CHAPTER 17 #2
Hair in a messy knot, a future-me problem, I wander barefoot into the kitchen and look in the fridge.
About twenty minutes later, I am scrambling eggs at his induction stove (he will never know how long it took me to figure out how to turn on that stove) when Arthur emerges, rubbing his face with both hands.
‘Morning,’ I say, not turning away from the eggs.
‘What’s this?’ He comes to stand behind me, a hand on each hip.
‘A television set,’ I reply. He laughs.
He turns my body to face him, ignoring my protests about the scrambled eggs. ‘You didn’t have to do this, you know.’
Sudden panic. ‘Oh, did you need these eggs for something else? I can go out and get you some more now.’ I start to move away, completely forgetting that the stove is still on, but he stops me.
‘No, no, no,’ he says. He takes me by the shoulders and sits me down at the kitchen island and walks back to the stove, giving the eggs a stir. ‘You didn’t have to cook me breakfast. I should be cooking for you in my house.’
I shrug. ‘I was already up.’
‘Or you felt like you owed me for last night.’ His eyes are looking right through me as he spoons eggs onto toast and avocado. There’s really nowhere to hide from him. He cracks on some fresh pepper and passes a plate over to me. ‘You don’t, by the way. I’m not keeping score.’
Tears threaten to fall again. ‘You don’t own a hairbrush!’ I cry out. Because I’m not well. That’s the only explanation. Definitely not that I need a timely reminder of some small imperfection while he’s showing me up being all perfect.
He just smiles and hands me a fork. We eat opposite each other, not talking, him leaning against the bench.
I make him let me clean the dishes, which he allows because he has a dishwasher and it’s already been emptied. ‘What are you doing today?’ I ask.
‘Well, I was going to hang out with this girl I’ve been seeing.’ I totally forgot about that. I love that he has phrased it like that. I’m a girl someone’s seeing. ‘I was really looking forward to it, too.’
I take a step closer to him. ‘Hmm, she must be fun.’
He takes one too. ‘She is.’
Another. ‘Not at all an emotional wreck who calls at all hours of the night crying and dribbling snot all over you.’
We’re close enough to touch now, so we do. My arms around his neck, his around my waist, scandalously low. ‘She is, but I like her that way. She’s got a lot of personality.’
I grin, and we don’t talk much more after that.
It seems to be an unspoken decision that we’re spending the day together. Arthur doesn’t even let me panic about overstaying my welcome. At least, that’s what I think the point is when he says, ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ like four times in the space of an hour.
I, for one, am very glad when we take a shower together.
And not just because I still stank of work gunk.
And other gunk. Finally clean and armed with mugs of tea, we sit on opposite ends of the couch, legs entwined in the middle.
The cricket is on in the background, but we’re only half watching, instead talking quietly from behind our mugs.
Just getting to know each other. Like normal people do.
Around six o’clock, he broaches the subject of dinner.
I suggest pizza and learn that Arthur doesn’t like cheese.
I stare at him in shock, abandoning the takeaway app on my phone.
‘Wow, we’ve really glossed over that, yeah?
For all your new-agey ally emotionally available man schtick, you’re just as fucked up as the rest of us. ’
He laughs and nudges my calf with his foot.
I kick mine back. We’re foot wrestling, which is inherently gross because feet are gross, but also kind of cute.
After a few minutes, his head falls to the back of the couch.
He’s panting. ‘You’re too far away,’ he says.
So I put my empty mug down on the coffee table and lie down in the spoon of his body.
We order burgers so I can have the kind with cheese oozing everywhere, and he can have a gross nude one.
The forty-five-minute wait starts to give me ideas.
‘Man, our bowling really sucks this year,’ he whispers in my ear. It really does. I don’t actually care. His hand is gently stroking my thigh, so I think he might have ideas too.
Ding.
I move to get off the couch to reach for my phone, but his arm darts out to keep me flush against him, nowhere to run. Not that there’s any world in which I want to. So I settle back into him.
Ding!
We ignore it again. Arthur grabs the remote and turns up the TV.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Jaunty music rings out. Bee calling. I let it go to voicemail, but my heart is starting to beat faster. When the music starts again almost immediately, I pull his arm off me and get up.
Answering the phone on speaker, I barely get out a passive-aggressive hello before I hear breathless crying on the other side of the phone. It’s hard to translate, but some parts are clear.
‘William…South-East Asia…One month…Single!’
‘William is going to South-East Asia in January?’ My voice is asking Bee, but my face is asking Arthur. He nods, shrugging his shoulders.
‘And he wants to be single when he does!’ Bee shrieks, and I yank my phone even further away from my face. Even speaker isn’t safe.
‘So, he broke up with you?’
‘Oh no, that’s the best part. He just wants to break up for that month and then pick back up where we left off after he has fucked who knows how many university-aged backpackers in mixed dormitories like the disgusting creeper he is.’
‘Did he actually say all that?’ I blurt.
Arthur facepalms in response and that’s frankly a little rude even if a completely fair reaction to my question. Soft sobs echo through the speaker.
‘It’ll be all right, Bee.’
‘No, it won’t!’ The loud sobs are back, and for another thirty seconds, I just let her get it all out (I’ve recently learned it’s cathartic), but then the line goes dead.
I stare at Arthur. He stares at my phone, dangling from my limp hand. He sighs. ‘You’re going to go home, aren’t you?’ Although it’s clearly rhetorical. We both know I’m going back. I nod. He’s still not looking at me, but I know he sees it.
‘So, will all be forgiven?’ I don’t like the tone of his voice now. It sounds…resigned. With a hint of judgmental.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you think she would do this for you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yes, you do.’
I cross my arms. ‘Even if that’s true, I’m not going to lower my standards for myself based on how someone else might choose to behave.’
‘You mean, less than twenty-four hours after you finally stood up for yourself, you’re immediately asking “how high” the moment she says “jump”.’
‘That’s not fair.’
He stands up now, and we’re chest to chest. ‘It’s entirely fair. Or did I not hold you while you cried yourself to sleep last night because of her?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘I’ll make it very simple: she would never be there for you like this. If the situation were reversed, she would never have picked up the phone.’
I let out a frustrated cry. ‘I don’t need a lecture from Mr Perfect right now! I need my pants, and I need to go.’ Walking away towards his bedroom, I add, ‘I’ll wash the jumper and return it to you.’
Then I catch a glimpse of his face. And he looks like I’ve slapped it. I guess the jumper thing does sound a little finite. Concluding. Endy. Not at all what I intended.
His phone goes off, and he pulls it out of his back pocket. Oh, distraction, you sweet, sweet saviour.
‘William’s texting me.’ He’s frowning down at his phone.
Wait…‘Did you know about this? That he was going to do this?’
He looks up, insulted. ‘I mean, I knew he had a holiday booked, but I didn’t know about this.’
‘You’re right, of course, sorry. He would never tell you a plan like this because you’d tell him he’s a flog.’
‘We don’t talk about his relationship. But how are you so sure that it was a plan?’ he asks, and pointedly doesn’t agree that he’d tell William he’s a flog.
‘Why go to the trouble of introducing her to all his friends if he couldn’t handle being in Asia for a month with a girlfriend at home? He love-bombed her, roped her in and then dropped this bomb on her.’
Arthur takes a deep breath. ‘Yeah, that doesn’t look good.’
‘Just so he can keep his dick consistently wet before, during and, optimistically, after.’ He starts typing on his phone, the click clack filling the empty space between us. ‘Are you responding?’ I ask.
‘Yeah?’ It’s a question.
Here’s another: what the fuck?
But he’s distracted, pressing send.
‘I have to go,’ I say, not waiting for a response. Within five minutes I’m walking out the door, looking back at his sad puppy face as he leans against the doorframe, calling out that he’ll text me.
At least I finally found his real flaw: he might not be a serial killer, but he’s totally okay being friends with assholes.