“Not much. Something ridiculously simple for dinner, because I can’t be arsed to cook much for myself, then I might watch something, but if not, I’ll just lie in bed with my laptop and phone watching random stuff.”
“What sort of random stuff?”
“I don’t know, just TikTok videos and shit,” Darcy said, but the way he glanced away made it feel like there was more to it. I knew I shouldn’t say what I was thinking, but hey who needed professional boundaries? Besides, it wasn’t like I was planning on being here long term. If I totally fucked things with Darcy, I could easily leave.
But I wanted the fucking to be a totally different thing.
“Is that the polite way of saying you watch porn?” I asked with a teasing smirk. “’Cos I know my plans definitely involve watching porn.”
“I-I-I… It’s…” Darcy looked shocked but he didn’t move. I didn’t say anything, waiting to see what Darcy would do. “That’s very personal.”
“I know. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want. And you can tell me to completely sod off, no hard feelings.”
“It’s… just not the sort of question I expected you to ask.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Then he sighed and chuckled softly. “I’m usually really good at sidestepping questions about my personal life, even if it means inventing things. But this one has thrown me.”
“Inventing things?” I asked, tilting my head slightly. I knew Darcy kept things close to his chest, but I hadn’t realised he’d gone as far as lying about his personal life to get his friends off his back.
Darcy cringed slightly and put his face in his hands, mumbling quietly. “I had to go to the doctor about my stress and, to cover, I told Alfie and Milo I had a UTI.”
“What?” I asked, unsure if I’d heard him correctly.
“I told Alfie and Milo I had a UTI instead of admitting I’m struggling with my blood pressure because of stress,” Darcy said, turning his head slightly so his mouth was a little more exposed. “It’s so fucking embarrassing. Why couldn’t I tell them? And why the hell did I say it was a UTI? Of all things!”
“I mean, it’s definitely a new one. But don’t sweat it.”
“Really? But they’re my best friends. Shouldn’t I be honest with them?”
“Yeah, probably. But I’m guessing you don’t want to worry them? Plus, we all know Milo can be kinda pushy.”
“So pushy,” Darcy said, his voice full of loving exasperation. “I know it comes from a place of love but, like, sometimes I want my privacy. But I guess we do run this business together, so… maybe I need to be more honest when it’s stuff that could affect the shop. I mean, if I can’t get my blood pressure or my stress down and something happens, that’s going to have a knock-on effect. Everyone else will have to pick up the slack. You’ll have todo more hours, so will Alfie and Milo and Ellie, and I can’t put than on any of you. And?—”
“Hey, it’s okay.” I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed, gently breaking his worried rambling.
“Sorry, I’ve, er… I shouldn’t be bothering you with this.”
“You can always bother me with this,” I said, giving him a smile. “You need people to talk to, Darcy, you need to like, get this shit off your chest. It’s not good for you to keep everything bottled up. And you need to find a good form of stress relief.”
“It’s what the running is meant to be for.”
“Is it helping?”
“Sort of.”
“What else are you doing?”
“For what?”
“Stress relief. You know getting sleep, drinking water, meditating, sex, yoga, eating well.”
Darcy stared at me and I immediately knew he’d caught what I’d thrown into the middle. “What was the middle one?”
“Meditating?”
“No, after that.”
