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Neil’s eyes settle on me, soft and amused. He’s stopped PrEPbecause of me. That’s…an insane level of something I can’t begin to comprehend.
“Do you want to?” he asks. “Use toys?”
Oh God, bring me a fluffy kitten right now. How the hell does he say stuff like this without dying inside? “I think I should concentrate on the basics,” I croak.
“Like me fucking you? You fucking me?” Neil waves his fork around. “’Cos when you’re ready, there’ll be nothing basic about it, I can assure you.”
Me fucking him? My head is exploding. Sinking lower into the sofa, I shovel in some pasta. Neil strokes my knee.
“You know, you are very cute like this, rash whisperer.”
“I don’t want to be cute.” I stab at my food. “I want to be cool and sexy and in control. Instead, I took a nap on you, have a snotty nose, am a ball of anxiety, and ejaculated within three seconds of you touching my dick. And I ask a lot of dumb questions because Google doesn’t have all the answers to stuff I don’t know.”
Neil laughs again. I love his laugh; it’s free and kind. “If that’s not the definition of cute, my little cutie pie, then I don’t know what is.”
My pretence at crossness fails. We’re going to have sex. Penetrative sex. And it won’t be basic. And we won’t need condoms. Soon. If I can hold it together and he still wants me when he finds out I’m a mental health hot mess.
CHAPTER 16
NEIL
Monday is much like any other Monday. Deep cleaning after the weekend, restocking, logging staff hours, and filing invoices. Thanks to Ezra and his attention to my dyslexia back when we bought the bar together, the IT setup is straightforward. So, as long as no one peers over my shoulder as I enhance the brightness and font on my laptop to max and then wear my new tinted shades to counter the brightness (why the fuck does that work?), it’s stress-free.
Luke cheers the tedium with a photo of our thriving peace lilies. I follow him up with a later evening phone call lasting, well, all the parts when I’m not downstairs keeping an eye on the bar. He still sounds a bit snuffly. His cold is back with a resurgence apparently, which is why he made excuses not to see me over the weekend. It’s an odd sensation, being blown out. Saturdays and Sundays are the bar’s busiest days, but I’ll always find time for him.
I make the most of the phone call. We talk about absolutely nothing, but it’s the kind of nothing that stretches way past the time I should have popped back downstairs. What he ate fordinner (a ready-cooked meal), what he’s wearing (the same as yesterday), what I’m wearing. He sends me a silly meme he’s seen on Twitter; I show him one from Instagram. I ask him if he’s phoned a guy he mentioned about landscaping his tiny backyard. He hasn’t got around to it, but I still lie on the sofa anyhow, with the phone to my ear, staring at the ceiling as he recites the pros and cons of what sounds like every perennial shrub I’ve ever heard of.
All through, I’m grinning like a lovesick fool. If this is catching feelings? I want to catch some more.
I ask him if he’ll drop by the club on Tuesday night, too impatient to wait until the date we’d planned for the end of the week. A beat passes before he promises he’ll try to make it. His cold has left him whacked—I know that can happen sometimes.
Tuesday starts moderately badly, with a semi-formal business meeting with Ezra. Actually, it started prettily shittily several hours before the business meeting, when I had to get up to piss (thanks, eye tablets) and couldn’t lull myself back to sleep, my mind ruminating on how people with visual impairment access and use toilet facilities in public places when alone. I ended up googling it, went down a Reddit rabbit hole, then wished I hadn’t.
Anyhow, my oldest mate and business partner has returned from his holidays, invigorated and pumped with ideas. To be fair, lack of sleep aside, I don’t start the meeting feeling too terrible myself, at least not during the first few minutes we spend reviewing the usual routine admin.
“So.”
Ezra fixes me with a look I learned to recognise back when we were barely out of our teens. A glittering, speculative appraisal, promising adventure. I’m wary, but I’ll take it over him fussing about my head injury and recent lack of focus. Alaric must have persuaded Jess to keep quiet about my drunken meltdown hoton the heels of my first eye hospital appointment. “Seeing as our finances are in good shape, Neil, what do you think about us finally cracking on with the basement project?”
We’ve tossed this around for a year or so, even going as far as preliminary planning applications and an interior architect drawing up the designs. Essentially, we want to relocate the current bar and dancefloor down into the basement, keeping it spit-and-sawdust style. Then we can transform the ground floor space (currently the bar and dancefloor) into a more chichi cocktail bar serving tapas-style food. Thus, catering to a much broader clientele. You and your mates fancy a few beers and a Friday night boogie, after a hard week at the coalface? Fine, go and get hot and sweaty downstairs. You’re in the mood for a little romance, instead? You want to wine and dine the love in your life? Stay sophisticated up top. Get hot and sweaty later, back at your own place.
“The finances are in good shape,” I agree. “We’re busier every quarter. Even January and February were decent.”
“Exactly. Look, I’ve dug out the cost projections we did last year.” Ez spins his laptop so we can both crowd around it. “And I’ve married them up alongside the three quotes we obtained for the prospective building work. If we rearrange this layout…” He points to something on the screen and I nod, pretending I can see the squiggly line without squinting. “And expand the kitchen into that space there, this area here will flow much better.”
“Yeah.” I sit back a bit, miraculously hoping to absorb the whole width of the screen. The edges blur. Nope, not a chance. “I suppose so.”
“But what?” Ezra replies, sensing my hesitation. “It was your original idea, and you know I think it’s a great one.”
“Yeah.” I fidget, shuffling my chair squarer to the computer. Any closer to Ez and I’ll be in his lap. “Is it me, or is this screendark? Perhaps it’s the angle. Let me turn the brightness up. Ah, that’s better.”
Marginally.
“Cool.”
Ezra’s already sketching something on a pad with the manic energy he gets chasing an idea. I love his charisma. He loves my can-do, just-try-and-fucking-stop-me attitude. We buzz off each other. We know each other’s strong suits inside out; he’s made plenty of compensations over the years for my dyslexia just as I’ve supported him through the days when he slept on my sofa. So, if I were to say,Ez, can you make that drawing a little bigger, he’d say,yeah, sure, no problem.
But I don’t. Because he might, considering my recent mishaps, put two and two together and wonder if it’s more than dyslexia and drunken nosedives. Which leaves us with a giant problem. The two of us built this dream together, brick by brick, over late nights and cheap wine, spliffs and guitar riffs. Splitting the business into two parts will take a partnership to make it work.
