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I tuck my heart down a little further into my chest, deep enough that he can’t try to tease it back out again.
I expect Lloyd to leave once I get to the main doors of the building, but he follows me inside. I don’t stop him. We both know this night goes no further than my front door.
Once we’re there, I fish around inside my bag for my key. I start to say, ‘Thanks for walking me home,’ but barely get out the first syllable when he interrupts me by saying, ‘You didn’t factor into my summer either, you know.’
‘Huh?’
‘I didn’t expect to meet you that night. Or like you as much as I did. I know it was shitty, the way I acted when we met again at the office, and I get why you were mad about that. I get it if you still are. I just wanted you to know, you didn’t factor in for me, either.’
The sound of his heavy, shallow breathing is so loud it almost drowns out the fact I can hear my blood raging, racing, in my ears; my own breath catches in my throat at the earnestness of his voice. There’s a plaintive edge to it that creeps down to needle at the heart I just tried to hide from him.
And because it’s Lloyd, who wears his heart on his sleeve and is an open book so much of the time, his emotions always so plain on his handsome face, I believe him.
‘I get that you don’t want any … well,anything,’ he presses on. ‘And I’m not trying to ask for that. But, I mean, we’re … You said this afternoon that we’re not really friends, but we are, aren’t we?’
Friends.
Right.
A smile tugs at one side of my mouth before I’m even aware of it. I hope I’m not as obvious with my emotions as he is, and he can’t see the regret bleeding through me because ‘friends’ might be more painful than being nothing at all to each other.
I pushed him away, too. I was the one who said I didn’t want to be associated with him, have him cast a shadow over my achievements this summer. I don’t have any right to feel regret, or to want more than being friends.
‘Yeah. Yeah, we’re friends, Lloyd.’
He lets out a loud sigh, relaxing. I try not to let on how much that hurts, either.
‘Do you want to shake on it?’ I offer, and he laughs. A little of the serious mood from a moment ago lingers though, and before it’s gone completely, I seize my courage and tell him softly, ‘For the record, it’s not just because you pretended not to know me, or whatever. I don’t want everyone to think of me as just – another notch on your bedpost, or something.It’d discredit anything I achieve as part of the internship.’
Lloyd’s arms are loose at his sides. I reach out and tug at the cuff of his jacket around his wrist, the place he keeps his heart, and then take his hand in mine, giving it a brief squeeze. He swallows, audibly, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down slowly. A little sadness etches its way around his eyes, but it’s forgiving, undemanding. There’s only silent acceptance. He doesn’t try to protest that it would ever have been anything different.
He only nods, understanding.
And then, our hands still clasped lightly together, he leans to kiss my cheek, his lips ghosting over my skin and searing into it all at once.
‘Goodnight, Annalise,’ he tells me, and leaves, his hand slipping away from mine, leaving me alone with this heady, bittersweet goodbye.
NEW EMAIL DRAFT
Dear Lloyd,
If only you’d kiss me again. It might be a little easier to let you in, then, I think. Your kiss made everything seem right with the world, like everything had worked just to bring me to that moment, to kiss you. How did you do that? Did you feel it too?
Did you want to kiss me again tonight, too?
Maybe it’s for the best that you didn’t.
Sincerely Yours,
Anna Sherwood
Most of Monday passes without Lloyd so much as walking by my desk, and for all I tell myself,Good, I can finally get some work done– I feel like every nerve in my body is on high alert, waiting for him to show up. I keep recalling freeze-frames of Friday night, moments where I caught myself admiring the perfect profile of his face, or the way his lips moved as he spoke …
I half-wonder if he’s avoiding me, but ultimately decide that’s silly, because why would he? Of course he wasn’t thinking about kissing me again, or anything like that. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have just asked if we could befriends.
Mid-afternoon, I take a quick break from my day of back-to-back meetings to head down to the building’s seventh-floor canteen for a real coffee, rather than the instant stuff in the Arrowmile kitchenettes.
There are a couple of other people in the lift, and Lloyd is one of them.
