Chapter 11
Rory
Garrett’s breathing slows and evens out.
It should be soothing.
Instead, it’s exactly the right bass line rhythm for my brain to parade out all of my choices today, in a reverse march of what the fuck were you thinking, Rory Minelli?
From the way he kept watching me in the kitchen as we did those shots, to the Christmas tree delivery, to me calling him babe as soon as I realized we couldn’t tell my family we’d broken up, to the long drive, all the way back to his arrival in the parking lot behind my apartment.
The weird relief I felt, even as resentment made me prickly. It’s not his fault that I ignored the warning lights on the car.
I drag in a slow, long breath, but that just pulls in the scent of his soap rising off his warm, sleeping body. Makes my thoughts spiral from the parade of regrets to more chaotic, clashing visuals. Sex and kissing and not kissing and babies and work and being too much and not enough.
The way I automatically asked him for help.
And how he instinctively stepped up.
How it’s been hours and we haven’t fought.
We’ve almost kissed and we’ve raced around the skating trail and we made questionable choices about drinking the night before a very busy Christmas Eve. But we also busted his ninety minute rule wide open.
I hate that we got to a place where he had to put a time limit on being around me.
Also on my hate list is the fact my sister is struggling, too, like we’re both—
“Roar?”
I hold my breath.
“I know you’re awake.” His voice is low, but it wraps around me, squeezing every inch of my skin in the dark.
“I’m fine,” I whisper automatically. “I just can’t sleep.”
“You want to talk about anything?”
I swallow around all of my spinning thoughts. “You were really helpful tonight.”
“That’s keeping you up?”
That’s the thin edge of the wedge, but I don’t want to talk about the rest of it. “I don’t really deserve that kindness. But I do appreciate it.”
He exhales. “You do deserve it, though. That’s the thing.”
I screw up my face and don’t say anything.
“Do you want to talk about Cassie?” he asks after a minute of pregnant silence.
“No.”
“Do you want to talk about us?”
“There is no us.” God, my voice sounds small. I meant it as an objective fact, but Garrett picks up on the hurt that’s too hard to hide.
“I know.” He sighs. “You tensed up when Cassie said Nate thinks she’s a lot. And I just wanted to say that I don’t think you’re too much. You’re…great.”
“That would be more believable if you didn’t hesitate before saying great.”
“It’s not hesitation. It’s uncertainty about how far I should go in praising my stubborn ex while we’re sharing a blanket.”
“You don’t need to praise me at all. I know I’ve dragged you into a big family mess, and I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s my family mess, too.” His voice turns rough.
I turn my head sideways.
Even in the dark, I can tell that he’s looking at me.
And now I can’t look away.
“That’s why I went skating tonight,” he adds.
“I, uh, thought it might be my last time on the trail alone. And I was thinking about how your family is my only family, too. I know, I have my cousins, but this is where I come home for Christmas. You don’t need to feel bad about dragging me into anything, Roar.
I invited myself because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.
And I didn’t know that last year was my last year in this family, so having a redo on that—”
“You’re always going to be welcome here.” The words are tight, but it’s not hard to say, because it’s the truth. “My parents love you. And who knows, maybe I won’t come home for Christmas next year. You can have them all to yourself.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t even know where I’ll be. But, uh, it probably won’t be Ottawa.” It’s a confession a long time coming. My head spins at the relief of finally admitting the truth.
“You’re moving? What happened to getting hired on at the hospital?” When I don’t answer, he sighs again. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“It’s not you. I don’t want to talk about it at all.” I inhale slowly. “What about you? Are you going to stay in Ottawa?”
“Haven’t thought about it.” He rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. Not looking at me anymore, his body language clearly projecting that he needs a second to process what I’ve just said. “Where else are you looking?”
“I’m not yet. I know I should. By the time I do, I’ll probably only have leftover remote job opportunities.”
“Jesus, Rory.”
“I know.”
He doesn’t need to say anything else. I know he doesn’t have a lot of respect for the training program that has chewed me up, and he doesn’t understand my stubbornness about my career path. It’s hard to explain even to myself, which is why I’m stuck in this spot.
“You can’t use me for sex to avoid life,” he finally says.
I choke on a sad laugh. “Yeah, I know. Which is a real shame, because whew, that works like nothing else.”
“Yeah?” He turns his head.
It feels good to have him looking at me again.
I nod. “It’s like horny arguing flips a switch that shuts my brain up.”
He makes a sound that could be a laugh or a groan. “That checks out.”
Then he shifts, the mattress dipping between us, and I feel the pull. It would be easy to roll into him.
Pick a fight as he gathers me in his arms, as he tugs my hair and guides my mouth anywhere but his. He’d let me bite him sooner than kiss him.
We could exhaust ourselves with fucking and go to sleep in a messy tangle.
But we’d wake up tomorrow in exactly the same place—Garrett not happy because I’m not happy, and me…confused. Unable to find my way out of the tangle.
“I don’t want that anymore.”
Silence.
Then…
“Okay,” he says, like it’s easy.
That hurts. But I did it to myself.
“I liked that we didn’t fight tonight,” I whisper after a long quiet.
“Me, too.” His hand is still between us, but he turns it and grips the edge of his pillow. “It felt like we were on the same side.”
It really did. “We should do that more often. Maybe try being friends.”
“Roar,” he says, and I hear the smile in it, but I also feel the ache. “We’ve always been friends.”
I slide my hand out from the covers.
I shouldn’t hook my pinky finger through his, the only one not tightly wound around the edge of his pillow. That’s blurring the line of tentative friendship, I’m sure.
I do it anyway.
It’s ridiculous how much my body unclenches at such a tiny point of contact. He’s always been an anchor, and I’ve been using him for months.
The darkness of the room, the lateness of the night, slowly settles around us.
“I’m going to try to be a good friend,” I say, the promise more to myself than to him.
“Same.” Through the dim, I see the corner of his mouth quirk up. “First friend up in the morning makes coffee?”
“Deal.”
“Both of our phones are on my side of the bed,” he points out. “Unless you’ve got your pager secreted away somewhere, you aren’t waking up first.”
“I promise, the pager is in my backpack and turned off. But if you want me to sleep with my phone under my pillow…”
He reaches for it, and our pinkies tug, but neither of us lets go. He passes it to me, and I check the alarm is set.
“Fair is fair,” I whisper as I tuck it under my head.
He squeezes my finger with his.
“Night, Roar,” he says.
And the urge to cross the small gap between us, to plant my mouth against his, is nearly overwhelming. Nostalgia and familiarity are potent traps.
It’s good that we’re only sleeping in this bed tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll safely be on opposite couches.
I swallow and make a silent pledge. I won’t kiss him. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. I’m going to protect the fragile thing we’re building, brick by careful brick. “Good night.”
This time when I listen to his breathing even out, I don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s asleep. I know he’s not. I’m not alone in having heavy thoughts swirling.
But I can also feel his pulse, faint and steady, through our hooked fingers. I count the rhythm, and slowly, my pulse slows down to match his. My breathing, too, and finally, blissfully, my thoughts start to fragment in that pre-sleep way.
Kissing. Not kissing. Christmas vibes. Stern looks. Confusing looks. Finding Garrett through the chaos.
Tomorrow is going to be chaos.
It’ll be chaos with Garrett at the centre of it, though, and that’s something to look forward to.