5. Barely Holding On
Chapter five
Barely Holding On
Mandy
I wake up feeling like a poorly rendered draft of a human being.
The second morning always hits harder than the first. First, because there is no adrenaline; second, because the previous day’s choices have begun to organize themselves into little parade floats of regret that wheel around the brain at dawn.
By the time I realize I’m awake, I’ve already spent five minutes marinating in the very specific flavor of shame that comes from remembering you hugged your best friend for a full, actual ten seconds, wearing nothing but his T-shirt and boxers.
I roll onto my side. Sterling’s guest bed is generous, soft, and so wide I could stage a Shakespearean swordfight on the empty half, and still somehow, I’ve managed to cocoon myself in the duvet and exposed a critical section of my ass to the elements.
The air conditioning in his loft is exactly four degrees above freezing, enough to ensure I never fully relax into sleep and that waking up is as much a victory as a punishment.
I do not want to get up, but My cat is already gone so I have no excuse not to get up, other than pride, which is as much use as a paper umbrella in the rain.
I peel myself out of bed and put my glasses on.
The T-shirt is oversized, and the boxers ride up weirdly on my thighs, so every movement is a lesson in modesty.
The first step onto the hardwood is so cold my soul threatens to leave my body but caffeine is currently the only thing standing between me and a total psychological collapse.
I half-sneak, half-slog towards the kitchen craving coffee, carbs, and a conversation with someone who will not make me feel like I am being judged for being on the hot mess express.
I spin the pod carousel around to find all the holes are empty.
The coffee maker itself is industrial, stainless steel, and silently damning.
I open every cabinet, searching again to find exactly zero grounds, zero instant, not even a forgotten K-cup to lick in desperation.
There’s an entire shelf of energy bars, but they’re the kind with words like “spelt” and “ancient grain” on the wrapper, and I would rather eat the cat than pretend that’s an acceptable breakfast.
I stare at the empty coffee maker for a while, contemplating the choices, (or lack of) that led me here, until I see the note on the counter
Went downstairs to the gym. Don’t miss me too much with a little winky face.
I roll my eyes so hard it actually hurts.
I don't miss him. I miss my espresso machine.
I miss having more than one pair of socks.
I miss not feeling like a permanent houseguest in a museum of masculinity.
I prop the note back up, though my fingers linger on the paper longer than they should.
I'm a graphic designer. I appreciate weight and finish, and this is high-quality notebook paper. That's all it is.
I glance at the clock on the microwave, then at the note before I accept that if I want to be a functional adult today, I'm going to have to go outside. And to go outside, I need pants.
I do not own pants. Correction, I own pants, but all of them are currently somewhere between the ashes of my last apartment and a bin in the building’s charred remains and there is no way I am going to buy jeans from a thrift store in this city while wearing nothing but boxers and the world’s worst look of defeat.
I need pants. And the only pants in the apartment are the ones currently living in Sterling’s bedroom.
The logic is airtight. I run it twice, just to be sure.
Sterling is at the gym. The gym is downstairs. His bedroom door is right there, just past the sofa where Bowie is currently grooming a fluffy white paw with aggressive indifference. It's a completely reasonable errand. I just need a pair of sweatpants to get me through a Target run.
Yeah. That tracks.
I peek down the hall. The door to Sterling’s bedroom is closed, and a faint whiff of ceder floats down the hallway. His note said “gym,” which means he is downstairs, and I have a clear window to liberate one pair of pants from his wardrobe and slip back to the guest room with my dignity in place.
This is normal. People do this. There is no war crime in borrowing a pair of sweats from a friend. Yeah. Right. Exactly.
I tiptoe to his door, turn the handle and walk in.
The air in his room is thick and humid, smelling like heavy steam and that specific, sharp cedar soap. It hits me like a physical wall, warm and intimate. I don't have time to process the scene because I am staring directly at Sterling.
He is not at the gym. Sterling is here. He is wet, and he is standing in the center of the room wearing a towel that can only be described as “barely committed to its job.” There are still beads of water rolling down his chest, and his hair is a mess of damp spikes.
As he turns to look at me, likely startled by the sound of the door, the towel, much like me, loses its grip on the situation and, obeying the laws of gravity, completes its journey to the floor.
My brain registers a catastrophic amount of data in a single, frozen second.
It's like a high-resolution export that takes up too much memory.
I see the broad, tan expanse of his shoulders, the hard, functional curve of his chest, and a stomach that looks like it was carved from granite.
I see the pale, jagged scar on his left forearm, a permanent souvenir of a career spent in the dark. I see far too much of everything else.
I make a sound that is not a word. It’s more like the death spiral of a modem from the 90s. My brain, loyal only to the instinct of self-preservation, immediately spins my entire body, one-eighty, slamming me into the doorframe on the way out.
My face is currently the temperature of a dying star. I scramble back into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me with a click that sounds like a gunshot in the quiet loft.
“Sterling!” I yell at the closed wood, my back pressed against the wall, my heart trying to exit through my throat. “The note! You left a note! It said you were at the gym! I thought… I was just looking for sweatpants! “
There is a full thirty seconds of silence.
Then, because my tongue has never met a grave it didn’t want to dig, I start apologizing through the door.
“I am so sorry. Your note said gym, and I assumed you were still there, obviously I shouldn’t have. Oh my God. but the note didn’t specify a time, and I just needed pants and I swear I didn’t see anything except, you know, the usual number of body parts,”
I stop talking because the more I explain, the more I'm picturing the water beads trailing down the line of his hip.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the image is burned into my retinas like a flashbulb.
It wasn't just a body. It was his body. I flatten myself against the wall, hoping for spontaneous evaporation.
From inside the room, I hear the distinct, unhurried sound of someone getting dressed. No panic. No response to my apology barrage. Just the steady, measured pace of a man who has navigated much worse and is not about to let a little nudity throw off his morning routine.
Eventually, the door opens. Sterling stands there, fully dressed in a navy t-shirt and dark jeans, looking absolutely, infuriatingly composed. He takes one look at me, still welded to the wall, and gives me the world’s smallest smirk.
“You okay there, Sparkles?”
“I’m good,” I say, which is a lie, because my body is still redlining and my dignity is somewhere in the laundry chute. “Sorry again. I didn’t mean to, I just needed- “
“Pants,” he says handing me a pair of navy joggers. “Since you're so desperate to be productive.”
“I'm sorry. I swear I'm not normally a walking privacy violation. I just... the coffee situation was dire, and I thought the coast was clear. “
“Relax.” He says leaning in the door frame, arms crossed. “You've seen me in a swimsuit before, Mandy,” The corner of his mouth twitches, a small, devastating dent in his composure. “Though I appreciate the dedication to the apology. It was very fragmented. Very dramatic. “
“A swimsuit is not the same Sterling Hayes, and you know it,” I mutter, clutching the sweatpants to my chest. They smell like him.
Of course they do. “I'm going to go change.
And then we are going to Target. And we are never, ever going to mention the last sixty seconds ever again. That's Rule Seven. I'm adding it. “
“Rule Seven: Mandy can't handle the merchandise,” He laughs and steps past me into the hallway, heading toward the kitchen “Got it. Get dressed. I'll be in the truck.”