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I couldn’t help smiling at him. “Anything’s okay. You know you can use my food too, right?”
“I know.” He shot me a grin before grabbing a glass from the cupboard. “Already planning to.” Ducking down, he opened the freezer door.
“Is there anything I can help with?”
“Nope.” He straightened back up. When he returned to the table, he placed the glass down in front of me. “Just sit here and look pretty and crunch on some of these ice cubes.”
My mouth fell open, making him laugh. He lowered his head to my ear. “I didn’t forget the promise I made to you at the club.”
“What promise?” My voice came out way too husky.
“To buy you a hundred bags of ice. This is ice from the first bag.”
Was it my imagination, or had his voice also altered? It suddenly had a low, sexy rasp that was doing things to me that really shouldn’t be happening.
The moment, if there was a moment, ended when he straightened up and strode over to the Bluetooth speaker on the kitchen counter. “I’m putting on some music because I’m not going to cook listening to you crunching ice.”
“Fair enough.” I tipped the glass up, letting one of the cubes slide into my mouth, quickly turning the inside numb with the cold. The sound of “All 4 Nothing” by Lauv started playing through the speakers as Ander began cracking eggs. It hit me all over again. Fuck, I loved this guy. Why had life been so cruel to give me only part of him? He was never going to love me the way I loved him.
For the millionth time, I reminded myself that I had to forget the way I felt about him. I’d had plenty of practice burying my feelings, so hopefully, I could still act normally around him and eventually move on, despite the way he’d been acting around me lately…which was all in my head, as I kept reminding myself.
When he slid my omelette in front of me, perfectly cooked and bursting with cheddar, juicy tomatoes, bacon, and spinach, he nodded to my now empty glass. “More ice? Do you want to come to my football match on Sunday?”
I blinked, taken aback by the sudden extra question he’d thrown in there. “Uh. No more ice, thanks. Sunday? What time?”
“Ten o’clock. It’s a big one. Could make or break our season, to be honest. We’re playing against Brighton, and a couple of their players used to be on a youth team with Travis and Liam.” His voice dropped dramatically, taking on some kind of American-ish accent. “They’re back, and this time, it’s personal.”
“I’ll be—wait. No. Shit. I’m sorry, I can’t come. I promised someone I’d do something with them on Sunday.”
His mouth turned down, his eyes going all big and sad before he masked his expression. “Something with someone?”
My stomach churned. I hated upsetting him. “Yeah. I’m, uh…” Fuck, how hard was it to tell him? “I told Curtis I’d go and watch his band in the studio.”
“Who’s Curtis?” He inhaled sharply. “Is that the guy from the club?”
“Yes.” The word came out as a croaky whisper.
Ander’s shoulders slumped. “Oh.” He lifted a hand, roughly dragging it through his hair. “Yeah. I mean. Yeah. You should go. Yeah. Uh. Have a good time.” Shoving his chair back, he rose to his feet so abruptly that the chair wobbled on its feet. He headed to the kitchen door and then paused, briefly turning his head in my direction, although he didn’t meet my gaze.
“You deserve to be happy, Elliot. I just want you to be happy.”
Then he left.
11
The studio was close to Waterloo train station. To the left of the nondescript brown door, a series of named buzzers were mounted on the stone wall, and I pressed the one marked “Hopton Studios.”
The buzzer sounded, and I pushed the door open, following the signs up to the second floor. I tried to ignore the heavy feeling in my gut that had been tugging at me ever since this morning—no, ever since Ander had invited me to watch his football match.
The sadness and disappointment on his face—it killed me. And I knew that most people would tell me it wasn’t a big deal and I should put myself first…but the fact was, I wanted to be there for the moments in my best friend’s life that were important to him—like he always was for me. But I’d made a promise to Curtis. Who I also wanted to be there for.
I ran my hand over my face, huffing out a breath. Fuck, why was I being so dramatic about this? I was blowing everything way out of proportion. There’d be other matches. I’d already watched Ander play more times than I could count. But there might not be another chance to do this with Curtis.
With that thought in mind, I entered the studio.
I found myself in a spacious room with big squashy leather sofas, a large coffee table, and a vending machine. Two huge speakers were set on either side of a long black desk with millions of buttons and knobs and lights, above which was a set of large glass windows. Through the windows, I could see into another room—or was it a sound booth? I wasn’t familiar with the terminology—but it was where the band looked like they were tuning their instruments or whatever they did to get ready.
At the corner of the black desk, a guy sat in front of a computer monitor, tapping on a keyboard. He looked to be engrossed in whatever he was doing, and Curtis looked busy in the other room setting up his drum kit, so I headed over to the nearest sofa and flopped down on it.
