Chapter 22 #2
“Maybe it was a stray lacrosse ball to the head,” Esme howled as we descended into another fit of laughter.
All the tension and emotions wound tight inside us, poured out in uncontrollable giggles.
Every time we felt like we were coming out of it, we’d make eye contact and begin to silently shake again.
When we finally caught our breath and Esme had taken a few more swigs from the almost empty bottle. She glanced over to Thallor.
“Right, enough about Isaac. I’m sure he’ll sort his shit out and we’ll be back to our old ways in a couple of weeks.” I’m not so sure, but we can hope.
“Explain this situation.” She motioned between us.
Neither of us said anything. I blushed and withdrew deeper into the sofa before chancing a glance at Thallor.
I could see his body tense. I imagined that there were very few things in life that could unsettle a demon or throw of his centre of gravity–I just hadn’t imagined my best friend was one of them.
His eyes darted from hers to mine, a cherry red blush creeping up his neck and cheeks.
“Okay, one of you better start talking, or I am going to start guessing. And before I say anything else, I just want you both to know that none of my assumptions can be classed as safe-for-work.”
“What do you want to know?” Thallor asked her.
“Everything, obviously. Who are you? How did you meet? Do you live here? Why do you live here?” Esme turned to me and continued. “Why didn’t you tell me about your hot, new boyfriend? And if he’s not your boyfriend, have you at least fucked him, and if not, why the hell not?”
“We’re…friends,” Thallor said quietly. His voice was hoarse and raspy, echoing off the walls and slapping me in the face.
And by the look on his, the word had had the same effect on him that it had on me.
Neither of us wanted to be friends, but we knew exactly what our relationship was, the boundaries cool and hard like the bars of a cell.
“Friends that fuck?” Esme looked between us, a hint of amusement on her face. It was nice to see her smile, even if it came at my own demise.
“Esme,” I groaned.
“That doesn’t sound like a no.”
“It is a no. We are just friends.” Please, stop asking because I can barely convince myself. “Nobody has even thought of the other in a compromising position, okay. Friends. Platonic. Two pals.”
“I think he can speak for himself, don’t you, Quincey?
” Esme looked at Thallor. There was a fire behind her eyes, a fire ignited by the challenge to get to the bottom of what was happening between us.
It was a look of sheer determination. There was no question.
There was no confusion to be found. As much as I felt like my cheeks burned up in her presence, I wanted the answers to whatever she saw.
“Let’s hear it, Red. What do you think about my best friend? ”
“He doesn’t think about—”
“If only you knew how much I think about you.” Thallor was brimming with energy, an intensity I’d never quite seen before, other than the night after my date with Jude. His face was still spattered with blotches of pinks and reds, but his eyes spoke of a certainty his cheeks could only dream of.
Esme squealed. She actually squealed as she got onto her knees and shook me enthusiastically.
Her reaction only fueled Thallor’s bravado, his warm, rich, baritone laugh filling the room and reverberating through my body.
It was a sound I could listen to for the rest of my life.
It was a sound I wanted to bottle up and play from Maura’s little red radio.
I wanted it when I was weathered and old.
I wanted it in the smile lines at the corner of my mouth and the wrinkles around my eyes.
I wanted it more than air in my lungs, which was terrifying.
I blinked. Once.
Twice.
Three or four more times, but I lost count after that.
“I knew it!” Esme explained, settling back into the sofa. “Tell me everything.”
“Esme, you are prying.”
My best friend looked at me incredulously. “I’m your best friend. I have a right to pry. Especially when you, Quincey Sterling, self-proclaimed love cynic, get all flustered over a guy. Honey, you look like you’ve just spent a two-week holiday on the sun.”
“You are a thorn in my side,” I grumbled at her before looking over to Thallor for help. But the red-haired menace chuckled to himself before unabashedly shrugging. I hate you. I hate you. I hate that I don’t hate you.
“Okay, one question. Tell me one thing you like about her.” Esme asked Thallor with a renewed fervour, realising that she was not going to wear me down. Although I’m not sure she needed to, the answers were written in scarlet across my damn face.
“An impossible question to answer,” Thallor said quietly, more to himself than to either of us.
His eyes felt shut for a moment, the silence palpable between the three of us.
And then he opened his eyes, straightening before looking over at my best friend with a serious face.
“You don’t know me very well, but up until very recently, I did not know if I was capable of certain things. ”
“Like what?” Esme asked.
“Happiness.” Thallor turned his attention to me. “I didn’t think happiness was a possibility for me until I met you.”
I know deep down that I cannot have you. But that doesn’t stop me imagining it. What it would be like if things were different. If I was yours and you were mine and there weren’t worlds standing between us.
“Thallor,” the word slipped from my lips before I could stop it.
It was as if a supernova erupted in my chest. Sparks of hopeful, frantic energy collided with the walls of my heart.
It sucked the air from my lungs and possibly the entirety of the room, too, as Thallor just stared at me.
Maybe it was there, and maybe I just wanted to see it; even though he had uttered it like a statement, there was a question behind it.
You and me, Sterling, it said. How about it?
“Has she shown you any of her favourite films yet? That’s when you know you’ve got her heart,” Esme smiled at him.
I knew in that moment that she would get every answer to every question she had yet to ask once Thallor opened his mouth.
I could see it in the glisten in her eye and the traces of shock in his.
But these films meant more to me than anything.
I’d usually watch them with Maura on a Sunday afternoon when the weather was bad and my anxiety was worse.
“Which one? The ones with the kids in library? Or the kids traipsing through a set of booby-trapped caves? Or the kids skipping school? It’s always kids doing something.” Thallor cocked his head to the side before looking to me for reassurance.
“Ouch,” I scowled at Esme, who thwacked me in the arm a little too enthusiastically.
“You fucking like him!”
“Oh God.” I was so red, I was sure I made Thallor’s hair look blonde.
I wanted to curl up and die, but all I could do was stumble over my words as I tried desperately to get them out.
The feelings I had yet to confront on my own, let alone in front of Thallor and worse in front of Esme, tangled themselves up in my brain until I could barely think straight.
I felt like I had short-circuited as I fought to gain control of the situation and my jittering heart.
If there was ever a time for the world to swallow me whole, now would be the time.
“The Breakfast Club is a cult classic,” are the only words I managed to string together.
Thallor was watching me with an intensity that made my insides weak and my skin prickle.
I squeezed my legs together, and for a moment, it was like Thallor’s eyes went black before he cleared his throat and shifted his attention back to Esme.
“Tell me, Thallor,” Esme smirked at him, but he didn’t seem remotely ruffled by her interrogation. “Are you the John Bender to our Claire?”
I watched Thallor closely, looking for a thousand answers in a pause or maybe a look or a furrowed brow.
In all the reverie that had faded in after my embarrassment had subsided, I could see the flicker of something more serious in Thallor.
It was as if the question had struck a chord deep within him.
One that maybe he hadn’t expected–or maybe he just didn’t get the reference I wasn’t.
Slowly but surely, a grin tore across his face as if he was relishing his answer.
Esme hadn’t even waited until he had answered before she was hitting me again, hanging on the sincerity of his smile.
And maybe I was too. I don’t know what I expected from his answer.
I just knew that I wanted it to be yes at the end of it all.
“Hmm,” he mulled over his question as if he didn’t already have the answer.
But I could see it in the smile and the way he let his eyes graze over me, stopping at the blush on my cheeks and my teeth that bit my bottom lip.
“I often think about what it would be like to be locked in a broom closet with her.”
All I could hear in the background as I proceeded to pick up my jaw off the floor–again–was the distant sound of Esme squealing. Holy shit. This is not happening. This is not happening. If I repeated those words enough, I could will it into existence, right?
“I’d definitely stand outside this apartment with a boom box for you, Sterling.” Thallor smirked.
“This is not happening,” I let slip my mantra as I squeaked and pulled my jumper over my face.
“Quincey, babe, how many have you made him watch?” Esme laughed next to me.
“We could ride off into the sunset together on the back of a lawn mower.”
Esme erupted into laughter again, doubling over in her chair. Even Thallor couldn’t stifle his chuckle this time as they both looked at where I had retreated into the sofa.
I groaned again, but this time it was half-laughing, half-surrendering. “You said you liked Can’t Buy Me Love!”
Thallor leaned back and watched me, eyes locked on mine.
Esme was red with laughter and off in her own delighted world.
The tinge of crimson on her face was no match for the embarrassed flush that erupted across mine.
I felt like Thallor was peering into my soul, looking for the same answers I’d been looking for in him.
If he thought he’d find protest or indignation, he was wrong.
I tried to fight the tug at the corner of my lips in response to his challenge and failed.
And saw my grin mirrored back at me. To him, my delight was like buried treasure.
It felt like he would have traipsed the roughest waters and all the seven seas in search of my smile.
Esme shriek became louder as she looked at me. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this.”
“I promise there was nothing to tell. You’re reading into this too much.” I rolled my eyes at her because it was all I could do to respond—all I could do to try to convince myself that my feelings weren’t real.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Am I? Because it’s kind of hard not to when you two basically act like…that.”