Chapter Thirty-Six

Loncey

"Do you want some coffee with your sugar?" I watch as Britney stirs her third packet of sugar into an iced latte. The ice cubes rattle against the glass and the metallic straw.

"I finally quit smoking two weeks ago." She takes a sip of coffee. "But I seem to have swapped a nicotine addiction for a sugar addiction."

Next to me, Harley nods thoughtfully. "Interfering with your estrogen?"

"Yeah." Britney smiles at her. I knew they'd get on.

"My doctor wouldn't even give it to me until I'd kicked the habit," Harley tells us all.

"You used to smoke?" I ask Harley and reach for my Americano. We're sitting around a small round table in a painfully modern and stylish coffee shop that charges extortionate prices just because they have exposed brickwork, black chrome taps and a wooden letter board displaying the aforementioned extortionate prices.

"Like a chimney," Harley says, tucking some of her tight purple curls behind her ear. "God, I miss it."

"How did I not know that?" I think out loud.

Sitting beside Harley and holding her hand, Miko snorts. "There's a lot you don't know about Harley. And me."

I feel my neck elongate a little. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Miko's eyes are kind as he talks. "When we were together, the three of us, you always… kept a distance from us. It was like you only wanted to know so much about us."

"Eighty percent of what we talked about was related to work," Harley adds as she sips her matcha latte. "And anytime we talked about personal stuff, things that happened in our past, you just put it down to our horoscopes."

A soft laugh escapes Miko's lips. "Do you remember that time we drove to Phoenix and I talked a bit more about my dad disowning me when I transitioned and they wanted to do his birth chart, like that would help explain why he's a transphobic fuck."

Heat peaks in my cheeks. "I didn't just ask that. I also listened and offered support. Didn't I?"

"Sure you did. You are a great listener. You're just not a great talker."

"What do you mean?" I look at Britney briefly and see her eyes are ping-ponging between me and Miko.

Miko shrugs. "Like I said, you like to keep your distance. And that's okay. We've always respected that."

Harley places her hand on my knee and squeezes. "We love you, Loncey. We just wish you'd been more open with us when we were together. But we understand you had your reasons not to be."

I pull in a deep breath. What was supposed to be a fun meeting, introducing Miko and Harley to Britney with a view to the three of them possibly collaborating, has somehow turned into a character assassination. Or at least that's what it feels like.

Maybe I'm being too sensitive. I've been feeling more fragile than usual these last three weeks.

These last three weeks since Maeve left...

No. Not going to think about that. Not going to think about Maeve. Especially not when I need to address these accusations coming from my best friends.

Except when I look at Harley, and then at Miko, I don't see any aggression or ill will. I see my two of the people I care about most in the world, both of them looking at me with eyes full of love.

And then I hear their words. Really hear them. And I can't argue with a single one. I did used to spend a lot of time on my own. I did often find myself preferring to be alone rather than staying with them. I did hold myself back when I was with them. I still do in some ways. No, many ways.

Isn't that exactly what I did when I dropped Maeve off at her hotel three weeks ago and then watched her walk away without telling her that she was taking my heart with her?

Pretty much.

And the irony is, since that day, I've found being alone haunting and hard, close to impossible. I used to love being alone but now it haunts me, taunts me. Now I crave the very opposite. I crave Maeve.

But now's not the time to interrogate that.

I clap my hands together, determined to stay in the present moment. "As much as I like having my emotional unavailability discussed in public, shall we get back on track with why we're here?"

Harley's hand squeezes my leg again. "Don't be pissed."

"I'm not," I say, but then soften my voice. "I'm really not. I just want to make sure we don't get distracted."

"And I'm super happy to meet you!" Britney bounces a little on her seat, making her pigtails swing. Dressed in a baby pink skirt suit with a lace-collared white blouse underneath, she couldn't look more opposite to Harley who's wearing ripped jeans, a vintage leather jacket and biker boots. They're going to look so good on camera. A flurry of ideas rushes into my brain.

"You know," I say tentatively. "If you did think that you could all collab together, I'd be down for directing it."

"Just directing?" Harley arches an eyebrow. "You don't want to be in it?"

I open my mouth to reply, but Miko is quicker. "Of course they don't want to be in it. They're practically retired."

"I am not." I reach over and shove them lightly. "I'm still posting every damn day."

"Yeah, solo stuff." Miko wrinkles his nose at me. "But I can't remember the last time I saw another cock or hole in one of your videos."

Britney blushes in the most adorable way as her eyes quickly scan around us to see if anyone overheard.

"I believe both your cock and your hole were in my last collab video." I point out, lowering my voice a little.

"But that was nearly a month ago," Miko says. "Not that it matters. We all go through dry phases, be it by choice or otherwise."

A dry phase? Is that what I'm experiencing? I've always thought that's what you call a period of time where you want to have sex but fail to do so. What I'm experiencing… isn't that.

"I'm just focusing on solo content," I say. "And also directing. So would you all be up for that?"

"Do you…" Britney tucks her hands under her thighs. "…do you do a lot of directing?"

"I've done some," I say and look at Harley and Miko. "I mean, I'd say I directed some of our scenes."

"You were always the one with the good ideas," Miko says as Harley nods.

"Well, I'm game if you both are." Britney's eyes fly between Harley and Miko.

"We are," Harley says after only a quick but very affirmative look from Miko. "But we feel it's only right we warn you what working with us could mean."

Britney leans forward, her frown equal parts confused and concerned.

Harley pulls in a deep breath. "I've received death threats on and off ever since I started creating content. But they always seem to get worse when I work with other trans creators. It's only through hiring a lawyer that we managed to get more information about the email's source code from the threats and now we've got a private investigator making some progress identifying who is behind them. But that was all thanks to Miko never giving up," she flashes a look of love and gratitude at Miko, "Our next challenge will be getting the police to take us seriously. But we'll cross that bridge. For now, I'm having counseling to help me deal with it all because it was stopping me from living my life. So I just need you to know that working with us may bring similar attention to you."

Britney's face is unreadable for a few moments as her big blue eyes linger on Harley.

"Death threats?" she asks eventually.

"Yes, and although I'm inclined to think it's just some creep at a computer, you never know. You need to be extra careful about your whereabouts going forward." Harley replies.

"Hide as much information about yourself as you can. Never share your location in real-time," I offer in addition. "That's my advice to all content creators."

Britney's gaze switches to me and I can't help but notice a bit of the shine has left her eyes.

"I've known I was trans since I was six years old. I've had to deal with abuse ever since, so I'm no stranger to hostility."

Harley shrugs off Miko's hold on her hand so she can reach over and wrap her fingers around Britney's. "We get it." She looks at Miko and me. "We all get that you've probably heard it all before, and worse. But that doesn't mean you have to keep on hearing it. That doesn't mean you should just expect that kind of bullshit in your life. It is never okay."

I can't hold back a proud smile as I watch Harley and Britney look at each other for a long moment.

"So," Britney says. "Can I think about it?"

"Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what you should do." Harley squeezes her hand before releasing.

"But if we do go ahead and do it," Britney's voice has a bit more life in it now, "I think I'd really like Loncey to be our director."

I feel all their eyes on me as Harley nods. "I think we'd like that too."

And for the first time in exactly three weeks, I feel my heart beat with something like optimism.

But then it stops, because all I want to do is tell Maeve about it. As Miko, Harley and Britney start talking about something else, I slide my hand into my pocket and find my phone. Checking the time on the screen, it takes me milliseconds to figure out what time it is in Dublin, which is no surprise considering I've been doing it multiple times every damn hour since Maeve left.

It feels like defeat to message her now, the very first time that I actually feel a little dart of happiness that has nothing to do with her. It feels reductive to tell her about the moment that has me feeling like my future isn't as bleak as I've come to imagine it without her. But I want to share it with her. I want her to know that I'm starting to think directing might be a new avenue of work I will enjoy more. Although what I can't say is that I don't want to collaborate with others anymore because nobody's skin is as smooth or soft or warm as hers. I can't tell her that the thought of kissing anybody but her flips my stomach. I can't tell her that I'm pretty sure she took a piece of me back to Dublin with her and I want it back. I want her back.

I can't tell her that.

I can't tell her how much I miss her. How much I think about her. How I wonder what she's doing, how she's doing nearly every moment of every day.

Because we haven't shared any messages since she left. We haven't even liked each other's content. We haven't acknowledged the other one exists. At least not online. But offline, Maeve is all I see, feel, think and breathe.

Just as I'm staring blankly at my phone screen, a notification from one of my astrology apps appears on my screen. I read it and then smile. Looks like the stars have got my back with this one.

I type a quick message.

Just wanted to let you know that Mars entered Cancer yesterday. So if you're feeling emotionally unbalanced right now, that could be why.>

I hit send before I can talk myself out of it.

Only when I see the message has been delivered do I sink my head into my hands because that is possibly the stupidest-ass message I have ever sent anyone in the history of sending messages.

I groan, loudly.

"Are you okay?" Miko asks.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fucking perfect," I grumble.

Miko flashes Harley a quick look that seems to tell a long story, but I have no interest in finding out what it is. I'm too busy feeling like a fucking idiot.