Chapter 8

Eight

BHODI

I kissed my landlord.

Six seconds after we pledged to be friends.

A mantra that plays on repeat in my head, but as hard as I search for regret, it’s not there. It’s hard to regret something that blew my mind the way Tam’s kiss did. How hot and right his body felt against mine. His soft lips and rough palms. With how prone I’ve been to catching feelings for dudes who make me feel good, it’s hard not to be scared to death of it too, but that’s a worry for another day. Right now, all I can think about is how he felt in my arms even before I kissed him. How he relaxed into me like he’d been waiting for my embrace his whole life.

And how badly I want to hold him again.

It’s a far cry from the casual sex I’ve spent the last few months convincing myself is all I want out of life, and that’s probably the part that terrifies me. But as the rest of the week unfolds and I manage to eat dinner with Tam twice more without laying a hand on him, I begin to calm down.

Friends.

Yeah.

I can do this.

“Is this a five or an S?”

I jump out of my skin, startled out of my Tam-themed daze by my boss bearing down on me, a stack of patient charts clutched in her hands. “Show me?”

Marla dumps the offending chart on the desk, tapping the chicken scratch that’s irrefutably mine. “This one.”

“It’s an S. Why would it be a five?”

“Your writing is terrible.”

“I know, but—” Nope. Not doing it. What’s the point? Logic doesn’t come into it if you can’t get the basics right, and I’m the one who can’t write a simple sentence without confusing the heck out of people who don’t have time to chase me around. “Sorry.”

Marla’s a tough crowd. She ignores my smile and crosses out my scrawl. “I need you to stay late. Constance has a childcare issue and she needs to go home.”

It’s already late. Midnight came and went a while ago, bringing with it an influx of patients booted from ICU to make room for the victims of a house fire in the city. HDU is full to bursting. Even without losing a nurse from the night shift, I wasn’t expecting to leave any time soon. “It’s fine. I need to eat, though.”

Understatement. The last real meal I consumed was the potato and ham thing—the tartiflette —Tam brought to my door yesterday morning. He didn’t hang around to eat it with me, but it was still good enough that I ate the whole thing and fell into a carb coma for the rest of the day before I rocked up here.

Good enough that I daydream about it at any given moment.

Any moment I don’t daydream about him .

I don’t have time for anything but a jaunt to a nearby vending machine. I buy three packets of crisps and a can of Pepsi. Scran it all and get back to work. Marla pulls me up on my paperwork three more times before I finally leave.

It’s early morning. Dawn, in fact, a reality that won’t be beautiful until I escape the city and reach the pretty little town Tam calls home. That I call home—at least for the next few months. But I have to scrape a thick frost from my car—the one that’s still running like a dream thanks to Tam’s healing hands—before that can happen, and it just about kills me.

I’m tired and I’m hungry, two things that ravage my ability to manage my emotions, and by the time I pull onto Stardust Lane, I’m too frazzled to figure out if I’m happy or sad. Then I see a tall figure headed my way, a tiny dog at his feet, and my mood brightens with the glittery winter sun.

Tam .

I pull up beside him and open the window.

He braces his good arm on the car roof and lets me see his scruffy jaw and dry half smile. “Morning.”

“Morning.” I kill the engine. “What are you doing up so early?”

“Walking Rudy before the postman’s out and about.”

“He doesn’t like him?”

“Doesn’t like anyone, except you and Sab.”

“That must be awkward when you have other friends around. ”

“You see me letting anyone else in my house?”

He must do sometimes. To have the mad sex he alluded to the night we kissed. But I let it go. If Tam wants to play lone wolf, who am I to stop him?

“Why are you so late? I thought you were finishing at midnight?”

I’ve zoned out. I come back to find Tam’s dark stare has intensified, and I’m not ready for it.

I deflect by opening the door and stepping out, bringing myself to his level. It’s easier to handle being around him when he’s not towering over me. For reasons . Dirty reasons I’m too tired to contemplate without embarrassing myself. “Busy night.”

“Are you okay?”

“Me?”

Tam cocks his head. “There’s no one else here, son.”

“Rudy’s here.”

“He’s taking a piss up your car.”

I shoot a glance down.

Tam laughs. “Made you look.”

“Very funny.”

“I thought so.” Tam twinkles that droll grin at me again. “Are you working tonight?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Is it?”

“Bhodi, you’re knackered.” He states it like the fact it is. “Go to bed. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“That a promise?” Yeah. Because for all we haven’t kissed again, and for all we’ve sworn to be friends , I’m never too tired to flirt with this dude. Or ogle him as he leans into my car to retrieve the keys I’ve forgotten, shut the window and click the lock before straightening to tuck the keys into my hand.

The whole thing lasts less than thirty seconds, but it does something to me, and I’m smiling by the time he meets my gaze again.

Tam frowns. “What?”

“Nothing. Just delirious.”

“Over what?”

You. “Nothing a friend wants to hear about.”

“Says who?”

Tam leans closer as he speaks, a shift that’s hard to read as subconscious or deliberate.

Either way, it’s a struggle to not react. To step back, towards the side gate I need to slip through to reach my bed. “Says me . But I have chicken and…something, I was going to cook later if you’re interested?”

Tam’s frown evaporates, replaced by the subtle lift his whole face gets every time I offer him food. The same contentment I feel every time he cooks for me. “I’m interested.”

“All right. Come by about six?”

It’s when he stops working. I’ve noticed this on the evenings I’m at home. How my day is punctuated by Rudy screaming around the garden and Tam growling into his phone at his brother. I try not to listen, and they haven’t talked about me since that night, but even if I’m dead asleep, I still know Tam’s done for the day the second I open my eyes.

We part ways. I don’t know where he goes because I don’t let myself watch. I traipse myself to the front door of the annex and jam the key in the lock.

I almost trip over the package on the step.

The croissants, cooked ham, and soft-boiled eggs that make me feel like whoever left them there is the best new friend I could ever make.

I sleep all day. Wish I could say it’s restful, but any night worker will tell you it isn’t. I’m not awake, but I’m aware , and by the time evening rolls around, I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lives.

The box Tam left me is on the floor by the bed. I hoovered up the food hours ago before I passed out. All that’s left is the ornate scrap of paper, decorated with a simple message.

Don’t forget about yourself xx

He wrote the words in the shape of a Christmas star. In gold ink on black paper. Can’t say why that means something, but I can’t stop looking at it, when I’m supposed to be up and at ‘em, cooking him dinner.

Shower .

I roll out of bed and into the tiny bathroom. The shower is basic, but runs from the same combi boiler that services the main house. Hot water for days; my old place had a dribble that lasted three and half minutes.

I’m cooked by the time I get out. It takes a second for me to hear the insistent beep of my phone.

It’s ringing.

Somewhere.

I search the bed and find it buried under the duvet. It’s the time of year where my mum gets emotional and calls more than once a month. I expect her name on the screen. But it’s not her.

Skylar .

Confusion throws me. We’ve barely spoken in months, even before I gave my old job notice and had to work sixteen more torturous weeks knowing I could run into him at any moment. But…I don’t hate him. Skylar never led me on. He never lied. All he did was walk away when he was done fucking me.

The call rings out.

It’s in me to leave it at that, but I’m curious enough to call him back.

He answers quick enough that I know his phone was in his hand. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. Everything all right?”

“So so.” I hear the easy smile in Skylar’s tone. The one he wears as a shield, when the truth is it hides nothing at all. “How’s the new job?”

“Getting there. What do you care?”

“HDU is a mess without you.”

“So?”

“Bhodi, I care.”

“No, you don’t. And that’s okay. You don’t have to pretend.”

Skylar’s silent so long I think about regretting my bluntness, all the while pondering how his gravelly Stockport accent doesn’t affect me the way used to. But it’s a thought that doesn’t go anywhere. Being honest with him would’ve given us both a chance to walk away before I got myself hurt. It’s too late for that now, but I’m done kidding myself our relationship is— was —something it isn’t.

“I’m not pretending to care about you,” Skylar says eventually. “I want us to be friends, and I’m really fucking sorry if I’ve made that impossible by being a cold bastard.”

“You’re not cold, Skylar. ”

He isn’t. I’ve worked alongside him enough to know that. But I can’t escape the scars his indifference left behind. I don’t want to—it’s how we learn, right?

“I don’t mean to be,” Skylar amends. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know that. It’s not your fault I got more into it than you signed up for.”

“That’s what happened?”

“Technically, you fucked me for three months, then ghosted me on and off for a year, but whatever.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

And why now ?

I picture Skylar lying on the couch in the A&E break room with his phone on his chest, but the more distance I have from him the more I realise I never knew him at all. Not really. A few bunk-ups after work isn’t enough for that. We never ate together. Drank together. We never talked like this, because he didn’t want to. Not with me. And it’s getting easier not to take that personally. I’m not too churned up to know something’s happened in his life to make him the way he is. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. But I’m not his person for this shit.

I never was.

We talk a little while longer, about work, mainly. Skylar never answers my question. Then he’s gone again, but I don’t feel empty without him. I feel like maybe we can be friends.

A knock at the door breaks me from my thoughts.

Tam .

It has to be. No one else can reach the annex without a gate key or going through his house. And he’s the one I count as my friend .

Maybe that’s why I forget I just got out of the shower and open the door in nothing but a towel. Doesn’t explain Tam’s hot gaze and raised brows, but here we are.

“You’re naked,” he states.

“Not quite. Give me a second.”

I wave him in and duck into the bathroom with some clean clothes.

Dressed, I return to find him exactly where I left him, smirk still in place. “I never said it was a bad thing.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Are you coming in or staying out there all night?”

Tam eyes me as he winces. “I really fucking want to, even though you put your clothes on, but I have a ton of deliveries to make that I forgot about and I won’t be back till later. You didn’t cook already, did you?”

“Uh. No . Not even close. I took a shower and got waylaid by the past.”

“Your ex?”

“He’s not my ex, but how did you know?”

Tam props a shoulder on the doorframe. “You look like your brain just got turned inside out.”

“What does that look like?”

He straightens and steps over the threshold of the annex in one fluid movement. There’s a mirror on the hallway wall. Tam guides me in front of it and nudges my mouth with his finger and thumb, coaxing my lips into a smile. “That’s better. Now tell me who I need to punch.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m your friend .” Though the way he easily fills the space behind me is anything but friendly. “Someone upsets you, I want them dead. That’s how this works. ”

“I’ve never had a friend willing to commit murder on my behalf.”

“Then you’ve never had a friend like me.”

That, I can believe. But I don’t want him hating on Skylar. “No one upset me. He called. We talked. About nothing, but everything’s cool.”

“ You’re cool.” Tam lets his hand drop. If we were lovers, he might’ve kissed my neck. But he steps back with a rueful sigh. “And I hear you. I saw an old fuck buddy a few weeks before you moved in. I haven’t been with him in years and we were never together, but it still affects me to see him.”

“You wish things were different?”

“No, that’s not it. River’s madly in love with the person he was always meant to be with and I love to see it.”

“Then what makes you sad when you see him?”

“I never said I felt sad.”

“Okay.”

Tam rolls his eyes, but I see his concession all the same and I understand more than I want to. I feel that pit of loneliness in his gut that he’s scared to acknowledge. The one he buries with casual sex and the pretence it’s all he’ll ever want.

It’s the same self-inflicted fallacy I came here with, but I’m not as rooted in it as Tam seems to be, and the big fat lie I’m telling myself is harder to believe.

It’ll get easier. Though, the only thing that feels easy right now is breathing Tam’s cinnamon scent and leaning way too close to our newly established friendship boundaries. “Don’t worry about dinner. I can leave some for you, or we can have it tomorrow, maybe?”

Tam twitches, as if he wants to touch me too. “I’ve got a better idea. Come with me?”