at his swollen pink lips.
“Well?” He whispers against my lips.
“Weed was not solely responsible.” The honesty makes me almost squirm.
“No shit.” He grins.
I lean back to sit on my heels again while Will keeps smiling at me. “I gathered. But…” I trail off.
Will must see the hesitation in my eyes to cut me off. “We don’t need to decide what happens afterward. But you don’t get to call it meaningless if it isn’t.” His voice is firm.
“I didn’t say it meant nothing.”
“You acted like it.”
“I told you not to mention it.”
“Maddy.”
“Yes?”
“You spent seven days wearing tiny shorts trying to make me lose control.”
“I’ve always worn those shorts.”
“Maddy.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not playing games.”
“Will…”
“Yes?”
I nearly ask him then. Is this really mine, or is this another Fairfax hand-me-down? Like the room. The hair. The college. Now the guy who kisses me.
But what the fuck do I know.
Just that stupid line the footballer drops in the middle of a Psych lecture that plays in my head in loops for days. Yet, all I wanted was kiss Will again, and again, all while calling it a controlled experiment.
“Will…” I try again.
I hate this hesitation version of me, but I force myself to start properly, “Did you… do you….”
DING—DONG—
The doorbell rings loudly cutting through my thoughts. Both of our heads snap towards the door. I look down at how close Will and I are, and immediately stand up from the couch.
Will subtly covers his groin with a cushion to hide evidence of anything that just happened five minutes ago.
Great timing really. It’s a bit past nine. We don’t usually have guests in the house. If our friends are coming, they always text first. The food delivery guys don’t even ring our doorbell. It’s the least used item in this house, so this could either be a cop, or we’re being robbed.
DING DONG DING DONG — the rings come much more urgent now.
“Who is it?” Will calls out from the couch when I’m already moving.
“Hi, I’m looking for Maddy Fairfax?” A girl’s voice comes calmly through the door.
I know this voice. My feet plant onto the floorboard.
“Hold on.” Will calls from the sofa, his voice laced with surprise as I stand frozen near the front door. When I don’t answer, he calls out again. “Maddy. The door.”
The voice from behind the door stops after that.
The rest of the house has come to the stair to see who rings at this hours. That is how unusual this whole doorbell situation is.
“Who’s at the door?” Nate asks first, already half-way down.
I quickly walk away from the door towards the stairs and pass by Lizzie and DJ on the way up.
“It’s Leila. Can you tell her I don’t want to talk? Ask her to not come here again,” I tell Lizzie calmly, just small enough so only she could hear me.
And head off straight to my room.
————
Nate: BABY GIRL HAVE YOU ENTERED HIBERNATION
Nate: Where’s my pineapple????!!!!
Jenny: Girl! Where r u???
I groan as I reach for my phone on the bedside table. What is it with people and my location? Then I look at the clock. Oh SHIT!
I overslept and missed the my first lecture at ten. Damn it.
Then I look at Nate’s message again. Another Oh Shit escapes my throat.
I reply to Nate. “Sorrryyyy!!!! I overslept!!!! Alive!”
I check the other messages.
Three from Will from last night.
Will: Who was that at the door?
Will: Ur okay?
Will: Ur sleeping?
Then another two this morning.
Will: Ur up yet? I’m going to recovery training then be back around 5.
Will: Text me when ur up.
I quickly type a reply to Will too. “I’m up!!!!”
Then a few more from Lizzie telling me she told Leila to not come by anymore. I react to her message with a thumb up.
Another message from Collins, two DMs from Leila and five other ones about work. I cannot read them right now. It’s too much socialisation for today. My phone is back on Do Not Disturb.
Wait. Jenny. I need to text her back. She’s my business partner and my closest friend.
Maddy: I’m alive!!!
Jenny: u do that thing where ur everywhere for 2 wks then vanish
Jenny: DW. I’m not weird abt it anymore
Jenny: I think u have bipolar love
Maddy: I think I do.
Jenny: I went to ur lecture
Jenny: u were supposed to meet me there
Maddy: Sorry Jenny. I overslept. Missed all 4 alarms.
Jenny: all good. Everything ok?
Maddy: yea. Just a bit tired.
Maddy: coming down with something I think.
Jenny: shit. U need anything?
Maddy: nope. Jst spending the day inside.
I don’t actually think I have a cold but my body is wrecked even after I overslept, like I’ve had zero sleep.
I had genuinely not been tired. Last week, I had slept three hours every night and woken up feeling as though somebody has plugged my bloodstream directly into electricity.
Today I wake up feeling like someone has changed the central gravity of earth.
I try to move my arm and get out of bed to brush my teeth, then a few minutes later when I am still lying down in the exact same spot, I’ve decided today is not the day I move.
Right. Be in bed it is.
A few hours later, I’m still in bed, doom scrolling on my phone. All my notifications are off. I haven’t checked any more messages since the last text with Jenny.
Then I remind myself, lying in bed doing nothing is bad but lying in bed doing nothing productively is a disaster.
I open the work messages again. Four are fine. Scheduling. A release form. Somebody's dog.
The fifth is from Hartley's on Nassau.
We have been on Hartley's for three weeks.
Three meetings. I matched them three athletes: two rowers and a guy from track who photographs like he was born knowing where the light is.
I even cleared all three schedules around their training blocks, booked a shoot day, and lined up my marketing classmates to build the socials out afterwards so the Hartleys would never have to think about a caption in their lives.
Hartley: Maddy honey, honestly, you and Jenny are so talented. I mean it. You two are going to be doing this for big brands one day. We're just a small shop on Nassau, I don't think we're the right fit for what you girls are building. Keep us posted though!
I read it twice.
I know they're small. Small is the entire point.
I need twenty smalls before one big returns my call.
I need a wall of smalls so a big can look at it and think, well, somebody vouched.
I am not too good for you, I am aggressively available to you, I have been aggressively available for three weeks, please just give me the work.
Also. You girls.
I lie there and run the tape.
Was it the clothes? I wore the leather skirt to the second meeting.
I look excellent in the leather skirt. But there is a version of Mrs Hartley who saw an eighteen-year-old in a leather skirt and did the arithmetic on it.
Should I be wearing pants? Am I supposed to buy a blazer and become a woman who owns a blazer that is not Dior with glitter?
Did I say vibe too much? I said vibe a lot. I have said vibe professionally in the same sentence as deliverables.
The coffees were fine. Four coffees across three meetings is a cost of acquisition. I’d spend it again, which is possibly the sentence my father and I would agree on.
Fine. This is fine. It's a five percent business, five percent means ninety-five percent of exactly this, and the correct response is to put Hartley's in the tab where the NOs live and go find the next one.
I open the laptop.
I look at the spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet looks at me.
Twenty minutes later I have moved Hartley's into the NO tab, typed the word blazer into a cell for no reason I can defend, and my brain has gone completely, silently offline, like a building at the end of a workday.
By the time the sun sets in my window, I’m still exactly where I am. Mhm. This time is a bit longer than usual. I had a few periods where I totally shut down but it had mostly happened at night.
The sun usually gave me the motivation to actually be out even when I didn’t want to talk to people. This time, apparently even the sun gives up.
But I cannot be in bed for this long. It’s been almost six hours and I desperately need to pee. I can hold on a little longer. My thumb is over the play button for At World’s End and somehow just stays there.
Right. I’ll go pee and come back to bed and watch a Pirates movie on my laptop. I don’t actually know whose thoughts these are if I’m honest. My brain is actually blank.
I already know all the lines, the facial expressions from the third Pirates movie. Actually, even thinking about scheduling a piss and a movie feel too much for my brain right now.
The moment I open my door though, Nate is already standing outside with Will behind him.
Shit. That’s what I’m currently looking like. I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet.
Panic rises through me. Before I could open my mouth, Nate already speaks. “You’ve gone MIA. We’re about to break in."
Both of them look at me, their eyes dark.
“Sorry. I had my phone on silence. I’m okay.” I assure them, still desperately need to pee but these two are blocking my door.
“Have you left your room all day?” Will narrows his eyes at me.