Chapter 12 Jamison #3
Me: Ok I picked a meme. Should I say anything when I send it, or just send the photo?
I was thirty-two years old and I needed my sister to tell me how to speak to my crush. #winning.
Charlie: Just say “Hi” or something. Something low-key that indicates you are casually reaching out and you haven’t spent the past week losing your shit.
Casual. Right, I could do that. I opened my text thread with Hen and attached the cat meme. What to say, what do say…
Me: [cat meme] Beware next time you go to trim your beard lol
It was inane and kinda absurd, but it was the best I could do. I hit send and bit my lip as I waited for a reply. Unless he was in the middle of using a saw, Hen usually replied pretty quickly to texts, so as the minutes ticked by, I started getting nervous. I went back to my Charlie thread.
Me: He’s not answering. Does he hate me?
Charlie: It’s been like a minute, stop losing your shit and give the guy a chance.
Me: It’s been at least three minutes and he usually replies immediately.
Charlie: Oh my god you’re ridiculous. You’re going to end up marrying this guy.
Me: What? Why? What makes you say that, we hardly know each other!
Charlie: When was the last time you stressed so hard about someone not answering you immediately? I’m calling it now, you’re in lurrrrve.
Me: Bite me, Charlie Manson.
Charlie: Kinky. Don’t tell your boyfriend you threatened to bite your sister.
Me: Ew. Gross. Topic change, please.
Before Charlie could reply, my phone buzzed with a new message in the Henry thread. My heart beating rapidly, I flipped back to that thread and read what he’d sent.
Hen: And here I was just preparing to do a trim. I’ll be careful.
Hen: So…how have you been?
Good news: he was giving me an opening. Bad news: now I needed to take it in the right way.
I bit my lip and thought hard. Should I ask Charlie what to say?
But she’d make fun of me even more then, and honestly, I was an adult man, I should be able to hold a conversation on my own, even if it was awkward. I should.
Me: I’m good. Sorry for not texting this week. I was…
I stopped before hitting send. I was what? Shit. Honesty? Gentle misdirection? Flat-out polite lie?
Me: I was nervous after the way I left on Saturday.
Honesty. Fuck it all, I was going for honesty. I sent the message.
Hen: Yeah, um, that was…I didn’t know what to think about that. If I did something to offend you that made you leave I want to apologize and say I didn’t mean to.
He thought he’d done something wrong? Shiiit, I’d fucked this up.
Me: No no no! You didn’t do anything wrong, Hen! Shit, if I’d known that’s what you thought I would have said something a lot sooner. I left because I, uh.
Because I what? How did I explain that I felt like I wouldn’t be welcome after pressuring him?
Me: Because I felt like I maybe kinda pressured you into doing what we did. And that you’d want some, like…time on your own? After I’d been there all day?
There was silence from the other end of the phone for a long couple of minutes before the dots started moving again.
Hen: You thought you pressured me into having sex?
How was I supposed to interpret that question? It was too neutral; he wasn’t giving me anything to read into! I swallowed and nibbled at my thumb nail.
Me: …Maybe? I mean I absolutely didn’t mean to pressure you, and if you felt pressured at all I’m really really sorry about that and I swear I won’t make you take your pants off again, that was really inappropriate.
Me: The whole thing was probably really inappropriate, I basically invited myself over and then invited myself into your pants and then invited myself to have sex with you and we’d been drinking and…
I couldn’t stop the word vomit. I kept typing after sending the second message.
Me: And I swear I’m not that pushy usually and I won’t come on to you like that again I’m not even sure what possessed me to -
Before I could hit send on that last one, a message from Hen popped up, interrupting my keyboard diarrhea.
Hen: Whoa. Dude. Stop.
I stopped, startled.
Hen: You didn’t pressure me into anything.
I was into it. Ok I mean I wouldn’t have taken off my pants without you ordering me to, but I don’t think you did that so you could fuck me or anything.
I think you genuinely were thinking about fixing the hole in my pants and then we just got caught up in the moment.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
Me: You’re not mad? Or…like, hurt, or victimized or anything?
Hen: I think I’m a little offended that you think I couldn’t make my own sex choices, to be honest. And I was definitely hurt and confused when you ran out like your ass was on fire. But was I, like, traumatized by a frotting session with you? No.
Hen: I can’t believe I just texted the word ‘frotting’ with a straight face and no hard-on. This is the weirdest conversation I’ve had in a long time. I didn’t expect to have to make you feel better.
Me: …because I was the one who was the dick. Yeah, I get that. Sorry.
A new pop-up floated up over my text thread. A text from Charlie. I flipped to her thread.
Charlie: Did you text him? What did he say?
I bit my lip. This was going to be embarrassing and she wasn’t going to let me live it down for a long time, I already knew.
Me [to Charlie]: He didn’t feel pressured, but he’s pissed about me walking out on him afterward.
Charlie: Hah. Told you. You’re an idiot.
Me [to Charlie]: Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m talking to him now, I’ll ttyl.
Charlie: I expect a debrief when you’re done.
I rolled my eyes and flipped back to my conversation with Hen, who hadn’t replied to my latest. So I kept talking.
Me [to Hen]: Anyway, yeah, I just wanted to apologize for, well, everything I owe an apology for. Running away. Not texting you. Being weird about the whole thing.
Hen: Are we cool, or is this going to be awkward now? Because I’m an expert on awkward, but I’d just as soon not practice that with you.
Me: I vote let’s not be awkward. I missed texting you. You’re fun to talk to.
Hen: Aw, so are you. You make me laugh. Which is why I have to be careful not to answer your texts while I’m trying to focus. Last time you made a joke I read while I was cutting, I ended up with a table leg an inch shorter than it was supposed to be.
Me: At least it was the table leg and not your finger?
Hen: Hah, fair point. And it gave me some material to play on my lathe with, so that was nice. I ended up with a really curvy…well, ok, a hunk of wood good for nothing in particular. But the decorative curves came out really nice. I might use them on something for real soon.
Thinking about Henry and curves made me think of the curve of his ass. It, too, was ‘really nice’, but his ass definitely had a use. It was for stroking and playing with. I closed my eyes, reminiscing about the soft texture of his skin topped with the coarseness of his body hair. Mmm.
And then I remembered that I had had my hands all over him and I’d fucking run out of his cabin. What kind of idiot…? I thumped myself in the forehead. I wouldn't be surprised if he was way too wary to let that happen again anytime soon. I’d certainly be suspicious of me.
Oh, it was my turn to talk. I was definitely not going to tell him what I was actually thinking. What else could I say…
Me: I’m glad you got to play around a little. I kind of have the impression you mostly work with purpose rather than experiment.
Hen: I do experiment a little as I work up my designs, but yeah, wood’s not cheap so I do a lot of playing on pieces of foam rather than actual wood. It felt nice to get to just work wood on the fly.
I couldn’t resist…
Me: Heh, you said ‘fly’.
Hen: [eyeroll emoji] How old are you again?
Me: Old enough to make sex jokes that have nothing to do with the conversation at hand!
Hen: So…fourteen. Got it.
Burn.
Me: So…what have you been up to this week without me bugging you every ten seconds?
Hen: Work, mostly. I’m almost done with my latest table. I also cleaned the whole house. I’m such an adult.
Had he been stress-cleaning? Because of me, maybe?
I wasn’t going to ask that, but I did wonder.
I knew when I was stressed, scrubbing the house gave me a feeling of control over something.
I felt guilty all over again picturing Henry carefully wiping down his cabinets while feeling sad about my desertion.
Me: Adulting is overrated. Did you do anything fun?
Hen: Um, I spent a lot of time petting Curie? She even let me brush her, which she’s not usually good at staying still for. It was relaxing as hell.
That actually sounded…really nice. Was it weird that I missed Hen’s cat after meeting her once? It would definitely be weird to invite myself back to his house so I could pet her. And him. His hair was nice to pet, too.
God, I was weird.
Hen: What have you been up to?
Me: Honestly? Feeling guilty about the way I left you, mostly. I mean, I tried to work and all but my focus was crap. My own fault, obviously.
Hen: I thought I was supposed to be the anxious one. That’s what my doctor told me.
That was an unexpected, though not surprising, revelation. I’d wondered if Hen had a diagnosis of anxiety, and here he was coming out and saying he did. I couldn’t help following up on what he said in the most supportive way I could think of that wasn’t also intrusive:
Me: Heh. My sister is the anxious one in our family, but it’s possible I picked up the skill from her. Lots of years working with her on managing it.
Charlie wouldn’t blame me for throwing her just a little bit under the bus. After all, she made no real secret of her condition, and it wasn’t like Hen and she had ever even met.
Hen: Your sister has anxiety?