“Why didn’t the stag do carry on until tomorrow?”
I blinked hard – I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting her to ask, but it wasn’t that. I also had no idea how I wanted to answer her. My mouth went dry as if in protest; it was shutting up shop so that I could save face. But I had to answer her, so I took the last swig of my third beer, partially for courage and partially to make it so I physicallycouldanswer.
“The stag doiscarrying on until tomorrow.” There we go. That was an answer.
“And why aren’t you carrying on with it?” she asked.Well, shit.
“Because I decided I’d rather be here than there,” I said before I could filter out the truth, and then I leaned back a bit, astonished at my own honesty. And maybe a bit on the other side of buzzed.
“Gotcha,” she said, not dropping my gaze, squinting at me as if I were a puzzle she was trying to solve. It was almost disconcerting how long she spent looking at me, not only because it forced me to stare directly into her eyes in return. Otherwise my own eyes might have wandered to her shoulders, or the delicate jut of her collarbone, or the lower lip she was biting the corner of. Otherwise I might accidentally start to lean in, like a magnet had been turned on inside her and I couldn’t help but gravitate forward.
Oh wait, I was actually doing all of those things.
By the time I realised that and looked back into her eyes, her expression had changed. Her brow was pinched together, and the corners of her lips were turned down. I’d seen this before, on the mountaintop. She was angry. But had I given her something to be angry about?
“I think you should go,” she said, all the friendliness gone from her voice.
That snapped me back into reality instantly. “Wait, what? Sorry, did I say something?”
“No, you’re fine,” she said, but she was standing up, clearing the pizza box and empty beer cans. I noticed that we’d finished off both six-packs between us.
“Morgan, hang on,” I said, standing up, too, but I was a bit wobbly, and I had to sit back down on the couch for a moment as an interim step.
Finally I was on my feet, and I walked over to the kitchen where she stood rinsing out the recycling. I put a hand on her forearm, and she turned in place to face me, her lower body pinned in place by mine. But none of the softness and warmth from before was there. Instead it was just pure heat. Intense, mind-numbing,angryheat.
“What do you want?” she asked, looking up at me.
“I just want to know what’s wro?—”
“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “What do you want from being here?”
I frowned. “I wanted to help you.”
Her eyes went wide, and she raised a single eyebrow. I wished I could do that; she looked so admonishing. “Really? You wanted tohelpme?”
“Yes,” I said, and I knew that was the truth. “I did. And…”
She nodded, as if she’d known there would be more. “And what?” she asked, impatient.
“And I wanted to see you,” I said quietly.
She narrowed her eyes again – that wasn’t quite what she’d been looking for. And I understood what she was getting at. I just wasn’t sure I could offer her more of an explanation when I hadn’t managed to articulate it to myself.
She crossed her arms, her elbows jutting into my abs, but I didn’t move.
“Morgan, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not the one that’s uncomfortable, Jack!” Her voice was raised now, and I could feel myself getting emotional for some reason. She looked like she was, too, her face going blotchy and her voice shaking. “You’re the one that can’t stand to get close to me.”
She pushed past me to the centre of the kitchen, and I spun around, desperate to have her back. To prove a point, I followed her, holding her by the elbows and pulling her back into my space.
“Do I look uncomfortable, Morgan?” I asked, and she looked back and forth disbelievingly from my hands to my eyes. I dropped my hands away, but she didn’t move again.
“No,” she said quietly. “No, I guess you don’t.”
I took the step back this time, leaning against the now-stripped worktop. “I get it,” I said, matching her quieter tone. “A lot has happened. But it’s all water under the tree, right?”
“Right,” she said tentatively, crossing her arms tighter across her. “Water under the tree.” I got the sense she meant it differently than I did, but I didn’t have the faculties at present to analyse it too closely.
