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He bends over me, reaching for his pants and pulls his phone out of his pocket.
“Shit… Wrenley. I forgot that I was supposed to meet him ten minutes ago,” he says and then answers.
“Hey man—yeah, no, I lost track of time. I got the part for Penelope’s shower yesterday, I’m at the apartment… I’ll be five minutes— OK, bye.”
He hangs it up and drops the phone on the bed, falling back down on the mattress, sliding his finger over his forehead to soothe whatever emotions he’s going through right now.
“Fuck…”
“You forgot that you were going to meet him?” I ask, but I know it must be something because he said he’d be there in five minutes.
“Yeah, and there’s no one else there to spot him. I can’t blow him off,” he turns to look at me.
He’s going to leave, and given the weight of what our history could have looked like instead of what happened, it’s probably better this way. The longer he stays, the less sure I am about my decision, but maybe that’s just due to proximity.
I can touch Slade—see him—feel him—skate with him.
But with Win, his silhouette is still fuzzy when I imagine a future together.
“You should go then,” I reassure him.
He pulls me closer and presses his lips to mine to give me one last kiss.
Then he pulls his arm from under me and starts getting dressed. I slide off the bed, too, and head to the bathroom to get my fluffy bathrobe and his wrench.
He’s made record time getting dressed as soon as I come out.
He grabbed his phone off my bed, and then I give him the wrench.
“I’ll walk you out,” I tell him.
He nods.
We walk down the hall in silence until we reach the door.
There’s one other thing that I have to do that I really don’t want to, but I know that if Win and I are going to have a chance to make this work, I need to put more space between Slade and me.
Slade opens the front door and turns back to me.
“I think we should stop skating together,” I tell him.
His eyebrows furrow instantly in confusion.
“Are you cutting me out completely?”
“If I want to make this work with Win, I can’t have you this close.”
“Why? Because you know you should be with me?”
He says, his fingers reaching for the terrycloth tie of my robe, rubbing his fingers over the material.
“Slade, please don’t make this harder than it is.”
He drops the tie but steps closer to me and back out of the doorway. “Don’t you think picking the right person should be easy?”
I cross my arms over my chest protectively.
I don’t know how easy it would be for him to change my mind, so I won’t let him try.
