Autumn. So soon.
Theo should have avoided the contact – Cash’s fingers curling around his wrist – on principle; or because he was angry; or something. But he didn’t resist, just stood there and let it happen, like he could test his theory by that touch alone. Whether everything had altered between them in the space of minutes, or there was still any comfort in it.
It wasn’t fair, he decided, that it could be both at once: somehow the lifeline he’d needed and the thing that was going to pull him under if he let it.
But just for a moment, it would be fine. Theo let himself be tethered there – even shifted nearer until he was in front of Cash where he was perched, standing there a little too close, like that first time they’d kissed. He still didn’t want to make eye contact – he felt like his face would betray everything he was attempting to suppress – but he was just about clinging to composure, and, before everything fell apart for good, he was trying to understand. “I know,” he repeated for him, when Cash didn’t finish his sentence. “You never wanted this.”
He believed that much, at least. But now all Theo could think about was how he was going to face the next days and weeks and months of knowing Cash was engaged to be married, and of having to carry on spending time with him until he was. Were they supposed to drag things out in denial, or did he want to end it right now? Or did Cash suppose his being married didn’t matter, and Theo would still be able to work with him and keep seeing him in secret and just be able to pretend not to care? Had Cash been expecting him not to care?
Well, clearly Cash had had time to think things through that he hadn’t. Heart hammering, hoping there was some facet of this he had missed (something that meant what either of them wanted might actually matter), Theo found the courage to lift his gaze again, and asked, earnest and a little helpless: “So... if it was always going to be this, what – what are we supposed to do now?”
Theo should have avoided the contact – Cash’s fingers curling around his wrist – on principle; or because he was angry; or something. But he didn’t resist, just stood there and let it happen, like he could test his theory by that touch alone. Whether everything had altered between them in the space of minutes, or there was still any comfort in it.
It wasn’t fair, he decided, that it could be both at once: somehow the lifeline he’d needed and the thing that was going to pull him under if he let it.
But just for a moment, it would be fine. Theo let himself be tethered there – even shifted nearer until he was in front of Cash where he was perched, standing there a little too close, like that first time they’d kissed. He still didn’t want to make eye contact – he felt like his face would betray everything he was attempting to suppress – but he was just about clinging to composure, and, before everything fell apart for good, he was trying to understand. “I know,” he repeated for him, when Cash didn’t finish his sentence. “You never wanted this.”
He believed that much, at least. But now all Theo could think about was how he was going to face the next days and weeks and months of knowing Cash was engaged to be married, and of having to carry on spending time with him until he was. Were they supposed to drag things out in denial, or did he want to end it right now? Or did Cash suppose his being married didn’t matter, and Theo would still be able to work with him and keep seeing him in secret and just be able to pretend not to care? Had Cash been expecting him not to care?
Well, clearly Cash had had time to think things through that he hadn’t. Heart hammering, hoping there was some facet of this he had missed (something that meant what either of them wanted might actually matter), Theo found the courage to lift his gaze again, and asked, earnest and a little helpless: “So... if it was always going to be this, what – what are we supposed to do now?”
