The way things went

The way things went…was like this. I fucked up. Over and over again. I pushed and pushed, and Reuben threw me out.

Well, in his very specific Reuben way, which lasted about ten minutes before I was in the hallway rocking him and shushing into his neck while his tightly folded arms dug into my chest.

“I know I push,” I said. “But you know, it’s just the way I am. If I want something, I go for it. Full on. Sometimes I get exactly what I want. Other times, I accidentally overshoot and then I have to step back and grovel. Which is what I’m doing now. Grovelling. Hard.”

He snivelled. Put his chin into the crook of my neck.

Okay. He needed more grovelling then.

“I know I’m a lot.”

“Shut up, Gray.”

I smiled. Good stuff. He was…so lovely. So easy. Simple words indeed.

“How about—”

“No,” he said sternly. “No, Gray. I mean it. This is too much, and I need…”

“Whatever you need.” I was trying here. Really hard.

I kissed him, just the softest of little kisses, my fingertip under his chin so I could look at that gorgeous face of his.

Reuben Schiller was insanely handsome. Tall and beautiful. Strong features. Pretty, pretty eyes. He could have been a model. Maybe. What did I know? I’d met lots of models and never fancied any of them. I fancied Reuben, though. I really fancied him.

And if he wanted space, I’d give it to him.

Except once again, I did that thing, where I completely disrespected him and pushed him backwards into his room while frantically ripping his clothes off. I didn’t even give him a choice because I’d had such a shitty day and he was the only thing that could make it better.

Him. Right here. On the bed.

I tugged at his boxers. He pushed me away.

“You’re such a shit,” he muttered, but he kissed me back. Then he rolled on top of me and held me down.

Bad move, Reubs. Really bad move. Things like that…they turned me on, no end. His nose hard against my cheek, his lips crushing on mine, tongue down my throat.

Reuben could kiss.

Pathetically, I tried to hump him underneath all that weight and at the same time wriggle out of my briefs. I tried to push him off me. I wanted to suck his dick and make him come, he was just…

“No,” he said firmly, pinning down my wrists. “You’ve gotta let me.”

I had no idea what he was on about, but I couldn’t move, so I kissed his neck, softly nibbling as he breathed hot air over my chest and kissed his way downwards.

I was so hard and making groaning sounds. Didn’t take much, but then he got up and flipped me over, face down, wrists crossed in the small of my back. Using just one hand to keep me there, he started kissing me again. My hip, my ass, along my spine.

I loved it. I really did.

“You’re good at this,” I panted out.

“Shut up.”

I snorted into the mattress. He made me smile. So much.

“You can…you know. Do whatever you want to me.” I was hoping he would. Just hold me open and shove his dick in there. Anything. I’d take it.

“I’m not going to fuck you,” he said. Disappointingly. “Not ready for that. I’m not even sure what I’m doing here.”

“You’re turning me on, is what. You’re…You— Ugh.”

I loved how he manhandled me. I was on my back again, his hands roaming my chest, more kisses on my hip, my groin…his nose slowly nudging at my length.

God. Please. Just do it.

Just a lick.

Something. Anything.

I closed my eyes. Waited.

I tried to lie still but I was desperate to touch myself, jerk myself off while he watched me.

Nothing. Just breathing. I opened my eyes and looked at him.

My heart kind of broke because he was just sitting there, looking terrified, and I was being the dick of the century.

“Hey,” I said softly, sliding out from under him and taking his face in my hands. “Hey.”

“You need to leave.” He wouldn’t even look at me. Just sat there hugging himself. “It’s too much. I can’t deal with you.”

“Reubs?” I couldn’t stand the…horrible tone to his voice.

“Not right now, and not ever because I’m not that kind of person. I’m just me, and I’m…I’m not built for this. For all of this. I have no idea who you are, or how I’m supposed to handle you. I have no idea how to feel about this. How to deal with the…The Dieter. And I have even less of an idea of how to deal with you, Gray. This? This right here? Fucked up to the max. Are we just going to…be an item? Am I supposed to tell people at work that I live with you? And are you going to go out there and talk about me in interviews and end up in magazines with people hating on me all over social media and… What’s the plan here? Because I don’t see no fucking plan, and it’s too much. I can’t be your boyfriend. I can’t be anyone’s boyfriend. I’m sitting here, staring at your dick, and I don’t know what the hell has happened to me. I can’t even remember who I’m supposed to be anymore, and I forgot to take my meds and it’s just fucking messy, everything. Just fucking leave, Gray.”

Okay. Long rant.

And what did I do? I stayed put, like the entitled twat I was.

We sat there for what felt like ages. I stroked his arms, leaned my head against his shoulder. I tried to hug him, but he pushed me away.

I got it. Of course I did. But…

No. No but.

“I’ll go,” I said eventually, crawling out of his space and standing beside the bed. My hands shook as I dragged my clothes back on. I felt like he’d punched me in the chest.

What a bloody shitshow. As always.

Why couldn’t I just shut up and calm down and be a decent human being? This was why I couldn’t have nice things.

Nice people in my life.

People who cared.

I pulled my hoodie over my head. Walked out into the kitchen and grabbed my bag.

He’d overreacted a little, maybe, but fear did that to you. Fear did that to me too. Well, it made me do stupid things.

I stood in the doorway to his room. He’d pulled the duvet over his head, but I could hear him breathing under there.

I could admit it. I was scared. Really, really scared.

“Can we talk?”

I said I would leave. Yet here I was.

“NO!”

“I don’t want to leave you like this. Please. Reubs.”

“Stop being so bloody difficult. I’m not your boyfriend. I’m bloody nobody. I don’t know shit, and I just want to sleep and go to work in the morning like I always have. I want my life back. My easy normal life where I don’t have to deal with all of this. Just give me some space.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Yeah, it is. The problem is you’re really spoilt. You just ask for things and expect them to materialise. You tell me you love me and that I’m your boyfriend, and I’m expected to what? Jump up and down with joy and suck your dick and move into your house and change my entire life? Just like that?”

He’d popped his head out of the duvet and glared at me for a few seconds. Then he pulled it over his head again.

He was right. I was spoilt. My mother told me all the time—but in a jokingly affectionate way.

“You’re absolutely right,” I said quietly. “But let me tell you this.”

I tried to breathe, but the air seemed to stick in my throat.

“You can’t say this is all on me. I don’t know how to deal with you either. That day outside the hotel, I was a mess. I hadn’t slept for weeks. I was sleepwalking all over the place and so bloody terrified of everything around me, I couldn’t see a way out. But you stepped in, helped me when nobody else did, and you fixed things. I haven’t taken any sleeping pills for ages, and I sleep now. I can see ways out. I have solutions for things I didn’t know how to fix before. I know I’m pushy, but don’t you get it? You changed…everything.”

He said nothing.

“You know, it’s your fault too. If you didn’t want this, you should have said so.” It was a shitty thing to say. I cringed hearing myself.

“Get out,” he whispered from under the covers.

“Okay.” I hadn’t meant to say it so harshly, but I was angry.

“Get the fuck out!” he yelled.

So I did. Walked out his front door and shut it behind me. Then I got my key out of the bag and dropped it through the letterbox.

And regretted it immediately.

Pulling my new phone from my pocket, I pulled up my new best friend the Uber app and logged in—at least I knew how to do that. I punched in my parents’ address.

Yeah. That would cost me a cool five hundred quid. I’d paid less for a flight across the country.

Last week, I’d have just called for one of the drivers that management kept on a retainer, but we’d blown that now. All of it. No more Lauren. No handy little monthly deposits into my bank account. Did I even have a job anymore? I wasn’t sure. I didn’t understand half of what was happening right now.

And I once again owned a house I would never set foot in because I’d bought it for us. For Reuben and me.

For a future that had just been another of my stupid ideas.

Spoilt.

Stupid.

All true.

I stood there, outside his house, hoping he’d calm down enough to realise I was still there, take me back inside, make me a cup of tea. Hug me.

He didn’t.

My phone pinged. A driver was on his way.

Fuck.

It wasn’t long before the car pulled up. I got in the back, nodded at the driver, who seemed to sense my unwillingness to chat.

“Just drive,” I snapped at him for no reason. I was being a twat, but I’d lost the will not to be, so I curled up into a ball, and surprisingly, I slept.

The next thing I knew we were stopped at a motorway service station. The driver muttered something about needing a piss and got out, leaving me in the car. I needed a piss too, but I didn’t dare, not after what happened at McDonald’s. I could hold it.

The radio was tuned to a station in a foreign language, and it was soothing in a way, listening to words I didn’t understand. Ha, what was new? All the legal stuff we’d been through recently might as well have been in a foreign language for all the sense it made to me.

My bladder had other ideas about holding on until I reached my parents’. Ah, what the hell. It was dark anyway. There would be cameras, but I didn’t care. I skulked out of the car, left the door open, and brazenly pissed on the ground.

Whatever.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell the driver to turn around and take me back home.

Home.I didn’t have one.

Wiping a stupid tear from my face, I picked up my phone and opened my messages.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

It was way past midnight when I stumbled out onto my parents’ drive, slamming the car door shut like the entitled wanker I was.

I was The Dieter. I could do whatever fuck I wanted.

I always had. Had security sort out hook-ups then made them stand outside hotel room doors as I got fucked into oblivion.

I’d never had a boyfriend. Never actually dated anyone. I’d tried, and where had that got me?

I knocked on my parents’ front door and almost gave my mother a heart attack.

“What the…? George! George!! Graham is here!”

I got dragged inside, of course I did. Hugged and pinched and offered a cup of tea. My dad grunted a greeting at me and went back to bed. My mother fussed around me and fretted.

“You should have told us you were coming, darling.”

“Didn’t know I was coming, Mum. Kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“You have a couple of days off then?”

“Ehhr…yeah.”

I was supposed to be meeting with Michelle to arrange filming schedules and interviews and all that other crap, not sitting in my mother’s kitchen dunking digestive biscuits into a cup of tea wondering what the hell I was playing at.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly, sitting down opposite me. “I can tell you’re tired, but you don’t come up here often, and when you do, it’s because you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” I lied. “Just tired. Wanted a bit of a break, and it’s nice to come up and see you. I’m allowed to come visit my mum and dad, aren’t I?”

I was going for light-hearted. I didn’t feel it.

“Well, my darling, it’s late, and I’m going back to bed. I have my weekly flower club in the morning. We have someone coming up from Manchester to talk about growing orchids. Did you know you should keep orchids in the shower? Apparently, they like that. Not sure I would like having plants in my shower, but anyway. Should be a good turnout.”

“Okay, Mum.”

“And I’m afraid you’ll have to sleep on the sofa. We removed the bed from your room. Dad was reorganising—”

“You got rid of my bed?”

“Graham, the last time you visited was three years ago. What am I supposed to do? Wash your bedding weekly, just in case you decide to drop in?”

Yes?

No, she was right.

“The sofa is fine, Mum.”

“That’s my boy. Now, go get some rest. Your dad will want to take you with him to the garage tomorrow. The car is making some awful noises.”

She grimaced, and so did I. I was not going to the garage. I was buying my dad a new car instead.

With money I didn’t have. Or maybe I did. Whatever, I didn’t do going to the garage, and anyway, there was a guy I knew who would purchase you any vehicle you wanted and have it delivered to your door. No need to go to a garage or anywhere else. I was never going out on my own again.

Mum got me a blanket for the sofa and then went back to bed, leaving me sitting in the kitchen of my childhood home, the clock over the door ticking as loudly as ever.

I sat there, staring at the walls, listening to that bloody clock, nursing an empty cup.

It wasn’t until the sun started to come up that I finally made myself move. Flopped down on the sofa and pulled the blanket over my head.

I smelt of car air freshener and sweat. I’d probably peed on my shoes.

Sleep?

I don’t think I did. At all.