Chapter 22
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
I walk into the apartment, slam the door and lean my back into it, sliding down onto the floor. I put my face into my knees and scream, a muffled sound filling the short hallway.
“Tough day at the office, dear?”
I startle slightly before I remember the Amanda of it all. I look into our lounge to see her curled up next to the lamp with a book in her hand again, her legs tucked under her.
Getting up, I lope over towards her, turn and drop with a thump into the couch next to her. She slowly closes her book, thumbing a page corner over to mark her place, before creakingly turning towards me and glaring at me.
“Want to talk about it?” She asks, in a manner that sounds like she’s really hoping I don’t want to talk about it.
Tough luck.
“I think I’m hot for Cal,” I blurt out, picking up my knees, wrapping my arms around them, and resting my chin on them looking every bit the annoyed child.
She rolls her eyes. “How did I know this would be a boy thing…” she unfurls her legs, her black and purple striped tights on full display as she stretches her legs out to her toes, before relaxing back into the couch. Preparing for the long haul.
“You are suddenly aware Callum is hot only now?”
I spin my head accusingly at her. “What do you mean? Since when was Callum hot? He’s not hot, he’s Callum!”
“And yet…”
“…and yet I just saw him working his hammer with his shirt off and glistening with sweat and now I feel some kinda way, and why is this hitting me now ?”
Amanda sighs. “Okay, I was not expecting this to get X-rated…”
“What? No, no, not his—” I motion downwards, “no, an actual hammer. He was doing his weird blacksmithing thing, and he was half-naked because it was hot and now, somehow, he’s all muscles and toned and looks like a freaking superstar, and I suddenly got all…” I shake my whole body to mime flustered.
Sighing again, Amanda turns towards me, and leans over, forcefully turning me to face her on the couch.
“Listen to me, and listen good: Callum has always been hot. The muscles or whatever mean shit. He’s probably just got toned from the metal-working, it’s a very hands on, hard labor kinda thing. And didn’t you tell me he was joining a gym or something?
“The point is, none of that matters, because you talk about Callum all the time . Yeah, he’s your friend, but so am I and I bet you don’t talk about me anywhere near as much,” she pauses for a second, deep in thought. “Lord, I hope you don’t.”
“Nuh-uh. What’s your point?”
“My point is, you have always had a crush on Callum. And with good reason. He’s a cutie, he’s a genuinely good guy, and you two click really well. So this ‘new’ thing is nothing new, honey. You were just too damn blind to see what was right in front of you the whole time.”
I look at her like she’s just made the most ridiculous accusation I have ever heard.
“Don’t be daft,” I say, unconsciously mimicking Arran as I appropriate his cute little turn of phrase, “I don’t have a crush on Callum. Or at least I didn’t. Now—oh my god, I have a crush on Callum.”
“Uh huh.”
I bite my lip. “But doesn’t that make me a gross person? That I only got a crush on him when he got all ripped and I’m lusting after his Sean Cody-esque body?”
“A) I hate that I understand that reference. B) listen to the words that are leaving my lips: you have always had a crush on Callum. That you are only now realizing it because of some weird, public semi-nudity moment doesn’t mean you only caught feelings then - you just didn’t clock those feelings until you got caught off guard and whatever internal barriers you put up between you and them in that silly little white boy head of yours were thrown out in the moment.”
I keep chewing on my lip. I’m gonna be so chapped in the morning. “But what if I tried something and I ruined it? What if I ruined our friendship? What if I lost him?”
“And there’s that silly white boy brain barrier I was talking about. So what if you did? At least you’d have tried. And Callum likes you a whole lot too, you know. Even if it didn’t work out, he’d not want to lose you as a friend. I don’t think either of you would let that happen.
“And besides: he’s totally got a crush on you too.”
My head almost launches off my neck as it snaps towards her. “You think so?”
“Honey, I have read enough gay romances to know a friends to lovers trope when I see one.”
I lift a brow at her. “Why do you read so many gay romance books?”
“Because they’re the only men that never fail me. Now, you gonna get off your ass and ask Callum out?”
I smile, but it falters. Because what if I lose Cal, not because I screw up our friendship with sex and romantic feelings, but the other thing. What if he winds up thinking I’m just settling for him because he’s always been there for me so of course I’ll use him to be there for me through this?
I don’t want him to feel used. I need him to be there, and maybe as a friend he’d be there no matter what, but if I tried to make that friendship something more before I told him the truth?
“Maybe after Comic Con. We’ve got a lot on right now, I don’t think now’s the right time…maybe it never will be. Maybe I missed it.”
Amanda rolls her eyes, turns back and picks up her book, tucking her legs under her on the couch again. As she thumbs open the book to the page she was on, she kicks me to move off the couch.
“Whatever. Bother me when you stop being a pussy about it. Now, go be useful and make us a cup of that tea we both like.”
I stand and move to the kitchen, putting the kettle on the stove. “Sure. I guess I should probably hit the hay after that anyway. Could use an early night. It’s all kicking off tomorrow. I got a feeling this is going to be a crazy New York Comic Con.”