Chapter 18

Eighteen

TAM

Knowing Bhodi’s upset cuts deeper than any injury I’ve ever endured. I’ll break my back a thousand times for him. I’ll carve out my liver and offer it to God before I’ll let anything hurt him.

You hurt him.

Did I? I go over and over it in my work-addled brain and I can’t figure it out. All I know is everything was great. Then it wasn’t—it isn’t —and, fuck me, I miss him.

Simmer down, son. It’s been twelve hours.

Twelve hours since Bhodi left my house and didn’t come back. Since he blanked my text and didn’t answer the door. And now I’m standing at my desk, staring at his closed blinds, and losing my fucking mind.

I need to sleep. Not just because I have a mountain of work to do and I can’t see straight, but because I have to drive to Manchester tonight and help Sab move out of his house without punching Charmaine’s new boyfriend—a tall ask, whether I’ve slept or not.

And I can’t fucking sleep. I can’t . Not without seeing Bhodi, and honestly, it scares me. I haven’t been so locked-in to someone in years. If ever. I loved Grey, and he hurt me. But I never felt like this about him. Never felt as though a piece of me would die if he wasn’t okay.

I glide my pen across the piece I’m working on, unseeing, uncaring. I make an unholy mess and have to scrap it, and it joins the pile of crumpled card at my feet.

Merde .

I crouch to gather them up and a wave of fatigue batters the shit out of me. I’m not as tough as Bhodi. I can pull an all-nighter with the best of them, but not without a daylight nanna nap, and I’m reaching my limit of endurance.

Work has to wait.

I step away from my desk and tramp downstairs with every intention of knocking on Bhodi’s door first. But I sit on the couch for a minute and wake up three hours later to find Bhodi’s gone.

Harassing him with texts feels wrong while the one I sent last night sits unread. So I take Sab’s awful plastic Christmas tree and leave it on the annex porch. Then I drive to Manchester for the night, and in the morning, I boot Roidy Dwaine into a muddy puddle at the side of the road.

It’s not my finest hour, but at least Sab didn’t do it.

That’s what I tell myself hours later when I’m finally on my way home to retrieve Rudy from the neighbour he stays with on the rare occasions I’m not home. I don’t look at my phone. I drive with my mind whirring a hundred miles an hour, and by the time I trudge into my house with Rudy tucked under my arm, I’m at my limit for that too.

Bhodi’s the best thing that’s happened to me in a hell of a long time. If he’s upset, I have to fix it. And I’m going to.

Unfortunately for me and my hard-won positive attitude, his car is still gone and I wish I’d stopped Sab flushing my last pack of cigarettes down the bog.

I wish I’d learned my lesson too about falling asleep on the couch. I lose another few hours to it and when I wake up, the tree I left on Bhodi’s doorstep is no longer there, but there’s no sign of his car. As if he’s been and gone while I slept, and fucking hell why is everything so hard? Why can’t I just love someone and that be it?

I’m pacing my kitchen as that thought completes and I come to an abrupt stop, my brain lit up again with the two things that’ve been my constant companions for weeks now.

Bhodi and love .

It should be a revelation, but it isn’t. Because I already know I love Bhodi, I’ve just never spelled it out to myself in literal terms. And I’ve never told him , and that’s the fucking epiphany.

I love Bhodi and he doesn’t know it. He thinks we’re just banging. Friends with benefits at best, and at worst, another entanglement that’s going to stamp on his heart when the heat dies off. Except…this thing between us, it’s not going to die off. It’s gonna grow, like it has every day, every hour, every minute, since we first laid eyes on each other.

It’s not just sex, and it never was.

More than that, I don’t want it to be. I want Bhodi in my arms—I need that.

I need him .

And I need to tell him before he spends another second believing the way I look at him when he’s fucking me is anything less than it is.

I need to tell him I love him.

It drives me out of the kitchen and in search of my phone.

I find it in the hallway, on the floor by my boots and it leads me to realise Bhodi’s coat is still hanging on the hook. I reach for it, already halfway out the door in my mind before I remember he’s not there. That wherever he is, he’s probably fucking cold, and I hate that as much as I hate that I’ve messed this up so badly. That I didn’t tell him from the start that our FWB arrangement was messing with my head too.

Reeling, I leave the coat where it is and retreat upstairs with my phone, giving the tranquilising couch a wide berth.

In the studio, I contemplate my desk. I’m so behind and all-nighters aren’t a sustainable answer. But I struggle to care about Christmas cards and handwritten gifts. I swipe at my phone instead and get my reward in the form of a text that arrived three hours ago.

Bhodi: sorry I’ve been a ballache. and i’m sorry about the other night. i love being friends with you and i don’t want to lose that

An instant frown heavies my face. I feel his nerves in every word and I hate it.

Tam: You’re not going to lose that. Ever. You matter to me xx

It’s not as late as the dark makes it feel, but I’m still surprised that Bhodi reads my message and starts typing back .

And typing.

And typing.

And typing.

He’s scared to say how he feels.

I’m not, but I don’t want to tell him I love him over text. So I wait and try to pull myself together enough to work. Force myself to pick up a pen and write, like I had to all those years ago when I’d have rather jumped off a motorway bridge.

I’ve come a long way since then. I know how to ground myself. How to breathe when my mental health reaches a fork in the road. And my work is as good for me as it’s always been. I’m unaware how much time has passed when my phone finally lights up. Just that the stack of cards I need to burn through is less.

Bhodi: thanks for saying that. you don’t owe me anything. sorry i’ve made this so weird

I set my pen down and hold my phone with both hands, measuring my words when all I want to do is blast him with the reassurance and love I’m not sure he’s ready for.

Tam: It’s not weird for friendships to get complicated. You haven’t done anything wrong. Are you at work?

Bhodi: yeah

Tam: When do you finish?

Bhodi: midnight

Midnight. I glance at the clock on the wall and the hour tells me two things: One, Bhodi must’ve left for work about ten minutes before I woke up. Two, that I have just enough time to finish this year’s Christmas orders and deliver them before most people around here are in bed.

Fate works in mysterious ways. It’s almost like she wants me to finish my work before I get to live the rest of my life.

Outrageous.

I text Bhodi back.

Tam: I’ll be up when you get home and I’d really love to see you. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. Let’s talk first…please? x

The message is sent and gone before I think to question it, and then I settle in to wait. Bhodi’s at work. I’m aware he probably doesn’t have his phone in his pocket, and it’s an hour before he responds.

Bhodi: you don’t have to humour me. it’s fine. everything’s fine

Fuck that.

Tam: I’m not humouring you. And nothing is fine until I get to tell you that to your face

Bhodi doesn’t reply. Or read the message. But again, I let it go and focus on my work until he comes back online a while later.

By then, I’ve smashed through my orders and I’m climbing in the van to make the penultimate deliveries of the year. Bhodi still doesn’t reply, but with a couple of hours to go until he comes home, I can live with that .

I make my rounds. Go home and put the finishing touches to the gifts I’ll deliver tomorrow. Then I wait by the window with Rudy, tracking every sweep of light on the road outside. Every rumble of an engine and every daft skip in my heart as I crane my neck to look for Bhodi. I wait and wait and wait for him.

But he doesn’t come home.