Any words catch in my throat, because what the fuck am I supposed to say in response to that?
I clear my throat, hoping that some of the words will dislodge themselves. I take a step forward, lowering myself from the sidewalk to the parking lot.
“You’ve been acting weird since last night. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing,” he replies, taking a step back.
“Something is. You buy me coffee, you tell me to get some sleep, you carry my bags and now you’readmiringme?”
He turns away from me. “What do you want me to say, Cherry?”
“I want you to tell me what’s going on!” I run to catch up to him, standing in front of him so he’s forced to stop walking toward my car.
“The problem you seem to be having with me is that I’m being nice to you?”
“Exactly! You’re being nice.”
“And nice is an issue?”
“It is when it’s out of the blue. We don’t do nice, Finley. We argue and we compete, and we bully one another. We have never done nice.”
He puts his weight on one leg and runs a hand over his face.
“Well, maybe that needs to change.”
“Why? What the hell is wrong with that?”
“What isn’t wrong with that, Oakleigh! Look at us, we’re arguing in the middle of a fucking parking lot at five in the morning all because I gave you a compliment, and you think that the relationship we have is good?”
“I think that it’s ours. It’s how we are.”
He remains silent, staring at the tarmacked floor with distain.
“Does this have something to do with the conversation you had with Wren?”
“No,” he snaps way too quickly. He takes a deep breath in and out. “No.”
His eyes finally meet mine and the darkness within them tells me nothing about how he’s feeling. I can’t read him. His eyebrows rise, and after a brief shake of his head, he clicks his fingers three times.
I frown at the movement.
“I thought the compulsions had stopped,” I say to him for the second time this week.
“I never said that they’d stopped completely.”
“But they’ve been more frequent. At lunch yesterday I saw you tapping the table.”
His face hardens. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”
It’s my turn to stare at the ground, only looking back up when I see Finn’s sneakers step into the frame.
“Look, at the end of the day, we both need this relationship thing to go well. No one is going to believe that two people who do nothing but argue, compete and bully one another as you put it are going to randomly start dating. Not even us. So, yes, I will be nice because nice is what I am. I will compliment you because that’s what boyfriends do.”
I get a whiff of his cologne and my stomach jolts.
“But no one is even here.”
“Doesn’t matter. I can’t keep switching between kind and snarky at a moment’s notice. The easiest way to make sure it’s believable is to just stay in one headspace.”
